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hair salon slip fallA customer sustaining severe and permanent injuries from a slip and fall accident at a business can cause one to wonder about the potential liability of the business owner. This can become even more complex in a situation where the business owner has leased the unit from the party that owns the building. A building owner may be liable for the injury, even when the unit has been leased out. 

On October 24th, 2014, Ms. Greer visited Sportsman’s Hairadise in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. Ms. Greer claimed that a salon employee instructed Ms. Greer to park behind the building and then access the unit through the rear entrance of the building. Ms. Greer used this entrance and had to take a single step down to enter the salon. Unfortunately, as Ms. Greer navigated down the step, she fell down and hit the concrete floor. Ms. Greer alleged that the fall caused severe, permanent, and debilitating injuries. Sportsman’s Hairadise leased the premises from Railroad Square, LLC (“Railroad Square”), which owned the building. 

Ms. Greer filed a lawsuit against Railroad Square in the Twenty-First Judicial District Court for the Parish of Tangipahoa, Louisiana. Ms. Greer alleged that the premises contained several defects presenting harm. These harms included a step-down of greater height than allowed by building code, a surface made up of different gradients, an absence of handrails, a lack of adequately marked surface edges, and insufficient warnings of the step-down.

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Louisiana medical malpraticeMedical procedures are never an enjoyable process. However, the process becomes even more miserable when recuperation is delayed because of infections. Darrin Coulon found himself in this situation after receiving shoulder surgery in 2011 from Dr. Mark Juneau at the West Bank Surgery Center. His recovery became even more difficult as he navigated the complex procedural requirements of filing a medical malpractice claim. 

After receiving shoulder surgery, an infection required Coulon to undergo numerous additional surgeries and treatments. As a result, Coulon and his wife filed a Request for Medical Review Panel, alleging medical malpractice. Specifically, Coulon alleged that (1) the Surgery Center failed to develop, maintain, and enforce appropriate policies to prevent infections and (2) the Surgery Center was liable under a theory of respondeat superior for its employees’ actions. The Medical Review Panel found no evidence that the Surgery Center or doctor failed to meet the required standard of care or did not maintain appropriate policies and procedures to prevent infections.

Coulon and his wife subsequently filed a lawsuit for damages against the Surgery Center. In addition to the claims previously raised for the Medical Review Panel, they added that the Surgery Center failed to supervise and train the nurses who treated Coulon. The Surgery Center responded by filing a partial exception of prematurity, claiming that the claims that they failed to train and supervise the nurses were premature because Coulon and his wife did not previously raise those claims in the Medical Review Panel complaint. Coulon and his wife argued that the language in the prior complaint was sufficiently broad to include the additional claims in their subsequent lawsuit for damages. 

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Horse bite lawsuitFeeding a horse a treat can seem all fun and games until the horse bites you. This is a lesson Danielle Larson, a visitor to Equest Farm in City Park in New Orleans, learned the hard way in 2013 when a horse bit her while she was feeding it a carrot. 

Larson was from Illinois but came to New Orleans often to visit her boyfriend. She had ridden horses since childhood and had been previously shown the correct way to feed a horse. Larson had been visiting Equest Farm for a few years before the horse bit her in September 2013. Larson went to see the school horses on the day of the incident. On her way there, two riders told her to be careful because, at the school, ponies had purportedly bitten a child. While Larson was feeding a horse a carrot, the horse knocked the carrot from her hand, and then the horse bit off her thumb as she reached for the dropped carrot. As a result, Larson required extensive medical care and will likely have to use a prosthetic thumb or transfer a toe to her hand.

There was some dispute about whether there was a sign posted warning people not to feed the horses. The horse at issue overall had a good reputation but had previously bitten a child who had held the horse’s ears while riding him. 

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who has Jurisdiction over Louisiana Police Disciplinary Action Tort ClaimsEven if your lawsuit has good facts, to prevail, the court must have subject matter jurisdiction to hear your case. Subject matter jurisdiction is the “legal power and authority of a court” to listen to a given proceeding. See La. C.C.P. art. 2. Understanding these complex jurisdictional requirements is imperative to ensure you get your day in court. 

In 2007, Plaintiffs T.H. and C.B. were terminated from the Louisiana State Troopers after an investigation suggested that they had provided a third party with confidential information violating employment policies and the law. The plaintiffs appealed this termination to the State Police Commission. The Commission overturned their terminations and instead ordered that they only be suspended. 

The plaintiffs then filed a lawsuit in district court to recover damages for a litany of reasons. The Defendants subsequently filed an exception for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. They claimed that La. Const. art. X, § 50 gives the State Police Commission exclusive jurisdiction over cases where the State Police terminates employees. Therefore, the district court would lack subject matter jurisdiction over the claim.

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texas_flag_texas_flag-1024x683The importance of legal contracts cannot be understated. Though we generally sign contracts on social media or online shopping websites without ever looking at their provisions, it is essential to carefully look at contractual provisions in insurance policies and the like. For example, you never want to discover that your injury is not covered by insurance after you have been injured. 

Adam O’Bannon, a Louisiana resident, was an employee of Moriah Technologies, Inc. (“Moriah”), a Texas corporation. In June of 2012, O’Bannon injured himself while working as a Moriah employee. Texas Mutual Insurance Company (“TMIC”) was Moriah’s workers’ compensation insurer. However, TMIC did not provide any workers’ compensation to O’Bannon.

Bannon argued that TMIC owed him workers’ compensation and filed a claim with the Louisiana Offer of Workers’ Compensation (“OWC”) against TMIC. At court, TMIC asked the workers’ compensation judge (“WCJ”) to dismiss O’Bannon’s claim through a motion for summary judgment because its policy did not provide coverage to Moriah for O’Bannon’s workplace injury. The WCJ agreed and dismissed O’Bannon’s case. O’Bannon appealed, arguing that the WCJ erred in holding that TMIC did not have a policy that provided O’Bannon workers’ compensation. 

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elevator lawsuit louisianaMost court cases do not proceed to actual trial. In the context of criminal cases, the defendants often accept plea deals. In the context of civil cases, however, parties often settle or the case is simply dismissed through motion practice.

For a plaintiff to succeed in a civil case, he or she must show that there are facts that can prove his or her claim. If there are no such facts, then he or she cannot prove his claim, thus rendering a trial unnecessary. In cases where the plaintiff does not have facts to support his or her claim, the opposing party often files a motion for summary judgment in order to dismiss the claim. 

Patricia Bowen worked at the Earl K. Long Medical Center (“EKL”) located in Baton Rouge. On October 10, 2012, Bowen suffered serious injuries at work when the elevator she used dropped and went up abruptly as she exited it. On October 9, 2013,  Bowen filed a lawsuit against EKL, alleging that EKL was negligent for not performing proper maintenance or maintaining preventive maintenance on its elevators.

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medical malpractice louisiana vaccineLawsuits are filed every day. However, not all of these lawsuits are worth the attention of the courts. Courts are already swamped with dozens and dozens of cases on their dockets and they cannot afford–both monetarily and temporally–to hear every case that comes to their courtrooms. As a result, courts allow parties to file a motion for summary judgment, which allows courts to drop a lawsuit if there is no issue of material fact among the parties. 

Petrie and Bertha Thompson’s one-year-old daughter Jessica Thompson passed away three days after being taken to The Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, L.L.C. (The Center) in Thibodaux. Jessica was examined by The Center’s nurse practitioner Gaudin. The Thompsons accused Gaudin of providing substandard care to Jessica. More specifically, the Thompsons alleged that Gaudin administered immunizations that should not have been administered. The Thompsons argued that Jessica passed away because of these immunizations and sued Gaudin, the Center, and HP, who was Gaudin’s alleged supervisor. 

A medical review panel reviewed the Thompsons’ claims against HP and The Center and found that there was no breach of the applicable standard of care and that the administered immunizations were appropriate for Jessica. After the release of the panel’s findings, Gaudin filed a motion for summary judgment. The Thompsons responded with an affidavit of Dr. Robert S. Chabon who opined that, contrary to the panel’s findings, that Gaudin’s administration of the vaccinations did indeed cause Jessica’s death. Gaudin argued that Dr. Chabon’s affidavit was untimely, not in proper form, and conclusory and thus the Trial Court should not accept the affidavit into evidence. Though the Trial Court accepted the affidavit, it found the affidavit to be insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact and thus granted Gaudin’s motion for summary judgment. 

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workers compensation lawyer louisianaThere are many ways that someone can be denied workers’ compensation benefits. Sometimes it is determined that the accident giving rise to the injury never occurred, other times the claim is filed too late, and in other cases the capacity in which the worker was hired determines eligibility for benefits. The last scenario is illustrated in a case brought to the New Orleans Office of Workers’ Compensation (“OWC”) in 2016.

Federico Martinez was among several workers hired by Jarislov Rames to lower a washer/dryer unit from Rames’ second floor apartment to street level. During the operation, one of the cords used to lower the unit broke loose and lacerated Martinez’s hand.

After the job was finished, Rames drove Martinez to the emergency room and paid the up-front $500 fee for Martinez to receive stitches. When Martinez demanded payment for the washer/dryer job, Rames withheld the $500 from Martinez’s pay and told Martinez that the rest of the emergency room fee would be deducted from future payments.

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forklift accident lawyerWhat may seem like a simple worker’s compensation claim can turn into a surprisingly complicated dispute over the nature of the injury and the payment of benefits. For many years, Reginald Crockerham worked as a forklift operator for Weyerhaeuser Holden Wood Products in Tangipahoa Parish. After almost two years of lower back injuries caused by the forklift’s bad tires, suspension, and seating, Crockerham underwent discectomy surgery and a two-level fusion.

Crockerham filed a claim for benefits with the Louisiana Office of Workers’ Compensation (OWC). The OWC found that Crockerham proved that he suffered a work-related accident within the scope of his employment with Weyerhaeuser and awarded him temporary total disability (TTD) benefits as well as past and future medical expenses. Weyerhaeuser appealed to Louisiana’s Court of Appeal for the First Circuit.

Weyerhaeuser argued that Crockerham’s injury did not meet the legal definition of “accident” under state law. In a workers’ compensation case, the claimant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that an accident occurred on the job and harm came from it. An “accident” is an unforeseeable event that occurs suddenly — with or without human fault — and directly causes an injury. The injury must be more than slow deterioration or gradual weakening. La. R.S. 23:1201. 

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louisiana brain injury lawyerIt can be puzzling — if not outright humorous — to observe the warnings in many pharmaceutical advertisements about how a drug’s side effects can be so severe that the potential harms outweigh the possible benefits. What’s not at all funny is when one of those side effects causes a patient actual harm. 

Cory Jenkins began taking the FDA-approved drug Abilify in October, 2010 as part of ongoing treatment of his condition. One known side effect of Abilify is tardive dyskinesia, a serious neurological disorder that causes muscle twitching. Jenkins began showing symptoms of dyskinesia in late 2012 and early 2013. He visited the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans and was instructed to stop taking Abilify. Shortly thereafter the twitching ceased. By August of 2013, the symptoms returned, even though Jenkins was no longer taking Abilify. In October, 2013 Jenkins sought care from several neurologists, including one who officially diagnosed him with dyskinesia. In October, 2014 Jenkins filed a lawsuit for damages against Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Otsuka American Pharmaceutical Inc., the makers of Abilify.

In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (“District Court”), Jenkins asserted two claims under the Louisiana Products Liability Act (LPLA). The District Court held that both claims had prescribed — meaning Jenkins did not file within the time required to commence an action — and granted the defendants’ motions for summary judgment. Claims brought under LPLA have a one-year prescriptive period; the period begins from the day the injury occurs or when damage is sustained. La. C.C. art. 3492. Damages are said to be “sustained” when they have revealed themselves with enough certainty to support the existence of a cause of action. In Louisiana, the start of the prescriptive period does not depend on a physician’s diagnosis. Instead, what controls is the date the injury occurred. Jenkins argued that there was a factual dispute over whether he had developed dyskinesia in April, and that it was not certain until his diagnosis in August. But because Jenkins admitted in his pleadings that his symptoms began in April, 2013, the District Court held that the prescriptive period for his claims against the defendants began running in April, 2013.  

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