Louisiana Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
Contracts between parties working toward a common goal can sometimes result in detail-oriented litigation when something goes wrong. When those parties need to subcontract with a third party, the responsibility for that third party if something goes wrong can be a point of contention.
In the Western District of Louisiana, a lawsuit and appeal revolved around whether the defendant-appellant, W & T Offshore Incorporated (W&T), or the defendant-appellee, Triton Diving Services (Triton), was responsible for injuries sustained by the plaintiff, Jakarta Grogan. W&T contends that Triton is liable because the injury occurred on Triton’s vessel. Triton disputes all liability and contends that W&T must pay for Mr. Grogan’s injuries, due to the contractual relationship between them.
W&T operates a pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico and hired Triton to participate in a recommissioning project. Triton was to be responsible for flushing the pipeline for impurities and was able to do so by using a dive support vessel called the Achiever. The two parties signed a Master Services Contract that allowed Triton operational control of the vessel but granted overall operational control to W&T. During the flushing process, Triton detected potentially unsafe levels of hydrogen sulfide being released. Due to this hazard, Triton consulted with W&T engineer, Alan Greig, about how to proceed. Mr. Greig recommended they hire a third party to help resolve the issue, and they brought Tiger Safety onto the project. W&T representatives, including Mr. Greig himself, made the necessary arrangements with Tiger Safety. The Plaintiff, Mr. Grogan, was one of Tiger Safety’s personnel that boarded the Achiever in order to resolve the hydrogen sulfide issue. Mr. Grogan acted under the direction of W&T’s on-site representative and provided necessary information gathered to said representative. The problem was resolved, and Tiger Safety’s personnel had been discharged. During the departure from the Achiever, Mr. Grogan fell. He subsequently sued both W&T and Triton for the injuries he sustained. W&T and Triton filed cross-claims against one another, and each defendant claimed indemnification. Simply, each defendant claimed that they could not be held liable for Mr. Grogan’s injuries because the other defendant had contracted to release them from any potential claims. The contract between the parties held that Triton indemnified W&T from personal injury claims brought by members of the ‘contractor group’. The term ‘contractor group’ was meant to refer to the Contractor, its parent company, affiliated companies, and all respective officers, employees, and invitees on the work sites. The district court held in favor of Triton and found that, based on all relevant facts, Mr. Grogan was W&T’s invitee. W&T appealed the ruling.
Worker’s compensation (WC) is a system designed to compensate workers for injuries that occur on the job. The system also helps to spread the risk of loss among numerous employers, similar to an insurance arrangement that employers pay into. Still, employers have an interest in ensuring that WC claims are valid in order to keep overall costs down. As a result, WC cases can lead to bitter disputes between workers and their employers. 
Long considered “wards of admiralty,” courts carefully scrutinize the treatment of seamen, particularly in cases where substantial legal rights are involved. One such case involves the execution of a release with a seaman, particularly when the seaman is unrepresented and in claims of personal injury. Generally, in a personal injury case, a release is a legal agreement that serves to settle the claims between the parties and terminates the injured party’s right to seek damages in court. 
For a negligence lawsuit to have any chance of survival, an essential element is to show the plaintiff had damages. Often these damages are obvious physical injuries. Sometimes however, damages claimed are for emotional distress. Due to its intangible nature, emotional distress can be extremely difficult to prove and a lawsuit for such damages can be equally difficult to maintain. In a recent case out of the Parish of Lafayette, a Louisiana man failed to prove all the necessary elements to sustain his emotional distress lawsuit despite the lawsuit centering on a helicopter crash. 
Waiting until the last minute to do almost anything is not recommended but it is especially true if you are seeking to bring a claim for damages. That is what some fishermen found out when they sought to bring claims under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) for damages that resulted from an oil spill. The oil spill came from a barge owned by American Commercial Airlines, LLC (ACL) that had been involved in a collision on the Mississippi River in the Port of New Orleans on July 23, 2008. 
The fate of a claim brought under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (“LHWCA”) is often determined based upon the weight the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) gives certain evidence. But how should the ALJ weigh conflicting evidence from different sources? This question was recently addressed by the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Petron Industries Inc. v. Courville.
In the insurance industry, one of the most important issues to consider when determining whether a claim is covered under a policy is the wording of the contract. Whether it is home, auto, life, or, as in this case a marine insurance policy, the exact words of the contract will control whether or not a specific claim will be paid out. Equally important are the laws which will control how those words are interpreted. And in a recent case out of Louisiana, one insured was out of luck over the interpretation of one small word. 
Decisiveness can be an excellent quality, especially in a judge. Court dockets are usually quite full and it can take a very long time for cases to be resolved. Whenever there is a confusion over which law to apply, however, patience is the greater virtue. In a lawsuit, lawyers will often request relief under various laws in hopes that one will bring success. In a recent case out of Venice, Louisiana, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal reminded an Office of Workers’ Compensation Judge (“WCJ”) just how important patience is when issuing an order in a case with competing theories of recovery. 
What if you are injured, hire a lawyer, and that lawyer fails to sufficiently work on your case? Outrage ensues and you may choose to fire that lawyer and hire a second. But is that first lawyer entitled to payment if you happen to win and receive an award in your case? In a recent Louisiana case, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the answer can be in the affirmative. 
It’s a common scenario: someone is injured or property is damaged because another party failed to use reasonable care. This situation is far from rare in the legal profession, and the responsible party is usually held accountable for their negligence with civil lawsuits. But what happens when the injured person attempts to hold the wrong party responsible? It seems unlikely, but as James Johnson discovered, it is possible and the consequences can alter the course of a lawsuit’s final outcome.