Short answer. Yes, but only under strict conditions and after paying for it. Article 676 lets you demand an easement of drainage when your yard is surrounded by other houses and no outlet is possible through your own house, giving the water an exit at the contiguous land where egress is easiest.
What the law says
the establishment of an easement of drainage can be demanded, giving an outlet to the water at the point of the contiguous lands or tenements where its egress may be easiest
Civil Code, Article 676 — Easement Of Drainage For Yards. Read the full provision →
When you can demand the outlet
Article 676 answers the trapped-water problem directly. It applies whenever the yard or court of a house is surrounded by other houses and it is not possible to give an outlet through the house itself to the rain water collected thereon. Only then does the law allow you to compel a drainage easement onto a neighbour's land. Two conditions must both be true: your court is genuinely enclosed by other houses, and there is really no way to lead the rainwater out through your own structure. If you could drain it through your own property, the law will not burden your neighbour, because the easement exists for true necessity, not convenience.
Where and how the water may pass
The easement is not a licence to send water wherever you please. The outlet must be at the point of the contiguous lands or tenements where its egress may be easiest, and you must establish a conduit for the drainage in such manner as to cause the least damage to the servient estate. In plain terms, the drainage has to take the least harmful route across the burdened land, usually through a proper channel or pipe rather than a raw discharge. The neighbour bears the passage of your rainwater, but you must arrange it so his land suffers as little as possible.
You must pay for it
This is a compulsory easement, but it is not free. Article 676 grants it only after payment of the proper indemnity. The neighbouring owner whose land now carries your rainwater is entitled to be compensated for the burden imposed on his property. So the right to drain is really a right to buy a drainage passage on legal terms, not to take one for nothing. A neighbour who refuses a reasonable arrangement can be compelled, but you in turn cannot insist on the easement without tendering the indemnity the law requires.
What the rule does not cover
This provision is about rainwater collected in an enclosed court with no natural outlet. It does not authorise you to divert a stream, discharge sewage or waste water, or flood a neighbour because it is cheaper than proper drainage. Nor does it help where your court is not truly surrounded, or where an outlet through your own house is possible. If your situation is really about a different kind of water burden or about who must receive naturally descending water, a different rule governs. Article 676 solves one narrow but common problem: rain that has nowhere to go from a boxed-in yard.