Louisiana Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
After a motor vehicle collision occurs, a court will assign each driver involved a standard of care they were required to maintain. Drivers under Louisiana law are usually subject to ordinary care when driving their vehicle. However, under the law, certain motorists are held to a higher standard or are favored to have less liability if an accident occurs. This differentiation in standards was recently highlighted when a garbage truck was hit by a pickup driving on a three-lane road while pulling out of a Burger King exit.
On August 10, 2009, an accident occurred at the intersection of Carrollton and Tulane Avenue, which has a complicated set-up of four lanes that travel east, three for traffic and one for a bus stop, and three lanes that travel west separated by a concrete median. Gregory Hicks, a garbage truck driver, attempted to cross all four eastbound lanes in order to make a turn onto the westbound lanes, but while doing so his truck blocked all eastbound lanes. The garbage truck, which was owned by Hicks’ employer, IESI LA Corporation, was subsequently struck by a pickup truck driven by Bazzell Hamdan. Hamdan, all of the passengers, and the owner of the pickup truck filed lawsuits against Hicks and IESI. The cases were consolidated and the matters that weren’t settled went to trial in Orleans Parish.
The issues at trial involved the liability of both the defendants and plaintiffs and the damages suffered by the plaintiffs, which included personal injury claims and a property damage claim. The district court found Hicks 100% at fault and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded general damages (pain and suffering) and special damages (medical expenses and insurance policy deductible) in the amount of: $37,000 general and $11,023.38 special to Hamdan, $36,000 general and $12,786.57 special to a passenger and $500 special to the vehicle owner.
Suffering through an accident is bad enough, but dealing with the aftermath of that accident can be even worse without the help of a great attorney. An often overlooked but critical step in dealing with the consequences of an accident is deciding who to include or exclude from a release, which is a contractual agreement in which one party agrees to give up their right to bring a claim against another party. As Trena and Thomas Garrison learned after their accident in Baton Rouge, a small oversight on a seemingly standard release could result in a substantial loss of potential recovery. 
After making a successful workers’ compensation claim, an insurer may make a subrogation claim, which is the right of an insurer to recover the amount paid out in a claim from a third party that caused the claim to occur. However, failure to properly reserve this right can affect an insurer’s right to recovery and possibly bar recovery altogether. A recent lawsuit in the Orleans Parish highlighted this fact.
Workers’ compensation laws require companies to set aside a fund to pay their employees for work-related injuries. But what happens when the employer also has long-term disability insurance and the injured employee collects both workers’ compensation benefits as well as the employer-funded long-term disability benefits? Receiving benefits from the correct source of workers’ compensation income can prevent the headache of having to pay back thousands of dollars years later. 
Automobile accidents are unavoidable tragedies that happen on our roadways daily. All drivers owe a duty to other drivers to keep each other safe, but how far does that duty extend and to whom does it extend to? That was the case when a Parish of Lafayette man was struck by a distracted driver while taking part in a promotional motorcycle ride sponsored by a local Harley Davidson dealership. 
Because of the highly technical aspect of seeking relief from the court system, someone unfamiliar with the legal process can be confused and frustrated by the litigation process. This circumstance can be intensified by the harm done and the matter being litigated. Mr. William Matthews, the surviving husband of Mrs. Geranda Matthews, faced this exact problem when filing a medical malpractice claim against two of his wife’s physicians and Louisiana State University Health Systems.
Workers compensation laws require an employee to be injured within the course of employment to qualify for benefits. However, what happens when an employee is injured without any witnesses present? How can the employee prove that the accident really happened? This case out of Calcasieu Parish demonstrates the burden for a workers’ compensation claimant in Louisiana to prove an unwitnessed accident. 
When multiple companies work together on a project that causes an injury how is liability decided between the companies? That was the case when two Parish of Jackson truck drivers and their trucks were sprayed with acid from a broken hose. The two companies in charge of the project pointed the finger at each other and tried to avoid liability. This case deals with issues of negligence in inspection and the importance of causation in a negligence claim.
The workers’ compensation system exists to compensate employees when a work-related accident occurs. Frequently, however, employers will attempt to deny or at least curtail benefits. One common tactic is to blame an employee’s injuries on a pre existing medical condition rather than the work accident. But does this excuse really work when a tree falls on an employee’s head? As far fetched as it sounds, this was the scenario when an Ouachita Parish employer attempted to stop paying benefits after a tree accident.