Civil Matter

October 1, 2013

Dispute Over Responsibility in Accident at Apartment Complex

Every first year law student learns about negligence in their tort law class. Negligence claims are some of the most common claims brought in civil court. In order for a defendant to be found liable for negligence, it must be shown that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care, which can also be refered to as a duty to protect. This means that the defendant has to have some level of responsibility for protecting the plaintiff from harm. If the defendant has no duty of care, then they cannot be held liable for negligence. The plaintiff has to prove that the defendant owed them that duty of care.

Sometimes it is easy to determine whether or not a defendant owed a plaintiff a duty of care. For instance, medical malpractice suits are often refered to as professional negligence since a doctor or nurse owes their patient a duty of care regarding their medical treatments. Likewise a lawyer owes his client a duty of care regarding their legal representation. But sometimes, a major point of contention in a lawsuit is whether such a duty of care exists at all. The case of Ponceti v. First Lake Properties shows what happens when a plaintiff cannot show that the defendant owed them a duty of care.

Ms. Ponceti and her daughter, Kaitlynn, lived in an apartment complex in Mandeville owned by First Lake Properties. One day Kaitlynn was riding her scooter in the courtyard of the complex. A teenager was riding his bike in the courtyard at the same time, and lost control of his bike while popping a wheelie. He hit Kaitlynn with his bike and injured her leg.

September 27, 2013

Fifth Circuit Sides with Plaintiff in Jones Act suit for Injuries Sustained on Sea Vessel

by Berniard Law Firm

The Jones Act deals with injuries suffered by employees working on American sea-going vessels and their rights to workers’ compensation for those injuries. The Act requires employers to “maintain a reasonably safe work environment.” Another important feature of the Jones Act is that not only is the employer liable for the negligence of their employees, but also any amount of negligence on the employer’s part will result in some level of liability. In other words, in a Jones Act case, if one employee negligently injures another, both the offendin employee and their employer are liable.

The case of Martinez v. Offshore Specialty Fabricators, Inc. deals with a Jones Act claim and really brings to light how important it is to obtain quality legal representation. Mr. Martinez was a seaman employed by Offshore Specialty Fabricators as a mechanic. On May 26, 2008, he and his supervisor, Mr. Smith, went aboard a ship owned by Offshore to repair a defective winch. Both Martinez and Smith testified that the work space was very cramped and required them to bend over while swinging a sledgehammer for almost an hour when suddenly Martinez felt a pop in his neck. Smith testified that he saw Martinez visibly twitch and asked what was wrong. Martinez informed him that something was wrong with his neck, and Smith immediately told him stop working.

Shortly after the injury he told an on-board medic about soreness in his arm due to using the sledgehammer. Two days later Martinez visited another medic and told him that he was unable to move his head or jaw without shooting pain in his neck and shoulder. He was also interviewed by a claims adjuster hired by Offshore and told the adjuster that his injury was due to the cramped working conditions and hammering.

September 21, 2013

Cause-in-Fact Requirements of a Negligence Lawsuit

by Berniard Law Firm

To bring a negligence lawsuit, the plaintiff must provide evidence to show, among other things, that the defendant’s actions caused the injury in question. Causation has two components, cause-in-fact and proximate cause. Cause-in-fact is the actual event that caused the harm. Proximate cause refers to the legal cause. The proximate cause element requires that the injury must have been a reasonably foreseeable result of the defendant’s conduct. That is, a reasonably prudent person would expect the outcome that has resulted in harm or injuries. Here we focus on the discussion of proximate cause, which is more difficult to establish than cause-in-fact in most cases.

Courts often use the well-established foreseeability test to determine proximate cause. The test looks at whether the harm resulting from an action could be predicted by a reasonable prudent person. If a reasonable person could have predicted harm or injuries, then the injuries are foreseeable and defendant’s actions is the proximate cause of the injuries and therefore should be liable. For example, it is foreseeable that throwing a baseball at someone could cause him head injuries; it is also foreseeable that having an open flame near gasoline could cause an explosion.

In a recent case from the Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit, the court applied the foreseeability test to determine proximate cause. The plaintiffs brought a negligence claim under Louisiana law, alleging that the defendants’ negligence in attempting to extinguish fire ultimately caused the oil spill and plaintiff’s resulting damages. The court affirmed the decision of the lower court and concluded that the damages are too attenuated and distant from the defendants’ actions. Essentially, the court was saying that the plaintiff failed to state a plausible cause of foreseeability as required for proximate cause. The court agreed with the analyses of the district court, which stated that “in order for the defendants to foresee such result, they would have had to have anticipated that spraying water on the mobile offshore unit would cause the vessel to capsize and the connecting pipe to collapse, and the blowout preventer would not control the flow of hydrocarbons, and the discharge would flow abated for three months, and that the oil would flow fifty miles inland.” Each one of those specific event or coincidence must occur for the defendant’s injuries to result from them and the whole situation could not be predicted by a reasonable person.

September 19, 2013

Spoliation of Evidence Key Concern in Personal Injury Cases

by Berniard Law Firm

After you have been in a terrible accident or lost a loved one, especially when the accident or death was caused by the negligence of someone else, you probably want justice. The outrage, the pain, and the sense of loss are too much to bear, and you want someone to pay for what was done. You want to be made as whole as possible. But what if the evidence that would allow that justice to come to pass has been ruined? And what if it was the allegedly guilty party who destroyed it? This intentional destruction of evidence primarily for the purpose of depriving the opposing party of its use is known as spoliation of evidence.

While a party might assume that spoliation of evidence has occurred, mere allegations will not get you far, and actually proving that spoliation of evidence has occurred can be much harder than you might think. In the state of Louisiana, there are several rules and standards with regard to how a party must prove that such spoliation of evidence actually occurred. First of all, merely accusing someone of negligently destroying evidence is not enough to prove spoliation of evidence. The standard is much higher than that. The plaintiff actually has to prove that the evidence was intentionally destroyed, and it can be quite difficult to prove the intentions of one’s actions.

If a party fails to produce evidence within his or her reach, there is a presumption that the evidence would have been detrimental to the case; however, it is still essential to prove that the evidence was intentionally destroyed. Furthermore, the defendant has a duty to preserve evidence. This duty arises because of the foreseeability of needing that evidence in the future. If there is no ability to foresee the need for that evidence in the future, though, the duty does not exist.

September 17, 2013

Proper Service Essential for Successful Legal Remedy

by Berniard Law Firm

Under Louisiana law, there are very specific rules about how to properly serve someone, and one of the important aspects of service that an attorney has to get right is the timing of it. Furthermore, not only does the service have to be carried out in a timely manner, but it also has to be perfected properly.

This particular Supreme Court of Louisiana case dealt with service on a state entity, and it is important for your attorney to be aware of any differences that exist with regard to service requirements depending on who the other party is. According to the applicable state law, La. R.S. 13:850, “perfecting” a service request requires that the appropriate filing fees and transmission fees have been received by the clerk of the court and that the original signed document has been received by the clerk. All of this must be received within the proper timeframe. As stated in La. R.S. 13:850, the proper timeframe for perfection in this case is seven days.

In this case, the service request was received within the required ninety-day timeframe (ninety days since the filing of the petition), and the service request was perfected five days later once the requisite documents and fee payments were received by the clerk of the court. The question then is whether or not this counts as proper request for service: Was the request for service properly received within ninety days even though perfection of the request was outside of that ninety-day timeframe?

September 16, 2013

Inspecting Summary Judgment When Case Involves Improper Lawyer Actions

by Berniard Law Firm

Filing a Motion for Summary Judgment in Louisiana

Can a trial court properly grant a motion for summary judgment when material issues of fact still remain? According to Louisiana law, a motion for summary judgment is not properly granted if material issues of fact still remain. Summary judgment is only properly granted if pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions on file, and affidavits show that no genuine issues of material fact exist.

The purpose of summary judgment is to circumvent a full-scale trial if there are no issues of fact. At trial, fact finders determine what the genuine facts are, and in the case of dispute, the fact finders have to decide what proposed facts are the most plausible in the context of the case. If no issues of fact exist, then this costly and time-consuming process can be avoided by granting a motion for summary judgment.

September 14, 2013

The Role of Court-Appointed Experts in Complex Litigation

by Berniard Law Firm

In order to aid the court, a judge might occasionally appoint an expert to help with specific aspects of the case. Court-appointed experts are different from a specific party’s experts because the court-appointed experts do not favor one side or the other, but rather, help the judge with certain tasks or analyses.

A trial court-appointed expert can be especially useful in a class action lawsuit in which several people have a claim against the defendant and there is no way that the court can hear each individual person’s case. In that instance, a court-appointed expert can help properly group the members of the class action lawsuit and help bring order to an otherwise unwieldy case.

In a recent case from Orleans Parish, the appellate court had to determine when a court-appointed expert is proper and what the limits of such an expert’s duties should be. Before getting into the applicable Louisiana law and how the appellate court ultimately ruled, some knowledge of the background facts is useful: The case from Orleans Parish was a class action lawsuit in which several employees were suing over medical problems they experienced from working in a building that had serious mold damage. Over 600 individuals had claims in the suit, and in order to deal with the case in a more organized and manageable manner, the class was to be broken up into various groups. In order to help with this enormous task, the trial court stated that it wanted to appoint an expert to help group individuals according to damages. Each party was allowed to submit nominations and discuss any issues they felt might arise if such an expert was appointed. Ultimately, an expert was appointed to help with the necessary tasks, and after the case was decided at the trial court level, the State argued that the court-appointed expert had outstepped his appropriate boundaries.

September 12, 2013

Louisiana Legal Malpractice Claim Arises from Car Accident

by Berniard Law Firm

If you feel like your attorney has engaged in malpractice, what can you do? First, you should have a basic idea of what actually constitutes legal malpractice. In Louisiana, the plaintiff has to prove (with evidence that is strong enough to convince a reasonable trier of fact) three things. 1) That an attorney-client relationship exists. 2) That there was negligent representation by the attorney. 3) That there was actual loss caused by that negligence. What constitutes negligence? The plaintiff would have to prove that the attorney did not use the same degree of care, skill, and diligence which other prudent practicing attorneys exercise in the same locality.

In order to prove that the attorney did not exercise an adequate level of care and diligence, normally the plaintiff will hire an expert witness in order to establish what the standard of care in that locality is. The plaintiff also has to establish that the attorney’s actions did not live up to this standard of care. If the attorney was particularly negligent or the malpractice was obvious, then it might not be necessary to call in an expert witness to establish malpractice. If the malpractice or negligence was not gross, however, then bringing in an expert witness is almost essential.

A recent case in Louisiana is a great example of a legal malpractice claim. In early 2000, a woman filed suit for injuries she sustained in an automobile accident with another man. The attorney she retained never filed an opposition to the Motion to Limit the Ad Damnum (a motion that would limit her amount of recovery), which was filed by the other party. Because the attorney did not oppose the motion, the motion was granted and the woman’s claim was limited to recovery in the amount of $30,000.00. According to the woman, her attorney also went ahead and settled the case without her authority while she was still being treated for her injuries. He settled the case for only $22,000.00. The woman then went ahead and settled her case and dismissed her attorney, filing a petition claiming legal malpractice.

September 10, 2013

The Burden of Proving Legal Malpractice Claims in Louisiana

by Berniard Law Firm

Every detail matters at trial and can make the difference between winning and losing. In a recent Louisiana case, BCM L.L.C (“BCM”) and Nawlins Kajun Foods, L.L.C. (“Nawlins”) sued Copeland’s of New Orleans under the theory of detrimental reliance. At the end of the trial, the jury sent a request to the judge to clarify certain words and phrases in the jury instructions. After discussion with both parties’ lawyers, the judge issued supplemental instructions regarding the theory of detrimental reliance. Neither party objected to the instructions and the jury returned a verdict denying BCM and Nawlins’ claim for detrimental reliance, but it did reward them damages for conversion. In a post-trial motion, the lawyers for BCM and Nawlins claimed the jury instructions were confusing and misleading, entitling them to a new trial. The trial court denied the motion. BCM and Nawlins then filed a legal malpractice suit against their former attorneys, claiming they should have objected to the jury instructions because they were confusing and misstated the law on detrimental reliance.

The burden of proof for legal malpractice is tough to meet. BCM and Nawlins had to produce evidence sufficient to convince a reasonable trier of fact of (1) the existence of an attorney-client relationship; (2) negligent representation by the attorney; and (3) loss caused by that negligence” and also had to prove their attorneys, now the defendants, failed to exercise the degree of care, skill, and diligence which is exercised by prudent practicing attorneys in their locality. Clearly BCM and Nawlins can establish prong number one, but prongs number two and three requires more analysis.

In order for the attorneys to have been negligent in not objecting to the jury instructions, the jury instructions must have been inadequate or misstated the law. The relevant governing law of Louisiana sets forth certain requirements for jury instructions. To be satisfactory the instructions given to the jury must contain a correct legal principle to apply and be presented in a reasonable and fair manner. The judge presiding over the case at trial is not required to tailor the instructions to the wishes of either party, but the judge is required to correctly state the law that the jury will apply. Reversible error occurs when a legal principle that must be applied to the case at trial is left out of the jury instructions. The judges at the trial level can generally formulate the instructions to the jury in whatever way they prefer. And their judgement in that formulation will not be overturned as long as the law is correctly conveyed. When an appellate court is deciding whether the jury instructions given were sufficient the court will consider whether the jury was misled to the point that it could not fairly decide the case. The court must weigh the degree of any error or confusing term with the instructions in their entirety as well as the state of affairs of the case. Therefore, small errors that do not affect the statement of law as a whole will not necessarily be fatal.

September 9, 2013

Missing One Deadline is Crucial to Victim’s Suit in the Parish of Acadia

by Berniard Law Firm

Understanding the distinction between a final judgment and an interlocutory judgment is crucial to making sure your case does not get dismissed as untimely. A final judgment determines the merits of the case in whole or in part while all other judgments are interlocutory.

Interlocutory judgments are intermediate rulings decided by the trial court. These judgments do not dispose of the merits of the claims. Usually, an interlocutory judgment cannot be appealed immediately; only final judgments can be appealed. However, in Louisiana, the Court of Appeals allows for individuals to file a writ for supervisory review within 30 days from when the trial court makes its interlocutory ruling. If the writ was filed in a timely fashion, the appellate court will review the merits of the claims that were decided by the trial court. If the writ was not filed in a timely manner, the appellate court will dismiss the case.

The 30 day period to file the writ is a steadfast rule. Countless cases have been dismissed because writs are filed after the given 30 day time period. Many fail to realize that the 30 day period begins right when the trial court makes its ruling. Filing a writ after this 30 day time period results in a complete dismissal of the case.