The Jones Act is officially titled the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 and was passed by Congress in response to concerns about the health of the Merchant Marine and to establish protections for sailors. Before the Jones Act, seamen who were injured had few options for recovering damages for their…
We hear about injuries to customers resulting in large settlements in the news frequently. In any industry, there is some risk that clients or customers will be injured during the time they are patronizing the establishment. When these injuries occur it often results in a lawsuit. Who is at fault…
On a June night in 2006, Jeryd Zito was driving on a highway going through Plaquemines Parish when an ambulance appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Zito swerved to avoid it, but was not fast enough, hitting the left back corner and the left side of the ambulance. After the accident,…
Susan Michelle Canon brought suit in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, when her boat caught fire while en route from North Carolina back to Louisiana. The trial court ruled in favor of the sellers, who were from North Carolina, and dismissed them from the suit because of lack of personal jurisdiction. The…
Many floors were damaged in Hurricane Katrina. A Louisiana, jury was asked the question: when a floor is rotten, who is at fault when a person visiting the home is harmed? Juries are often asked to determine liability for an accident. When a person is injured, a jury determines who…
According to an American Law Report, it is generally the rule that the owner or occupant of a property touching a public sidewalk does not, solely by reason of being the owner, owe to the public a duty to keep the sidewalk in safe condition. This rule of nonliability is…
The plaintiff in Susan Michelle Canon v. Harry B. Towns, et al. recently lost her appeal from a judgment from the Parish of Calcasieu, dismissing her claims against the defendant North Carolina boat sellers in the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. If a court does not have jurisdiction over…
The duty owed by hospitals to patients is a rather cut and dry area of law. However, a case arising out of West Monroe, Louisiana, illustrates how questions of liability become more difficult when the patients’ visitors are involved. Although a hospital does owe a duty of reasonable care to…
To bring a case to court, it seems obvious that you must have some kind of legal basis for your claim. For a personal injury case, that could mean that someone else caused you to slip and fall; you slipped because the floor was wet. In that type of case,…
The law has a wide variety of rules in place to force a clean route to evidence, especially from authorities on the topic, like people present or involved with the case’s topic. Hearsay is a statement, other than one made by the person themself while testifying at the present trial…