Louisiana Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
In a recent personal injury case, the plaintiff, Angela Lawrence, from Ouachita, Louisiana, sued her 76 year old grandmother Dorothy Dell Sanders and Allstate Insurance Company, for injuries sustained when Ms. Lawrence fell from the top of a ladder after cleaning her grandmother’s roof. Ms. Lawrence was no stranger to the task her grandmother asked her to complete. From the age of 15 until the time of the accident, Ms. Lawrence had performed the task of going up a ladder and cleaning her grandmother’s roof approximately 20-24 times. Although on the day of the accident, the circumstances changed. The usual ladder that Ms. Lawrence normally used was stolen, so Ms. Lawrence elected to use an older, shorter ladder than usual. Ms. Lawrence did not tell her grandmother that she did not want to use this replacement ladder and elected to clean the roof even though her grandmother, Ms. Sanders, was not insistent that the job be completed immediately.
After her fall Ms. Lawrence filed a lawsuit against her grandmother and her homeowners’s insurance company. In that lawsuit Ms. Lawrence claimed that the ladder was defective and that her grandmother, Ms. Sanders, was negligent in letting Ms. Lawrence use a defective ladder. As the claimant in the lawsuit, Ms. Lawrence not only needed to allege the injuries caused to her by the defendants, she must also prove her injuries were the fault of the defendants. Ms. Lawrence’s only evidence was her own deposition, her statement to the court about what happened.
Ms. Lawrence alleged that she was injured due to the dangerous and defective condition of the ladder, which caused her to fall and sustain injuries to her wrist, neck and back. Ms. Lawrence testified that she thought the ladder fell by “someone not holding it” but did not ask for her aunt or grandmother to hold the ladder for her. After the accident, AllState conducted an investigation and determined that the ladder was not damaged. As it stood, it was Ms. Lawrence’s word that the ladder was defective against AllState’s investigation, and Ms. Lawrence’s words alone were not enough for the case to withstand a filing for a summary judgment by the Defendants.
In bringing or defending against a lawsuit, an important question is which court should hear the merits of the dispute, a state court or a federal court. Any court hearing the lawsuit must have “jurisdiction”; the power to hear a particular dispute. Under 
Some forms of business entities protect their members from certain liabilities and legal actions that might be taken against them. One of these forms is a limited liability company. The Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided that the protection afforded under this form of company was enough to protect the defendant from going forward to full trial.
Usually, an employee’s sole remedy against his employer for an on-the-job injury is worker’s compensation. Louisiana law creates a statutory presumption of employment status, meaning that any worker injured while providing work for a trade, business, or occupation is assumed to be a person who is covered by the Worker’s Compensation Act. 
When a Louisiana resident is injured, she should consider filing a lawsuit against the person, group, or organization whose negligent or intentional acts were a proximate cause of the injury. However many potential plaintiffs do not realize that there may be several other persons and entities, not readily perceptible to the layman, who could be added as defendants and help ensure the plaintiff’s just compensation. Additional defendants can be extremely helpful when a plaintiff is going after substantial compensation because there will be more individuals to help pay out the sum should one or more parties be unable to pay a judgment due to bankruptcy or some other issue. Accordingly when Kenneth Truxillo was injured while attending pre-game festivities at Champions Square, the outdoor entertainment area bordering the Mercedes Benz Superdome, he did not just seek compensation from the owners of the Superdome but added several other defendants that he believed shared responsibility for his injuries.
Prescription is a legal doctrine that serves to prevent people from filing lawsuits after a specified lapse of time has passed. The public policy behind the idea of prescription is not to prevent people who have been harmed from receiving relief. Instead, prescription is meant to allow someone who has caused harm piece of mind knowing that they cannot be sued after the passage of a certain period of time. Prescription allows lawsuits to be brought up to a certain time after the events leading to a lawsuit have occurred. These time limits are commonly specified in the specific texts of the laws they serve. 
When a person files a lawsuit, they generally have the right to be heard on their complaint. However, depending on when the lawsuit is brought, the action may be barred due to the lapse of time between the events leading to the lawsuit and the date the lawsuit is filed. This rule is known as prescription and the problems that can arise for plaintiffs from this rule can be seen in a lawsuit arising out of of Hammond, Louisiana.
Fortune 500 company, Johnson & Johnson is in hot water over recent lawsuits contending that the medical device, pharmaceutical and consumer goods manufacturer was aware of an increased risk of ovarian cancer in women who regularly used talcum powder on or near their genital region, but failed to disclose those dangers to its Baby Powder consumers. The company’s Baby Powder product is talcum powder, or talc, based. Amidst the potential and pending lawsuits, which now number over 1,000 and span across the nation, arising against Johnson & Johnson, we broke down five things you should know about the recent and potential claims.