Slip and Fall Injuries

May 24, 2011

The Impoverished Plaintiff and the Assessment of Court Costs

The Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure generally affords the trial court wide discretion in assessing the costs of litigation to one or more of the parties. “Except as otherwise provided by law, the court may render judgment for costs, or any part thereof, against

any party, as it may consider equitable.” La. C.C.P. Art. 1920. The expenses that the court can tax as costs include the fees of the court clerk or sheriff, witness’ fees, costs of taking depositions, and the cost of photocopies of laws, regulations, medical reports, and hospital records used during the trial. So great is the trial court’s discretion, in fact, that the trial court’s assessment can be overturned only upon a showing of abuse of discretion.

As mentioned, though, there are limitations in the law to the trial court’s authority. For instance, special provisions exist for allocating costs in workers’ compensation cases as well as those involving a plaintiff who proceeds in forma pauperis (through a pauper’s action). The recent case of Curry v. HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital illustrates that one path to reversible error on the part of the trial judge is running afoul of the special rules for impoverished plaintiffs.

May 8, 2011

The Effect of Statutory Employee Status on a Claim for Injury on the Job

by Berniard Law Firm

The health and safety of workers is a pressing concern for both employees and employers alike. When an injury occurs at a job site, many questions arise as to the care of the injured and the responsibility of the employer in regard to that care. As an employee, the question of who pays for the care that may become necessary in the immediate, as well as into the future, is of prominent concern. Also, an injured employee may ask what level of responsibility their employer is held to for the circumstances of the accident and how they can receive compensation for health and living expenses resulting from any injury. What some employees may overlook is that their employment status can often dictate the means and method by which they will be able to recover should a lawsuit become necessary.

The importance of a contract between the employer and the employee who wish to have their relationship classified as statutory cannot be overstated. The recent Louisiana Court of Appeals case out of the Parish of Beauregard, Tilley v. Boise Cascade Corp., illustrates how one’s employment status under the law can affect the outcome of a claim for compensation after injury. Tilley, an employee of the BE & K Construction Company, was contracted to work for a Boise Cascade Corp. owned paper mill. While performing work at a machine in the mill, Tilley was sprayed by a scalding liquid and suffered injury. Tilley’s contract to work had expired six days prior to the accident.

Tilley filed suit. Soon after, Boise Cascade Corp. claimed immunity under Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Act Title 23 § 1061, arguing that Tilley was a statutory employee who was only entitled to workers compensation benefits and was not entitled to file suit. Hinging their decision on the contract, the Court of Appeals held that the Boise Cascade failed to prove with any certainty that Tilley’s contract had been extended. Therefore, Tilley was not a statutory employee at the time of the accident and she was free to move forward with her suit.

May 6, 2011

Court Clarifies Duty of Ambulance Dispatcher in Dropped 911 Call

by Berniard Law Firm

When a caller dials 911 to report an emergency, it is not uncommon for the operator to transfer the caller to the local service provider that is best suited to respond to the incident. For instance, a caller who reports an auto accident can expect to be connected with the nearest ambulance service. In the case of Willis v. Rapides Parish Communications District, the Third Circuit Court of Appeal examined the duty owed by an ambulance dispatcher when a transfer does not go through.

Johnny Willis was involved in a single-car accident on La. Hwy. 488 just outside of Oak Hill. The crash was discovered by a passer-by, Shirley Ponthieux, who called 911. The operator for the Rapides Parish Communications District (RPCD) answered her call, contacted the fire department, and then attempted to transfer her directly to Acadian Ambulance because of another incoming call. The operator did not think that taking the other call would affect the transfer, but in fact it failed and Ponthieux was cut off. Because of the phone confusion and because the fire department could not obtain a cellular signal to call Acadia Ambulance when it arrived on the scene, an ambulance did not arrive until approximately an hour later. Sadly, Mr. Willis died at the hospital. His wife, Carleen Willis, filed suit against RPCD and Acadian Ambulance. Her claim against Acadian cited its failure to “receive and respond to the emergency transmission” and that it “failed to establish and utilize a reliable communications system for the receipt of emergency transmissions.” The trial judge granted Acadian Ambulance’s motion for summary judgment, holding that it does not owe a duty to an accident victim until it actually receives a call requesting ambulance service.

On appeal, Willis argued that Acadian Ambulance owed a duty to her husband to properly advise the RPCD of how to communicate with its dispatcher. Further, she cited a letter that Acadian had previously sent to the 911 office in Rankin County, Mississippi that explained the procedures that the 911 operators were to follow. Namely, an operator should remain on the line until Acadian Ambulance answered the call in order for the transfer to be completed, and further should briefly inform the Acadian Ambulance dispatcher of the nature of the call before disconnecting. The court disagreed that the lack of a similar letter to RPCD indicated Acadian’s failure to exercise reasonable care. In fact, the court could point to “no statutory or jurisprudential principles that support the imposition of [a] duty” on Acadian Ambulance “to properly train the employees of the RPCD in the use of the RPCD equipment to communicate with Acadian Ambulance.” Imposing such a duty, in the view of the court, would be inappropriate under the duty-risk analysis favored by the Louisiana Supreme Court. As soon as the Acadian dispatcher actually received a call that an ambulance was needed, he promptly sent one; this met the duty imposed under the law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of Acadian Ambulance from the case.

April 16, 2011

Court Mulls Open and Obvious Defect in Shreveport Trip and Fall Case

by Berniard Law Firm

According to Louisiana law, a landowner “owes a duty to a plaintiff to discover any unreasonably dangerous condition, and either to correct the condition or warn of its existence.” However, the courts have consistently held that landowners generally have no duty to protect against “open and obvious” hazards. If the facts show that the condition that caused a plaintiff’s injury should be “obvious to all,” the condition is less likely to be considered unreasonably dangerous; in such a situation, the landowner may owe no duty at all to the injured plaintiff. The determination of whether a crack in a Shreveport sidewalk was unreasonably dangerous was at the center of the recent case of Williams v. Rubens Residential Properties, LLC.

On the morning of May 4, 2006, Marion Williams was walking with her friend on Line Avenue in the Cedar Grove neighborhood. Williams tripped on a buckle in the concrete sidewalk, fall forward, and shattered her right wrist. After seeking immediate medical attention, Williams returned to the scene and took several photographs of the buckle. Over the next several months, she required several significant surgeries which left her with pins in her wrist and lingering pain which is expected to get worse over time.

Williams sued the City of Shreveport, which filed a motion for summary judgment in which it argued that it was obligated to provide a sidewalk in reasonably safe, but not perfect, condition and that it was not liable for the “open and obvious hazard which should have been observed by anyone in the exercise of reasonable care.” The City relied on the deposition testimony of its Superintendent of Streets and Drainage, Ernie Negrete, who explained that the City does not perform routine inspections of all its sidewalks because doing so would be too costly. Instead, the City takes corrective action based on the roughly 6,000 calls it receives from citizens each year to report problems. The City had no record of any calls about the particular location where Williams fell. Williams’s cross-motion urged that the sidewalk posed an “unreasonable risk of harm” of which the City did have notice, given that the buckle apparently had existed for over 15 years. The trial court denied the City’s motion and the matter went to a bench trial in February, 2010. The trial judge found Williams’s testimony and the testimony of her friend and husband “extremely credible” and accepted her assertion that she simply could not see the buckle in the sidewalk. The court awarded Williams almost $340,000 in damages including lost wages and medical expenses. In its appeal, the City argued that the trial court committed manifest error in failing to find that the defect in the sidewalk was open and obvious. The Second Circuit noted that the trial court’s decision was based on the testimony of three witnesses who claimed that from the pedestrian’s vantage point, the buckle was not apparent. Also, the City did not put on any evidence as to the height of the buckle or whether it was obvious to a pedestrian. Thus, the court concluded that the trial judge “was entitled to find that the condition was not open and obvious to a person walking straight down the sidewalk in the exercise of reasonable care.” Finding no manifest error, the court affirmed the trialc court’s judgment for Williams.

April 12, 2011

Slip-and-Fall Dismissal Upheld Due To Lack of Evidence

by Berniard Law Firm

The Third Circuit Court of Appeal for the State of Louisiana affirmed a Calcasieu Parish court’s decision to grant the defendants’ motions for summary judgment and dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims for injuries she sustained when her electric grocery cart allegedly malfunctioned while she was grocery shopping.

In considering a motion for summary judgment, a judge must consider whether there is a genuine issue of material fact and whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Because the moving parties here (the defendants) did not have the burden of proof at trial, they merely needed to show that there was an absence of factual support for at least one of the elements of the plaintiff’s claim. This is a question of law and is reviewed by an appellate court de novo, without any deference to the trial court.

The plaintiff in this case was a 73-year-old woman who used a motorized cart called the Mart Cart, provided by Kroger. She alleged that in order to reach a can from a shelf, she dismounted the Mart Cart and put her left foot on the ground, but while she had one foot on the cart and another on the ground, the cart rolled forward, causing her to fall. She filed suit against Kroger and the manufacturer of the Mart Cart, alleging that they were liable for her injuries under the Louisiana Products Liability Act (the LPLA).

March 31, 2011

Municipality Must Have Notice of a Defect in a Public Walkway to be Liable for Injuries

by Berniard Law Firm

To win a case, a plaintiff must prove the elements of his or her legal claim, or cause of action. Each cause of action is comprised of certain required elements. For example, in a breach of contract claim, a plaintiff must prove the following elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages. In Louisiana, a resident can sue a municipality for failing to repair a defect in a public street or walkway. In a recent case, the Third Judicial District Court for the Parish of Union (“Court”) discussed the elements required to prevail in such a claim.

At issue in Carol Smithwick and Glenn Smithwick, Individually and as the Administrators of the Estate of the Minor Child, Carsen Smithwick v. City of Farmerville, Community Trust Bank, CTB Financial Corp. and First United Bank, was whether the plaintiffs proved that the City of Farmerville (“City”) had actual or constructive notice of a public way defect – an essential element of the cause of action. Plaintiff Carol Smithwick waited one afternoon for her son at a school bus stop, which encompassed an intersection between two city streets. Ms. Smithwick sustained injuries when she stepped onto the shoulder of one of the streets and tripped on a shallow depression. Seeking $6.2 million in damages, Ms. Smithwick claimed the injury to her right ankle from the fall caused a medical complication in her right knee.

In dismissing the suit, the trial court concluded that the plaintiffs could not prove that the City had constructive or actual notice of a defective condition even though the hole, which caused Ms. Smithwick’s injuries, presented an unreasonable risk of harm. On appeal, the Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment. According to the Court, a municipality will be held liable for injuries from a defect in the condition of a public way if it had actual or constructive notice of the defect. A municipality has actual notice of a defect or condition if one of its agents or employees had a duty to keep the area in good repair or to report defective or dangerous conditions. Constructive notice is proven if a plaintiff can show a defective condition existed for a considerable amount of time and reasonable diligence by the municipality would have resulted in its discovery.

March 5, 2011

Baton Rouge General Medical Center Slip-and-Fall Case Confirms Hospital’s Premises Liability Standard

by Berniard Law Firm

Previously on this blog, we have looked at a variety of cases involving premises liability. Most have centered on an injury that occurs when the plaintiff visits a store or other commercial enterprise; in those cases, the defendant faces a heightened “merchant” standard of care under state statute, namely La. R.S. 9:2800.6. This post will add to the discussion by reviewing a recent case in which the First Circuit Court of Appeal considered the premises liability standard applicable to a hospital in a trip-and-fall case.

On August 14, 2007, Marion Terrance visited the cafeteria at the Baton Rouge General Medical Center. Terrance allegedly slipped on the mat in front of the ice machine that had become soaked with water. She injured her groin and lower back in the resulting fall. Terrance filed suit against the hospital alleging negligence due to the “unreasonably dangerous foreign substance” on the floor (water) and that the hospital had failed to clean it up. The hospital denied that the fall occurred at all and argued that it had no knowledge of any foreign substance on the floor. Conflicting testimony was presented during the bench trial. The cafeteria supervisor, upon being informed of Terrance’s fall by another employee, immediately inspected the floor around the ice machine and found a dry mat and no spilled water. She also reported that the fall would have occurred just shortly after her most recent routine floor inspection, during which no water was noted. In fact, hospital employees had never noticed any water dripping from the ice machine. Nevertheless, the trial judge entered judgment in favor of Terrance and awarded her $26,910 in damages. The trial court’s decision rested on the “unreasonable condition” that existed around the ice machine that caused Terrance to slip and fall. The hospital appealed, arguing that there was no evidence that an unreasonably dangerous condition existed at the time of Terrance’s injury.

The First Circuit Court of Appeal began its analysis by establishing that hospitals are not covered by the merchant standard for premises liability contained in La. R.S. 9:2800.6. Instead, general negligence theory would apply. Under this standard, a hospital owes a duty to its visitors to “exercise reasonable care for their safety,” but the duty owed is less than that required of a defendant engaged in a commercial enterprise. The court explained that once Terrance made her allegation that she slipped, fell, and injured herself because of a foreign substance on the hospital’s premises, the burden then shifted to the hospital to show that it “acted reasonably to discover and correct the dangerous condition reasonably anticipated.” The court noted the dispute at trial over the existence of a wet floor at all, but did not find any error in the trial court’s factual finding that the water did, in fact, exist and that it caused Terrance to fall. However, the court did take issue with the trial court’s immediate award of damages to Terrance without permitting the hospital to attempt to rebut the presumption of negligence:

March 3, 2011

Springfield Injury Reminds Homeowners to Use Caution Around Power Lines

by Berniard Law Firm

In several previous posts on this blog, we have explored cases involving premises liability where the plaintiff is injured while visiting a

“restaurant”, “store”, or other “business”. But what about a plaintiff who is injured on his own property by a device that is owned by another party but which is on his property for his own benefit? This situation can arise in the case of utilities, where the dangerous conditions are created by electric power lines, natural gas lines, propane tanks, and the like. The case of Flowers v. Entergy Corp. offers an example.

On January 5, 2001, just outside of Springfield, Louisiana, Randall Flowers parked his truck and trailer in the driveway of his home. He parked the vehicle near a small pump house that served as a water source for washing the truck. When Flowers climbed on top of the trailer to wash it, he came into contact with a power line that provided electricity to his house and was severely injured. Flowers sued Entergy Corp., the local utility that owned and maintained the power line. At trial, both parties produced experts who testified about the National Electric Safety Code (the “Code”), which, though not officially adopted by the state of Louisiana, was relied upon by utilities for minimum safety standards. The Code set minimum heights for power lines in various applications so as to provide clearance for people and equipment passing below. Flowers’ expert testified that the power line over the driveway failed to meet the Code requirements for the location where it was installed in that it sagged one and one-half feet too low at its midpoint. He also offered the opinion that Entergy should have performed more frequent inspections, which would have allowed the company to discover the problem sooner. Entergy’s witness, who was certified as an expert in electrical engineering, Code interpretations, and accident reconstruction, read the Code differently and established that the height of the power line did not violate the Code. Ultimately, the jury found no fault on the part of Entergy and assigned 100 percent fault to Flowers.

February 28, 2011

Court Outlines Responsibilities of Dockowner in Employee Injury

by Berniard Law Firm

A gangway is a pathway that connects the ship to the dock at which it has stopped. It is the means by which the crew and cargo of a ship are moved onto and off of the ship. Usually ships have detachable gangways that the ship crew put on the side of the ship when the ship is docked. Other times, docks have policies that require the ships to use gangways that are provided by the dock owner. As in any other legal field, the use of gangways are subject to rules of negligence and duties of care. The question in a recent case, Landers v. Bollinger Amelia Repair, was whether a dock owner was liable for a gangway provided to a ship under the stated policy of the dock owner that all ships must use gangways provided by the dock.

On June 12, 2006, the M/V Roseanna docked on the Bollinger Amelia Repair (BAR) dock. The reason for docking there was that the Roseanna’s hull had been breached, and it needed repair. The Roseanna had a gangway on its ship, but it was full of cargo and could not be used to access the dock. In any case, BAR had a policy of requiring all docked ships to use a BAR provided gangway. Thus, Landers, an employee of the Roseanna, and another Roseanna employee got a gangway from BAR and installed it.

The gangway was inspected by a Roseanna employee and was found to be in good condition. The gangway was used many times that day. The crew of the Roseanna discovered that the hull of the ship could be fixed without the aid of BAR and proceeded to do so. At the end of its use, the gangway was removed by Landers and another member of the Roseanna crew. Upon removal, the gangway sprung up hitting Landers in the back and causing injury. Subsequently, Landers brought suit against BAR arguing that due to BAR’s stated policy of requiring the use of BAR gangways, BAR was liable for the injury caused to him under general Maritime negligence law.

February 23, 2011

Disastrous Results for Plaintiffs that Wait Too Long to File Suit

by Berniard Law Firm

In Louisiana, there are certain steps that need to be taken in order to file a case for medical malpractice. In order to get a case to trial, a plaintiff must first submit a malpractice petition to a medical review board. The board reviews the facts surrounding a case and compares health care providers with a basic standard of care required for those practitioners in the locale in which they practice. If the board decides in favor of the defendants, the plaintiff can take the case to a judicial proceeding. A civil case in Louisiana must be filed or settled within a year.

This is the basic fall-back provision of how long a case can remain in effect. The legislature has the authority to add to this period for certain causes of action, in certain circumstances. For example, a medical malpractice claim must usually be filed within one year from the negligent treatment. However, if the plaintiff did not know that the medical malpractice occurred, the plaintiff can file within one year of discovering the malpractice. In any case, no claim can be filed more than three years after the alleged negligent treatment. Thus, even if the negligent treatment is not discoverable until four years have gone by, the plaintiff will be out of luck and the time for filing the suit will have expired.

The medical review board takes a great deal of time to make a decision. Thus, while the review board is making a determination, the one year prescription period is stopped to allow the board to make its decision without taking away the plaintiff’s time to bring a case. However, once the review board has made a decision, the plaintiff only has 90 days plus any additional time left over from the one year prescription period to file a claim.