Louisiana Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
Labor contracts are often tricky and scary because potential employees generally find it difficult to negotiate with employers for terms favorable to them, while employers use standard contracts with terms potential employees don’t understand or aren’t used to seeing, which guarantee the employers a better deal.
The National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), whose purpose is to provide protection to employees from unfair labor practices of employers, provides that an employer commits an unfair labor practice when it coerces or prevents employees from engaging in their legal rights, including, but not limited to, the rights of employees to band together in a union or otherwise. A recent case out of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (“the Court”) addressed this problem in a labor contract case between a retail gas station and its employee.
Murphy Oil Inc. (“Murphy Oil”) operates retail gas stations in many cities in the United States, but the following dispute takes place at the Calera, Alabama location. Sheila Hobson, upon starting employment with Murphy Oil, was required to sign a binding arbitration agreement—an agreement which prevented herself and other employees working at this location from settling any disputes with management by any means other than arbitration—a process which would require both employee and employer to meet with a professional mediator for all legal claims.
Leasing agreements often are complex and lengthy, especially in a commercial context. A common provision contained in most leasing agreements is an indemnity provision. An indemnity provision is a section in a leasing agreement that requires the leasee (the person who leases the property) to take responsibility for certain lawsuits involving the leased property. A recent decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeal for Louisiana illustrates the power of an indemnity provision.
Buying a home is a complex and stressful process. Not only must a homebuyer make sure he or she has the required funds to purchase the home, but must also thoroughly check that the home is in good condition. Generally, determining the condition of a home is relatively easy. Under the law, a home-seller is obligated to disclose certain defects. Failure to do so can result in a lawsuit. A recent case from the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals illustrates the legal repercussions that can befall a home-seller when he or she withholds certain deficiencies in the condition of the home.
When bringing a personal injury lawsuit a plaintiff must prove that the defendant in the lawsuit caused the injury. Often, when an injury involves two parties, the question of who caused the injury has a relatively straightforward answer. However, problems arise when the circumstances surrounding the injury involve multiple parties. A recent case out of the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal illustrates the complexity of proving who caused an injury when multiple parties are involved.
Life insurance benefits can provide beneficiaries with the monetary needs they require. What is a life insurance policy? An insurance company agrees by contract to provide a lump-sum payment, called a death benefit, to the beneficiaries upon the insured’s death in exchange for premium payments. But what happens when the insured dies and the beneficiary encounter problems in getting paid? This case out of Concordia Parish explains entitlement to life insurance proceeds in Louisiana. 
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. 
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.
Lawsuits often appear to be complicated and complex, but what many people don’t know is that the outcome of a lawsuit can often be determined by a simple matter of logistics. The who, what, when, where and why of a situation can make the difference between winning and losing a case. For instance, a simple matter of jurisdiction was the deciding factor in a case brought by a South Louisiana man and his wife. 
Wouldn’t it be a disappointment to have your legal claims dismissed because you missed a filing deadline? The rules that apply to time limits for filing cases can be complicated, as Top Dollar Pawn, Gun and Car Audio #5 in Shreveport, Louisiana found when Top Dollar’s lawsuit was dismissed by the trial court because it was filed after the one-year statute of limitations, the allowed period of time to bring a legal claim, had run. 
As individuals approach the end of their life or encounter health problems, they may utilize a general power of attorney (POA) in order to care for their property. A POA is a written authorization to represent or act on another’s behalf in private affairs, business, or some other legal matter. The individual executing the POA is the principal and the individual acting under the POA is the principal’s agent. Dealing with a POA can be difficult since it is usually exercised during a stressful period in the principal’s life. Recently, the issue of using a POA was made even more complicated when it stirred up family drama in the Parish of Lincoln District Court after an agent used the POA to transfer all of the principal’s property into his own account days prior to the principal’s death.