Louisiana Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
We often imagine slipping and falling on company property to be an instant payday for the injured party. Slip and fall injuries, however, can occur as a result of a variety of conditions and in numerous locations. One recent unusual situation involved algae in a parking lot that caused a customer to slip and fall. The outcome of the case hinged on whether the algae was an obvious and apparent danger.
Leslie Martin (“Martin”) parked her car in the parking lot of Delta Downs, a racetrack/casino/hotel that Boyd Racing, L.L.C. and Boyd Gaming Corp. (“Boyd”) owned and operated. She then walked around to access a walkway leading to the entrance. She claimed that while walking past her car, she slipped on some algae and fell, sustaining injuries. Martin filed a lawsuit against Boyd, seeking damages from the injuries she suffered from the fall. Martin claimed that Boyd failed to maintain its property free from unreasonably dangerous conditions and did not warn of the dangerous condition.
In response, Boyd filed for summary judgment, claiming that Martin was unable to prove that the open and obvious condition (the algae) that led to her accident was an unreasonable risk of harm, as required under Louisiana negligence law. Summary judgment means that there is no genuine dispute of the facts, and that the opposing party cannot recover by law. Although Martin stated that she was looking straight ahead and did not see the algae, Boyd argues that she would have seen it if she had been looking down. After Martin fell, an employee of Delta Downs immediately inspected the area. The employee testified that the algae were visible, which was confirmed with photographs the employee took immediately following the accident. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Boyd, finding that there was no genuine issue of material fact about whether the algae were unreasonably dangerous and not visible.
In the wake of Hurricane Ida, there will be hundreds of thousands of insurance claims. Insurance companies will be overrun, but that’s no excuse for those companies to fail to pay your claims timely. Unfortunately, that’s not always how claims are handled.
In a civil case, you do not have the classic “speedy trial” right. Instead, courts will seek expediency by granting summary judgments when appropriate. The purpose of summary judgment is to avoid frivolous and unnecessary trials, or at a minimum, to simply reduce trial time by dispensing of some claims. A motion for summary judgment may be granted upon a finding that there is “no genuine issue as to material fact and that the mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” 
The equivalence of “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s” in the law is making sure to comply with court procedural rules. One such basic civil court procedure rule is proper service. Proper service is critical in establishing that a court has legal jurisdiction over a defendant. The defendant has a right to know that they are being sued, and they have the right to be present at any hearing or to appear through an attorney. Without proper service, a court may dismiss a lawsuit. One can have a valid and strong claim for a lawsuit, but without proper compliance with court rules, the case may never even be heard. The importance of following procedure is highlighted in this Workers’ Compensation case heard in the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Summary judgments are a common tool in litigation to not only expedite the drawn out trial process, but they can also be used to cut down on the cost of a lawsuit. Yet, there are different standards about what kinds of documents can and cannot be considered when a party makes a motion for summary judgment. For two Baton Rouge individuals, their claims against an insurance company survived because of this technicality.
On TV, lawyers are often shown dramatically acting out speeches in courtrooms and confronting witnesses. Those litigators do often have to speak and cross examine individuals, but in reality, much of an attorney’s role is to make sure the procedural and pleading aspects of a lawsuit are done correctly. Some of this procedure is based on a strategy of knowing what court to file a claim in in order to gain the best opportunity for recovery for your client. A St. Mary Parish School crossing guard’s lawsuit was dismissed when the court found that he had already filed an identical claim which had been dismissed.
Perhaps one of the biggest myths about the law is that you can bring a lawsuit anywhere about anything. In reality, a court must have jurisdiction in order to hear a case. Jurisdiction is the power of a legal body to make binding decisions over the people involved. In addition to having jurisdiction over the parties to the case, the court must also have subject matter jurisdiction. Subject matter jurisdiction is the ability for a court to hear the 
Sometimes, the most complicated cases can have the most simple resolution. For West Baton Rouge plaintiffs who sued mining companies for extracting resources underneath their property without their knowledge, the ultimate outcome of the lawsuit rested on the plain meaning of statutory language.
Sometimes, there are situations that appear to have an obvious result. Person A causes injury to Person B and B sues A. All the evidence points to A being at fault and B being hurt and in need of recovery. However, what if in the middle of the case, the court held that B was not hurt at all and therefore did not need to recover? How does a result like this even come about? What does B do? This situation is illustrated in a case arising from a New Orleans motor vehicle accident from 2014.
Freedom of speech is one of America’s most celebrated rights. However, it does not mean that courts tolerate all types of speech. After all, we have all heard that the freedom of speech does not allow an individual to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater. Despite there being restrictions, courts take the freedom of speech extremely seriously and will not allow it to be encroached simply because someone felt offended by a certain use of free speech.