Articles Posted in Litigation

People have bargained with one another since the dawn of time. Many agreements occur through mere conversation, but memory may be faulty or even denied. Thus, written contracts exist to keep a record of agreements made by two people or business entities. When a disagreement over the meaning of a contract is brought to court, the court will refrain from unnecessarily changing the meaning of words in a contract, opting instead to take the written words literally and simply. RJAM, Inc. v. Miletello, 44 So. 3d 283 (La. Ct. App. 2010). This means that even a single word can completely change how a contract is enforced. A lawsuit concerning that exact issue arose in Parish of Bossier.

In 2004, Endurall, Inc. was created out of an older company that made supplies for oil and gas lines. This new company provided a specific tool for oil rigs. As part of the process of forming the corporation, the four founders signed a non-compete proprietary agreement. This agreement would prevent any of them from going into the same line of business in the same geographical area for two years after leaving the company. In 2012, two of the founding shareholders formed a similar company. They were immediately fired for possibly having used Endurall information to form their new venture, but they did keep their stock. Soon afterward, the two petitioned the court to dissolve Endurall due to the disagreement amongst the stockholders. As a result of the filing, Billy Joe Edwards was no longer a shareholder. His stock and that of the other fired shareholder was sold at private auction to the other two shareholders that had not been involved in the scheme. The two remaining shareholders filed to dismiss the dissolution which was granted.

Soon after, Mr. Edwards and his son created another company that would sell the exact same product line as Endurall only twenty miles away. He also worked for another company selling paraffin products to customers he had worked with while at Endurall. In 2014, the two remaining shareholders sued to have the court enforce the non-compete provision against Mr. Edwards. Any court order which requires a party to do or cease from doing something is an injunction. The trial court granted an injunction ordering Mr. Edwards to stop the competitive business until the agreement expired. Mr. Edwards appealed.

It’s a common belief that a landlord is always responsible for the upkeep of a property, and if an injury occurs because of the landlord’s failure to keep premises safe the landlord is financially responsible for any injury suffered. As Kwan Anderson learned the difficult way, however, this is not always the case. A lawsuit out of Parish of Evangeline shows that when a tenant contracts to take on responsibilities of upkeep, they could lose their ability to collect damages for an injury caused by that failure of upkeep.

On September 7, 2012, Anderson fell through a weak part of the floor of a house rented by Meagan Thomas, his girlfriend, and mother of his child. Thomas had rented the house from Wanda Ardoin-Bailey, the owner, on June 9, 2012, and Anderson lived there with Thomas up to the time of his fall. The weak part of the floor had been noted in the lease and the lease also said that Thomas agreed to be responsible for the house’s condition, which included fixing the weak part in the floor. Thomas said her “paw paw” would fix it in exchange for a reduction in rent.  The floor was never repaired.

Anderson filed a petition for damages against Ardoin-Bailey, who answered the petition but also filed a third-party demand against Thomas to have the lease provisions enforced. Ardoin-Bailey also filed a motion for summary judgment. A Motion for Summary Judgment is rendered if “there is no genuine issue as to material fact, and that mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” La. C.C.P. art. 966 (B)(2).  “A material fact is one that would matter on the trial on the merits.” Southpark Cmty. Hosp., LLC v. Southpark Acquisition Co., LLC, 126 So.3d 805, 815 (La. Ct. App. 2013).  If there is no issue on the facts that would matter at a trial, then there is no need for the parties to go further on the lawsuit and it should be dismissed. Summary judgment was granted and Anderson’s lawsuit was dismissed. Anderson appealed.

When a patron is injured by a third party at a hotel, the patron might wish to seek damages from a national franchisor. There are however several criteria to establish a franchisor’s liability making it very difficult for a patron to recover in the absence of direct links between the injury and negligence.  In a recent case out of New Orleans, a shooting victim was left with little recourse against the big company behind the local Motel 6.  

In this case, Jorge A. Espinosa was staying at the Motel 6 on Gentilly Boulevard in New Orleans, Louisiana when he was shot in the Motel’s parking lot. The armed robber entered the Motel’s parking lot through a missing section in the Motel’s fence.  Mr. Espinosa’s injuries left  Mr. Espinosa a paraplegic.  Mr. Espinosa filed a lawsuit against the national franchise, Accor Franchising North America (“Accor”) as well as the local franchisee, Century Bayou Hospitality, LLC (“Bayou”) and their respective insurance companies.  Mr. Espinosa claimed the missing section of the Motel’s fence led to the robber entering the property and shooting Mr. Espinosa.  The District Court for the Parish of Orleans granted Accor’s motion for summary judgment reasoning that Accor could not be held liable because there was no evidence that Accor controlled, owned, or operated the Motel.  Mr. Espinosa appealed to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal asserting that Accor was directly negligent and that the company had authority over Bayou making them vicariously liable.     

To establish liability, a plaintiff must first show that the defendant had a duty to protect against the plaintiff’s injury.  To prove that defendant had a duty to protect against a property defect, the plaintiff must show that the defendant had custody over the thing which caused the damage and this thing contained a defect posing an unreasonable risk of harm which caused the plaintiff’s injuries.  See Wiley v. Sanders, 796 So. 2d 51, 55 (La. Ct. App. 2001).  The defective condition must be of a dangerous nature which would be reasonably expected to cause an injury to a prudent person using ordinary care.   A business has a duty to take reasonable care to ensure the safety of its patrons.  However, this duty does not extend to unforeseeable injuries that were caused by the criminal acts of third parties.  See Mundy v. Dep’t of Health & Human Res., 609 So. 2d 909, 912 (La. Ct. App. 1992).  Moreover, vicarious liability will not apply to the principal when an independent contractor relationship exists and the principal actor does not control the contractor’s day to day operations. See Morales v. Davis Bros. Const. Co.,  647 So. 2d 1302, 1305 (La. Ct. App. 1994).