Articles Posted in Product Defect

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We hear about injuries to customers resulting in large settlements in the news frequently. In any industry, there is some risk that clients or customers will be injured during the time they are patronizing the establishment. When these injuries occur it often results in a lawsuit. Who is at fault (and as a result, liable for the damage) generally comes down to a determination of the “duty” that is owed by the establishment owner to his patrons.

So when can someone be injured and lose? One scenario presented itself in Darlene Johnson v. Super 8 Lodge-Shreveport in 2008. Mrs. Johnson and her father were guests staying in a Shreveport, Louisiana, Super 8 Lodge hotel “Jacuzzi Suite” after evacuating their home as a result of a hurricane. Like most hotel rooms, this one had a television for guest use. Unlike many, this suite’s TV was positioned at a 90 degree angle to the bed, making it awkward to view while laying in bed but designed to be comfortably viewed from the provided couch. The hotel was aware that not all guests preferred to have the television facing the bed and offered a service moving the entire entertainment center around for them. While the majority of guests didn’t request it, it wasn’t an unusual request. In fact, Mrs. Johnson was aware of this service and had requested it multiple times during her stay. However, during this incident, Mrs. Johnson did not request the entertainment center be moved. Instead, she attempted to do it herself and was injured as a result of the television falling on her. She subsequently sued suggesting the television should have been secured to the entertainment center with a pivoting platform, as they should have anticipated a guest trying to move the TV themselves.

The crux of the debate is a matter of what level of duty was owed to their guests by the hotel operators. Duty is a technical term in negligence law that sets the lowest obligation that someone owes to someone else in a situation. A hotel is required to exercise “reasonable and ordinary care including maintaining the premises in a reasonably safe and suitable condition.” While they are not required to absolutely guarantee the safety of guests, hotels must be careful to keep them from anticipated injury. To succeed in a suit such as this, a guest needs to demonstrate that the television was in the hotel’s custody, that it created an unreasonable risk of harm to others, and that something about the defective condition caused the damage. The court ruled in favor of the hotel.

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Susan Michelle Canon brought suit in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, when her boat caught fire while en route from North Carolina back to Louisiana. The trial court ruled in favor of the sellers, who were from North Carolina, and dismissed them from the suit because of lack of personal jurisdiction. The appellate court upheld this decision. This case is an excellent example of why every lawsuit must be examined for proper jurisdiction to make sure that it is filed properly and that the expected outcome isn’t cut short from the very beginning.

To determine whether personal jurisdiction existed, the court considered a number of factors indicating whether it would be proper to draw the sellers into court in the state of Louisiana. These factors included where the sellers reside, where they do business, where they have registered offices, and whether their business targets a particular region. Their contact with Louisiana must also have been continuous and systematic, to support an assertion of general jurisdiction.

Sellers Raeford and Jennifer Millis here did not have sufficient contacts with Louisiana. They did not live there, do business there, or have a registered office in that state. The boat they sold Ms. Canon was simply listed on the internet, accessible and available to people all over the world. Ms. Canon made the initial contact, and mailed the sale proceeds to a bank in North Carolina, where the Millises live. Ms. Canon also went to North Carolina to execute the bill of sale, using a North Carolina notary, and took possession of the boat in that state. Based on these facts, she could not establish meaningful contacts, ties, or relations between the Millises and Louisiana.

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The law has a wide variety of rules in place to force a clean route to evidence, especially from authorities on the topic, like people present or involved with the case’s topic. Hearsay is a statement, other than one made by the person themself while testifying at the present trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Article 802 of the Louisiana Code of Evidence states “Hearsay is not admissible except as otherwise provided by this Code or other legislation.”

Understanding Legal Terms

Assertive Conduct:

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You have probably heard the phrase “accidents happen.” But if you are in an accident, the first thing that you want to ask is who is at fault. With all of the chaos that can be part of an accident, sometimes the answer to this question isn’t always clear. This is when comparative fault, also known as comparative negligence, comes into play. In general, negligence refers to conduct that falls below the standards of behavior established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm. Comparative negligence is different from ordinary negligence in that ordinary negligence is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonable person would exercise in similar circumstances whereas comparative negligence describes conduct that creates an unreasonable risk to one’s self.

In 1979, Louisiana Civil Code Article 2323 was amended to provide for a pure comparative negligence regime where a plaintiff’s own contributing negligence did not bar the recovery of damages, but merely reduced it by his or her own portion of fault. The Louisiana Legislature, in 1996, further amended the Code, making Louisiana a “true” comparative fault jurisdiction and the language of that amendment provided:

In an action for damages where a person suffers injury … the degree or percentage of fault of all persons causing or contributing to the injury … shall be determined, regardless of whether the person is a party to the action, and regardless of such person’s insolvency, ability to pay, immunity by statute …

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A Saint Martinville, Louisiana, construction company, Cole’s Construction Crews, Inc., recently had a judgment against it reversed and remanded back to the trial court. Back in 2007, Cole’s had filed a lawsuit against J-O-B Operating Company. A few months after filing suit, Cole’s requested production of documents and sent interrogatories (or a list of probing questions) to JOB. Almost two years later, in July of 2009, JOB finally answered the requests. Then, in June of 2011, JOB filed a motion to dismiss the suit, claiming that Cole’s had abandoned the lawsuit. Ultimately, the motion to dismiss was signed, and Cole’s then attempted to get the motion set aside. The trial court denied this attempt, and Cole’s appealed the case to the appellate court to get it reviewed.

Cole’s claims that granting the motion to dismiss was an error that should be reversed. First, JOB had just answered the interrogatories less than two years earlier, and second, JOB did not file the requisite affidavit with its motion to dismiss. Ultimately, the appellate court disagreed with the trial court’s ruling and decided that granting the motion to dismiss had been done in error. They came to this conclusion by considering the various aspects of the complex Louisiana abandonment law, which is discussed below.

In Louisiana, Article 561 of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure imposes three requirements on plaintiffs in order for their lawsuit to not be considered abandoned. The first requirement is that the plaintiff has to take some sort of formal action before the court with regard to the lawsuit. Next, this action needs to take place during a court proceeding and must be in the suit’s record, unless it is part of formal discovery. Finally, this action has to take place in the requisite amount of time. If three years have passed without an appropriate action as described above taken by either party, then the suit is automatically abandoned. Even though abandonment is self-executing, defendants are encouraged to get an ex part order of dismissal, just like JOB did in this case, to make sure that their right to assert abandonment is not waived.

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A Louisiana volunteer firefighter, Rodney Champagne, who works for the Duson Volunteer Fire Department was injured around June 28, 2010, while testing fire hoses at the fire department. After the hose wall blew out, the hose struck Mr. Champagne in the head, ultimately causing permanent mental injuries. The contact also fractured his skull. In response, Champagne and his wife filed a tort suit, both individually and on behalf of their minor child.

A tort is basically just a wrongful act that someone does that causes them to be legally liable. These acts are not necessarily illegal, but rather, are acts that cause someone else to suffer loss or be harmed unfairly. In this case, the plaintiffs are claiming that the hose wall blowout that led to Champagne’s head injuries is the tortious act for which someone should be legally liable.

The plaintiffs filed suit against several defendants, but two in particular, Lavergne (another fire fighter at the same department) and AAIC (Lavergne’s insurer), tried to get a motion for summary judgment passed to excuse them from the suit. The motion for summary judgment argued that Lavergne was immune from tort liability because he is a co-employee of Champagne.

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In Louisiana, the Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) is responsible for the maintenance of public roadways “in a condition that is reasonably safe and does not present an unreasonable risk of harm to the motoring public exercising ordinary care and resonable prudence.” In order to accomplish this goal in a safe and legal manner, the DOTD follows guidance defined in the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). The issue in the case of Morales v. Davison Transportation Services arose out of a tragic multi-fatality multi-car accident in Madison Parish. The legal issue the Second Circuit Court of Appeal faced was whether or not to affirm a lower court’s granting of the DOTD’s Motion for Summary Judgment.

On November 7, 2007, a DOTD team was performing road grading on the inside shoulder of a flat and straight section of westbound I-20 in Madison Parish. A motor grader was scraping built up vegetation and dirt from the highway, and a shadow vehicle was following behind. The shadow vehicle was a truck that had an arrow board on top of it directing traffic into the next lane, a set of strobing lights and a sign cautioning drivers of the slow moving vehicle ahead. Records showed that the two DOTD vehicles were traveling approximately 3-5 miles per hour down the highway while performing their work.

The accident occurred when a semi-truck that was rapidly approaching the DOTD vehicles in the inside lane while trying to pass another semi swerved into the right lane but ended up clipping the back of the DOTD truck. The truck then hit the motor grader and ricocheted the first semi into opposing traffic were it collided head-on with an SUV. Both occupants of the SUV were killed, the semi driver suffered permanent brain damage and the DOTD truck driver was also injured. The children of the SUV occupants, the guardian of the semi driver, and the DOTD truck driver all brought suits for damages.

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The Berniard Law Firm’s principal attorney, Jeffrey Berniard, recently taught an Introduction to Personal Injury course. Having been an active part of Continuing Legal Education (CLE), Mr. Berniard was selected to teach the topic due to the firm’s specialization in medical malpractice, first party insurance disputes, and premises liability claims. Some of the topics covered included: Personal Injury Protection and First Party Benefits in auto policies; medical records disclosure including mental health and substance abuse treatment records; recoverable personal injury damages.

Under many state’s no-fault insurance laws, a claimant’s insurance company will only pay for Personal Injury Protection, or the first $10,000 out-of-pocket expenses. The remainder of expenses must be recovered from the Defendant. Many auto insurance companies do offer First Party Benefits packages, an optional supplement that will cover all medical expenses in the event of an accident for the policyholder or anyone else listed on the plan. However, many auto insurance companies also use a computer program that performs a calculation to value the severity of a victim’s injury. The program does not take into consideration the stress, pain, inconvenience, loss of enjoyment of life that a victim may have suffered.

Medical records unrelated to a victim’s injury, but pertaining to his/her health, are discoverable if “good cause” can be shown. Both state law and the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) apply to a consent for release of medical records. The consent must contain ten items, including a statement that the health care provider cannot condition treatment upon the signing of the consent for release. However, because of the broadness of the item language requirements, HIPAA, and state law, a health care provider may refuse to honor the consent. If a consent cannot be obtained from the patient, HIPAA continues to allow health care providers to release information with a court order or a subpoena. If an attorney issues a subpoena without a court order, the health care provider will not release information unless certain assurances are made.

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Louisiana strongly favors arbitration between parties when they have a dispute. Generally, it is less expensive and less time consuming than taking the case to trial. The arbitrator will determine the outcome of the damages based on an assessment of all of the circumstances in the case. Each side presents their side of the story so that the arbitrator can make a fair determination of the damages.

In many cases, once the arbitrator makes a decision, neither side can contest the decision unless it violates the law in some way. The Supreme Court of Louisiana has stated, “Because of the strong public policy favoring arbitration, arbitration awards are presumed to be valid. Errors of fact or law do not invalidate a fair and honest arbitration award.” National Tea Co. v. Richmond, 548 So.2d 939, 932 (La. 1989). This type of thinking makes it very difficult to set aside a decision of an arbitrator once it is completed. A case from the parish of St. Landry illustrates this idea.

In that case, the plaintiffs, a family that included two small children, bought a mobile home that they later discovered had mold in the walls and the roof had rotted. The mold likely contributed to their children’s breathing problems, and the family sought damages from both the manufacturer and the seller of the mobile home. The parties were required to arbitrate because the family signed an Arbitration Agreement shortly after they bought the mobile home.

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We wish all of our readers a happy, and safe, Mardi Gras holiday!

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