Louisiana Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
Imagine your property surrounded by land and water on all sides. Imagine that this land and water do not belong to you. To get to your own property, you use a wood trail, and you have used this trail regularly for four decades. But one day the surrounding land is sold, and the new owners want more privacy. They set up fences and “No Trespassing” signs to keep you off their property. Now your only access to your property is a public canal. Can the courts protect you? The Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal (“Appellate Court”) intends to do so.
Nestled in St. Martin Parish near Herman Dupuis Road and buttressed by a public borrow canal is a piece of land known as the Ovide Daigle, Sr. Estate (“the DE Property”). This property has been co-owned by Harvey Altemus for over 55 years. Since that time, the land surrounding the DE Property has changed hands, and at the time of litigation, the surrounding land was owned by Helene Jeanne Boudreaux, Faye Guidry Hebert, Shelby Guilbeau, Michael Kidder (D/B/A Kidder Corporation), Michael and Phyllis Marks, and the State of Louisiana. Each of these individuals owned a separate piece of property surrounding Mr. A’ property. Except for Michael and Phyllis Marks (“the Markses”), the property belonging to the owners was previously owned by ALC Corp. The DE Property is almost completely landlocked by properties not belonging to its owner. In fact, the only pieces of the DE Property not surrounded by other people’s property is the area buttressed by the public borrow canal. Mr. A cannot access HD Road, the nearest roadway, without crossing another owner’s land or using the canal.
In 1974, the Markses allowed Mr. A to begin parking on their property, and ALC Corp allowed Mr. A to get into his land by way of a 30 foot wide path that went over its land. This informal arrangement continued for 24 years until Mr. A learned in 1998 that ALC Corp planned to sell or donate its property surrounding the DE Property. On May 1, 2000, Mr. A and ALC Corp executed an “Access Permit” to give Mr. A official use of the path. ALC Corp then transferred all of its land abutting the DE Property to the State of Louisiana and sold several parcels of land bordering Herman Dupuis Road. The sale to Helene Jeanne Boudreaux (“Mr. B”) included reference to the Access Permit trail, even though this trail was not officially recorded at the time of execution. The rest of the property sold to Kidder Corporation, Shelby Guilbeau, and Faye Hebert were all made required to be subject to all previous servitudes and the like on the property. Mr. A continued using the trail until he met with Mr. B on this wood trail in 2010. After this meeting, Mr. B requested the State remove the Access Permit. The State agreed and sent a by sending Mr. A a letter to this effect. At this point, in 2011, Mr. A recorded the Access Permit, and Mr. B put up a fence blocking Mr. A’s access to his own property. Hebert and Guilbeau then put up signs on the property telling others entry was not allowed, blocking Mr. A’s opening to the trail. On September 4, 2013, Mr. A filed a Petition for Declaratory Judgment and for Damages against the State of Louisiana, Mr. B, Hebert, Guilbeau, and Kidder Corporation (the Markses were later joined in an amended petition) seeking a court recognition of the 30-foot trail as an apparent servitude giving Mr. A a right to cross the properties. Both the State and the Markses entered into Consent Judgments with Mr. A. The remaining property owners sought to strike these Consent Judgments. At trial, the court granted Mr. A his right-of-way and declined to award damages. Mr. B, Hebert, Guilbeau, and Kidder (collectively “Appellants”) appealed the decision of the Trial Court.
Entrusting a child to the care of a school bus requires a certain amount of faith that they will arrive at the correct destination, safely. For any parent or guardian this evokes a certain amount of anxiety. For a parent with a special needs child, this act of faith likely garners even greater angst. Unfortunately, one Lafourche Parish parent’s fears materialized when her special needs son was struck by a car at his bus stop one afternoon. Whether the Lafourche Parish School Board (“LPSB”) could be held responsible became an issue for a jury in this recent lawsuit. 
It’s the subject of Lifetime Channel movies but something that no parent ever wants to believe would ever really happen. A teacher, a person in authority over minors, takes advantage of a student and engages in sexual misconduct. When this happens, is it ever appropriate to apportion some percentage of fault to the student? In a recent lawsuit out of Calcasieu Parish, the school board attempted to answer that question in the affirmative, but was taught a different lesson by the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal. 
Families. While often a source of love and comfort, families can at times be the source of much conflict. Sometimes the death of a parent turns siblings against one another rather than binding them together. Greed can cause people to fight over insignificant or even imaginary problems. Such was the case for a large Allen Parish sibling group when they engaged in a legal battle over cows following the death of their mother. A battle that the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal refused to engage in. 
For a negligence lawsuit to have any chance of survival, an essential element is to show the plaintiff had damages. Often these damages are obvious physical injuries. Sometimes however, damages claimed are for emotional distress. Due to its intangible nature, emotional distress can be extremely difficult to prove and a lawsuit for such damages can be equally difficult to maintain. In a recent case out of the Parish of Lafayette, a Louisiana man failed to prove all the necessary elements to sustain his emotional distress lawsuit despite the lawsuit centering on a helicopter crash. 
Insurance policies can be varied, complex, and at times unintelligible. Policies are generally purchased for a time of need. Yet in many cases, the insurance company worsens a stressful event by denying coverage. Coverage can be denied for many reasons including when the claimant is an “uninsured motorist.” In a recent case out of Pointe Coupee Parish, an employee faced this label and a denial of coverage. 
Collision insurance covers car damages caused by driving-related accidents. For example, colliding into an object or another car, whether the insured driver caused this accident or not, are covered damages. Due to this breadth of possibilities, insurance companies write strict requirements into their policies, including the need to have a valid driver’s license on hand during an accident. A recent case in Louisiana involved Affirmative Insurance Company (“Affirmative”) denying collision coverage to an insured driver who did not have his license on him during a car accident on the intersection of Lapalco Blvd. and Ames Blvd. in Marrero, Louisiana.
Car accidents can have long-lasting effects that are not immediately apparent at the time of the accident. Victims may initially report that they do not suffer from pain, only to be struck with it days, weeks, or even months later. This pain can have debilitating effects on one’s current and future career, as well as on one’s mental well-being and relationships with others. If a victim is not careful with the doctor he or she chooses or the actions he or she takes, a jury may dispute the damages (money) a victim may be entitled to. If a personal injury case makes it to court, it is best to reach the ideal verdict at the trial court level, rather than at the appeals level. The following case illustrate this.
Louisiana practices many legal concepts not typically found in other states. One such concept is the “usufruct.” An “usufruct” refers to a right given from one property owner to another person named the “usufructuary.” The usufructuary does not own the property, but is free to use it as he or she pleases (short of destroying it). An example of this would be a business owner who names his friend as the usufructuary of the business, and that friend would be permitted to run the business. 
When you pay for a home to be built, it can be a stressful experience. That experience becomes even more stressful when you have fully paid for the construction of that home and the contractor ceases construction without even completing half of the construction. In such a situation, it takes an excellent lawyer to figure out who exactly is at fault for the failure to complete the job and how to get the money already paid back from the contractors.