Around Louisiana

June 12, 2014

Louisiana Immunity Statute Prevents Injured Man from Recovering from Bar that Served Drunk Driver

In Louisiana, the law says that, when an intoxicated person caused an accident that injures another person, that intoxicated person — not the business that served alcohol — is responsible for the harm caused. The Legislature has enacted a statute that immunizes servers of alcohol for civil liability in almost all cases. That rule allowed a bar to escape liability recently for the serious injuries one man suffered when a bar patron crashed his car into the victim’s bicycle. The bar succeeded, and the injured man did not, because the Louisiana Court of Appeal ruled that the case simply did not fit into any of the narrow exceptions of the state’s “anti-dram shop” statute.

Read more about accidents involving bicycles.

The unsuccessful lawsuit stemmed from a fatal accident occurring in 2012. On Jan. 21, Mr. Branch had been drinking at a Baton Rouge bar called “The Bulldog.” Branch eventually got behind the wheel and crashed into bicyclists Mr. Morris and Mr. Crowson at around 8:45 at night. Branch drove his car over the lower half of Morris’s body, crushing his legs, hips and pelvis. Crowson’s injuries were even worse; emergency personnel pronounced him dead at the scene.

Branch’s blood alcohol level was .307, or almost four times the legal limit. Morris sued the bar, alleging that the conduct of its staff “affirmatively increased the peril” to Branch and subsequently led to the fatal accident. Bar staff served Branch numerous drinks, even after he became visibly intoxicated. In response, the bar asked the court to throw out the case, based upon Louisiana’s anti-dram shop law. The trial court agreed.

May 27, 2014

Appeals Court Revives Malpractice Case Stemming from Wrongful Sinus Infection Diagnosis

by Cardone Law Firm

A patient who suffered protracted negative effects because her doctor incorrectly diagnosed her encephalitis as a sinus infection received a renewed opportunity to seek financial recovery for her harm recently. The Louisiana Court of Appeal ruled that the neurologist the patient retained to testify as expert witness could opine about the proper standard of care of a general practice doctor.

In the spring of 1998, Jeana Kieffer traveled to the Ochsner Clinic in Metarie, complaining of headache, pressure, congestion, and fever. Jo Ellen Plunkett, a doctor at the clinic, diagnosed Kieffer as having a sinus infection and prescribed medication accordingly. Two days later, the woman began experiencing severe memory loss and difficulty breathing. Emergency room doctors diagnosed Kieffer with herpetic encephalitis. The patient eventually recovered but experienced severe headaches and other symptoms for nearly a year.

A medical review panel concluded that the doctor did not act inappropriately. The panel determined that the patient lacked the sort of symptoms, like neck stiffness and neurological deficits, that should have alerted the doctor that Kieffer had a more serious problem.

April 26, 2014

Railroad Not Liable for Death of Deaf Woman Struck by Train, High Court Rules

by Cardone Law Firm

A fatal accident occuring along a train track in a New Orleans suburb resulted in a tragic death and, subsequently, a lawsuit that made it all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Unfortunately for the family of the deaf woman killed in the accident, the high court concluded that the evidence in the case indicated that the accident was the result of the woman’s failure to look out for trains before entering the track, not improper warning signage at the intersection.

58-year-old Cynthia Tuckson was struck and killed as she walked along the railroad tracks at Taylor Street and Kenner Avenue in Kenner. The woman, who was deaf, could not hear the train coming and walked directly into its path. Witnesses at the scene told police that Tuckson did not see the train, according to nola.com. After the accident, Tuckson’s son sued the railroad, the conductor, the engineer and the city of Kenner for the wrongful death of his mother.

The son argued that the intersection where his mother died was inadequately signed, that the city and railroad had a duty to install active warning signals (such as caution lights or crossing arms,) but failed to do so and the failure to install this active warning system caused the woman’s death. An expert retained by the son contended that, due to the intersection’s limited sight lines and history of accidents, a warning system with lights and/or crossing arms was warranted. The trial court disagreed and granted a summary judgment motion that threw out the case, a ruling that the Louisiana Supreme Court concluded was proper.

March 26, 2014

Appeals Court Upholds Judgment Against Pediatrician, But Tosses Case Against Hospital in Infant Malpractice Case

by Cardone Law Firm

A family who lost their infant child at only nine days of age received a partial legal victory recently in the Louisiana Court of Appeal pertaining to their medical malpractice case against a Slidell hospital and a pediatrician. The appeals court decided that a lower court judgment against the doctor could stand, but that the hospital was not liable in the child’s death because the family’s expert witness failed to testify regarding how the hospital staff’s missteps caused the child’s fatal injury.

The case regarded the treatment of Alex Ducre Jr. at Slidell Memorial Hospital. The child was born at the hospital roughly four weeks prematurely. Although the child initially appeared healthy, he began showing signs of mild jaundice around 36 hours after birth. The child’s pediatrician, Phyllis Waring, nevertheless discharged him the following morning. Three days later, the mother telephoned the hospital because the child showed worsening signs of jaundice. The nurse on the phone told the mother simply to bring the child to the hospital the next day for a regularly scheduled lactation appointment.

By the time the child arrived at the hospital, he was lethargic, and had poor muscle tone with yellow skin and yellowing in the whites of his eyes. The hospital admitted the baby to the pediatric intensive care unit. The child’s condition deteriorated and he died three days later.

November 24, 2013

New Orleans Visitors: Know How to Deal With an Injury or Accident Far From Home

by Cardone Law Firm

Greater New Orleans provides a wealth of amazing tourist attractions. The area also boasts several outstanding institutions of higher learning, including Tulane University, Loyola University and Xavier University. The area’s attractions offer artistic, cultural and historical enrichment, but they also present, like any other location, the risk of injury. Whether you’re a student from out of state, or a visiting tourist or business convention attendee, knowing the proper steps to take if you’re injured here is essential to minimizing your stress and maximizing the protection of your rights.

Certainly, one of the most popular destinations for tourists and college students is Canal Street and the French Quarter. Recent events, though, have shown the potential for harm in this area. This past summer, a woman sued over injuries she suffered as a result of stepping into an uncovered water meter hole on Canal Street. A man also filed a negligence suit against a French Quarter bar in January as a result of a severe beating he received in the bar’s parking lot.

While neither the woman not the man may have been students or tourists, their injuries nevertheless spotlight the potential misfortunes that can befall students or tourists visiting New Orleans. Regrettably, injured students and tourists do not know how to handle this situation. Even if they recognize their injuries right away, they may not know where to turn. Others might not discover their injuries until they have returned home, and may feel at a loss regarding how to find an attorney now that they have left the state.

November 9, 2013

Failure to Diagnose Pregnancy Leads to Invasive Emergency Surgery, According to Patient’s Lawsuit

by Cardone Law Firm

Experiencing the kind of pain or illness that is bad enough to lead you to the emergency room is bad enough. When the medical providers whose assistance you seek fail to run the necessary tests to determine an accurate diagnosis, and you require invasive, emergency surgery two months later, that is certainly far worse. But that is exactly what happened to a woman when she visited a Jefferson Parish hospital recently, according to a medical lawsuit she filed in state court in Gretna.

Delores Penman-Sisson’s medical odyssey started with a bout of extreme nausea, vomiting and lower abdominal pain. She traveled to the East Jefferson General Hospital’s emergency room for assistance. While there, the staff allegedly administered several pregnancy tests that involved analyzing a sample of urine. However, because the woman had an ovarian cyst, she could not provide an adequate urine sample to yield a conclusive test. In addition to urine-based pregnancy tests, another type of pregnancy test analyzed the woman’s blood.

Two months later, medical professionals determined that the woman actually was pregnant. She had an ectopic pregnancy. In a normal pregnancy, a fertilized egg attaches itself to the lining of the mother’s uterus. In an ectopic pregnancy, the fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus. The most common type of ectopic pregnancy occurs in the fallopian tubes (known as a “tubal pregnancy,”) but ectopic pregnancies may also occur in the abdominal cavity, ovary or cervix.

October 29, 2013

St. Bernard Parish Family Achieves Settlement in Water-Borne Amoeba Death Case

by Cardone Law Firm

A St. Bernard Parish man almost certainly had no idea the peril that awaited him when he decided to use a common device to clear his sinuses. In the wake of the man’s death from a rare, brain-eating amoeba, the makers of the medical device and the home water heater the man used have settled a wrongful death claim initiated by the man’s parents, the Washington Post reports.

In 2011, Jeffrey Cusimano decided to use a “neti pot” to clear his sinuses. Neti pots work by thinning mucus and flushing it from the user’s sinus passages. After using the device, a parasitic amoeba entered the man’s system and he developed meningioencephalitis. The amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, enters the body through the nose. Cusimano died on June 7, 2011.

The man’s parents sued both the neti pot manufacturer, NeilMed Pharmaceuticals Inc., and the maker of his home water heater, Rheem Manufacturing Co., in federal court. The family alleged that both devices contributed to the fatal case of meningitis. The water heater was defective and unreasonably dangerous, the parents maintained, because it failed to heat the home’s water to a temperature high enough to kill the amoeba. The neti pot was also defective and unreasonable dangerous because its construction or material makeup allowed the amoeba build up and flourish, according to the complaint.

September 17, 2013

Overlooked Surgical Sponge Leads to Injury, Lawsuit in Louisiana

by Cardone Law Firm

Patients are often fearful of many things when they enter a hospital for surgery. One thing they likely don’t think about, and shouldn’t need to, is having surgical implements or materials forgotten and left in their bodies after the procedure’s conclusion. One Louisiana man claims he recently suffered such a fate at the West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero. According to the patient, the hospital staff failed to account for all of the surgical sponges it used during his colon cancer surgery and left one behind, leading to fever, drainage, bloating and swelling.

Charles Anderson initially faced the stressful news, following a colonoscopy, that he had colon cancer. In the spring of 2010, Anderson underwent surgery to treat his cancer. Anderson’s problems worsened after the surgery. He began experiencing high fevers shortly after the procedure and later noticed heavy abdominal bloating and swelling in his right abdomen. That fall, doctors performed a body scan on Anderson, whereupon they discovered a surgical sponge inside his body. The forgotten sponge required Anderson to undergo another surgery to remove it.

The patient filed a medical malpractice suit against the hospital and his surgeon for his injuries. Anderson contended that the hospital and the surgeon failed to maintain a proper count of the surgical sponges used on (and removed from) his body, failed to have proper safety procedures in place, failed to ensure competence among the staff, and failed to monitor the post-operative infection he developed to a proper extent. Anderson is seeking an unspecified amount of damages for his pain and suffering, medical expenses, emotional distress, mental anguish, loss of earning capacity, impairment and disfigurement.

August 28, 2013

Louisiana Dog Bites: News & Important Laws to Know

by Cardone Law Firm

The call for tougher laws regulating potentially vicious dogs is being made in Louisiana. The vicious attack of a Westwego, LA woman has thrown a new light on the discussion. Linda Henry, a former pitbull lover and owner, was mauled by 3 of her own pitbulls, losing both arms, an eyelid and part of her scalp in the attack. She is thankful she survived the attack but she has since, understandably, changed her tune on pitbull regulation.

City Council member Glenn Green is one of the public advocates on her side, hoping to pass a proposal that would levy strict regulations against pit bull owners. One of his aims is to impose a one hundred thousand dollar liability insurance policy on owners of the breed. Opponents of the proposal claim that focusing solely on pit bulls is not a solution to the problem and in fact unfairly singles out pit bull owners without addressing problems involving other breeds.
Louisiana is a “strict liability state,” which means the victim of a dog bite needs to prove the attack was something the owner of the dog could have reasonably prevented. Provided this can be done, the dog’s owner will be held responsible for damages and, in addition, may be fined for failure to properly follow current regulations governing the restraint of their pet.

August 7, 2013

Exercising Errors: When Injury Occurs in the Gym

by Cardone Law Firm

The Cardone legal team has discussed on this blog the risks of medical malpractice and the possible methods of recovery. The potential to be injured by a trained professional, however, is not limited to the medical field, we put our body’s safety in the hands of “trained” professionals on a daily basis and may need remedies if something goes wrong.

Back in 2010, a negligence lawsuit was filed in Orleans Parish District Court against a Louisiana personal trainer who was accused of causing the injuries of a New Orleans woman. The woman, Ms. Wallace, participated in a weight-training program under the supervision and guidance of the personal trainer.