The following case highlights the importance of waiting no time in bringing a cause of action that is available. In 2008, Debra Goulas worked as a bookkeeper for Sunbelt Air Conditioning Supply in Baton Rouge. Jessie Touchet, owner of Sunbelt, and Diane Jones, Goulas’s manager, accused her of stealing over…
The case of Jefferson Block 24 Oil and Gas, Inc. v. Aspen Insurance UK Limited highlights an important battle over money set aside for oil spill recovery, an obviously sensitive and important topic in the Gulf Coast. At the federal district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the defendants…
Our previous post discussed the various principles of contract law at work in the Mendoza case, which can be viewed here. This case involved a dispute between an injured worker’s employer and another company with which that employer had a contract. A provision of this contract provided for indemnification, the…
Transferring from the deck of your boat to an offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico to begin your day’s work should not be a terrifying experience. While the transfer involves getting into the personnel basket that transfers you onto the platform and little else, the process itself is not…
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently affirmed in principal part, the trial court’s ruling granting a longshoreman damages for a workers’ compensation claim. Benjamin McCuller and his wife, Miranda McCuller, sued Nautical Ventures, L.L.C., under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C.…
At times accidents on bodies of water are governed by a unique set of federal laws called admiralty laws. The court will thus apply admiralty law as opposed to federal or state law. This law of the water plays an important part in the administration of justice in Louisiana because…
Timing is everything in civil litigation. The difference of a day or two can determine whether a suit is timely or not timely, meaning if the court will even hear the case being filed. As such, the difference between a suit that is timely and one that is not timely…
“Plaintiff Lost at Seaman Claim” Robert Teaver may have fancied himself a man of the sea but the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana that there was no way he could establish his status as a…
Though Mr. Herbert’s primary argument was that he was outside the scope of his employment, he argued in the alternative that, even if the injury occurred within the scope of employment, the Defendants committed an intentional tort. Such a tort is the only recourse available to defeat a workers’ compensation…
3rd Circuit Uses Helicopter Injury Case to Clarify “Injury Within the Scope of Employment” Injuries in the workplace occur frequently and thus many states have forced employers to purchase workers’ compensation insurance. Under workers’ compensation, the employer’s insurance agrees to pay for any lost wages and medical bills as a…