Louisiana Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
Below is a case of a home sale in St. Bernard Parish that didn’t go all too well. In this case, communications between the parties to the sale were delayed and the sale never went through. The case highlights the need to be diligent when buying or selling real estate and the necessity of having a good real estate lawyer.
The sellers, David and Gwendolyn Hopkins, placed a home for sale in Arabi, Louisiana. Juanita Coco, an interested buyer, contracted with a representative of Prudential Realtors in order to buy that same home. Both the Hopkins and Ms. Coco signed an Act of Sale agreement that was contingent upon Ms. Coco being able to obtain financing in the amount of $152,200. The Act of Sale, by agreement, was supposed to be completed by a deadline of April 4, 2008, with the option to extend the deadline.
Ms. Coco hired an appraiser to determine the value of the home. The appraiser told Ms. Coco that because the house was located in an area that was previously affected by Hurricane Katrina, the appraiser had to list the home at a value that was considerably less than the asking price. The original asking price of the home was $152,500 and the appraisal price was $147,000. Since it was appraised below the asking price, Ms. Coco’s lender, Countrywide Bank, stated that it would not approve Ms. Coco’s home loan if the asking price was not reduced. The Hopkins signed an amendment to the original Act of Sale to have the original price reduced to the appraisal price. They faxed it to Dane Ruffins, a Prudential representative, after business hours on April 3, 2008. Ms. Ruffins did not receive the amendment until the morning of April 4, 2008. The same day that, Ms. Ruffins also received a letter from Countrywide Bank stating that the loan would not be approved.
It is no secret that a lawsuit has the potential to become a tangled web of procedural issues. This is why it is always a good idea to secure a good attorney with experience in dealing with the court system. Perhaps less common is the situation where the judge, the party responsible for ensuring an efficient and timely resolution of the dispute, gets tripped up in this procedural web. This is exactly the situation below.
Workers’ compensation disputes often boil down to the terms of a written contract where each party asserts their own interpretation of the agreement and lets the court decide. The case below is no different as it pertains to a “third-party beneficiary,” which essentially is a party not expressly contained in the agreement, but is no less a party to the contract.
When you are in a motor vehicle accident, there are many issues that can arise as to the issue of fault and whose version of events is more reliable. Conflicting versions of what happened can make it difficult for the court to assign fault. It is thus important to always be aware of your surroundings and the laws of driving a motor vehicle, as illustrated in the following case. 
In November 2008, in Claiborne Parish, Mr. Fields went to Willis Knighton Claiborne Regional Health Center for complaints of diarrhea. Mr. Fields also had an extended history of medical issues, including hypertension and a kidney transplant. He saw a nurse practitioner, who consulted with a doctor and gave him a prescription for a generic antibacterial, which he took as directed. About a week later, he called his doctor’s office complaining that the medicine was making him feel worse. He alleged that he was instructed to continue taking the medicine as originally directed.
Kenneth White’s road trip from Monroe to Shreveport, Louisiana wasn’t exactly uneventful. The Monroe man was involved in a traffic accident that led to a legal battle between insurance companies. White’s insurance dispute led to a significant change in the law, as the Court of Appeal held that a major auto carrier’s contract provision violated public policy.
If you are injured at work, it is imperative that you follow the appropriate procedures under workers’ compensation law to ensure that you are fully and fairly compensated for your injuries. A failure to properly report or address your injuries can result in a lesser payment or no payment at all. It is also important to keep your place of employment apprised of your injuries and treatment, and written records of your contact, so that if it becomes necessary to bring an action against your employer you have sufficient evidence to support your position. A recent case of the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal is illustrative.
In Louisiana, when an employee suffers an on-the-job injury, the employer may be held liable. This can easily end the initial romantic period of the employment, now that the employee’s interests are at odds with the employer’s. The employer considers that it now has to take care of a non-productive employee, hurting the business’s bottom line. On the other hand, the employee argues that she should be compensated for her work-related injuries considering all the labor she put into the company, contributing to its profits. The law takes into account and draws a delicate balance between these varying interests. It goes without saying that it is important for both employees and employers to be aware of their rights under workers’ compensation law. Illustrating this point, the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal was recently called upon to decide whether a potentially expensive surgical procedure made necessary by a work-related injury should or should not be granted.
When an accident occurs, it’s often difficult to determine what actually happened until the aftermath, but in the justice system, piecing a puzzle together and drawing conclusions based on little remaining evidence rarely constitutes enough of a basis to file a lawsuit. As the court said in the case of Benjamin Tomaso when he attempted to file a lawsuit against Home Depot, “[s]peculation as to what caused an accident cannot supply the factual support necessary to show that a plaintiff would be able to meet his evidentiary burden of proof at trial.” 
Do you know your constitutional rights? In 2014 one-third of Americans were unaware of their First Amendment rights according to a Newseum Institute survey. This is an alarming truth that we, as citizens, must face. Here are some questions I pose to you: Do you know your Fourth Amendment rights? Can a law enforcement officer arrest someone without probable cause? What is probable cause? What is qualified immunity? A recent