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A woman who fell at a Shreveport supermarket was unable to identify exactly what caused her to fall and, as a result, was unable to proceed with her injury lawsuit against the store. Only after the woman’s husband returned to the store and photographed a crack in the store parking lot did the couple identify the cause of the accident. This was too speculative to constitute the necessary circumstantial evidence required to take the case to trial, the Louisiana Court of Appeal recently decided.

In the events leading up the injury, Yvonne and Aristide Ton had traveled to an Albertson’s store in Shreveport to do some grocery shopping. While walking across the parking lot, the wife fell, injuring her shoulder. No one saw the woman fall.

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Most drivers have, at some point, found themselves in the position of sitting at a stop sign and needing to navigate a cross street with stopped traffic. Sometimes, there’s even a “helpful” driver who waves for you to proceed. A woman in that position lost her case before the Louisiana Court of Appeal recently because she did not exercise the required degree of caution before crossing an intersection. The decision highlights that an anonymous driver’s waving does not diminish the level of care that the law requires of drivers at stop signs.

The accident that led to the lawsuit occurred at an intersection of two city streets in Monroe. Betty Blount was driving on North 8th Street and was stuck at the intersection of 8th and Louisville Avenue. As a result of another accident, traffic on Louisville was stopped in the outer lane. After spending several minutes waiting at the intersection, both Blount and her passenger, Joseph Solomon, saw a driver in the outer westbound Louisville lanes wave them through. Blount entered the intersection and was struck by a different driver, Sarah Tugwell, who was in the inner westbound lane.

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When you are arrested on suspicion of DWI, you may have the choice to submit to or refuse a chemical blood-alcohol test. If you choose to refuse, there may be certain consequences that go with refusing, such as the suspension of your driver’s license for a year. However, in some cases, you may be entitled to an immediate reinstatement of your license, as opposed to waiting for a year to pass. One driver arrested in Ascension Parish was entitled to such an immediate reinstatement, according to the Louisiana Court of Appeal, since the state failed to show that he had been previously arrested for DWI within the last 10 years.

The driver who contested his license suspension was Jay Veasman, whom law enforcement officers arrested for DWI in April 2013. Veasman was informed of his rights and elected to refuse a chemical blood-alcohol test. The state suspended Veasman’s license, and an administrative law judge determined that the suspension was proper. A trial court judge, however, disagreed and reinstated the driver’s driving privileges.

The state Department of Public Safety appealed but lost. One aspect of the case that favored the driver was the plea deal he worked out in his criminal trial. Although he was originally charged with DWI, Veasman and the state agreed to an arrangement in which the state dropped the DWI charge, and the driver pled guilty to Careless Operation of a Motor Vehicle. Since the impaired driving-related charges were dismissed, the 2013 incident alone could not stand in the way of the man’s immediate license reinstatement.

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Sometimes it is the auto or motorcycle accident you avoid that still leads to an injury. Two men whose vehicles narrowly missed each other on Highway 431 in Ascension Parish eventually ended up in a fistfight that left one man with a bitten nose and both men in court as a result of the bitten man’s injuries. Since the trial court had enough evidence to conclude that the biter was the aggressor, and not biting in self-defense, the Louisiana Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision to award the bitten man past and future medical expenses.

The source of the incident began when Clifford Barr attempted to turn left from Louisiana Highway 431 into the parking lot of an auto service shop. At the same time, Ray Schexnayder was turning from the lot onto the highway in his truck. The two trucks narrowly avoided colliding, and both men stopped their vehicles in the roadway, and a verbal quarrel ensued.

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In an important new ruling, the Louisiana Supreme Court decided that courts may impose cost-of-investigation and cost-of-prosecution fees on a driver guilty of DWI, even if those fees do not have a specific, direct connection to that driver’s case. The ruling, a reversal of a previous Louisiana Court of Appeal decision in favor of a driver, states that the Louisiana statutes give trial courts broad discretion in assessing such fees, as long as they are reasonable and not excessive.

The driver challenging the fees was Jesse Griffin II, whom law enforcement officers arrested in July 2011 for first-offense DWI. A little more than a year later, the driver pled guilty. He received a suspended jail sentence and probation, along with a fine. The fine was $600, plus a $100 “cost of investigation” fee, payable to the local sheriff’s office, and another $100 for the “cost of prosecution,” payable to the local District Attorney.

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A visitor to a department store recently lost her attempt to hold the store responsible for injuries she suffered in a slip-and-fall accident. The Louisiana Court of Appeal ruled that the store could not be held liable for the woman’s fall because she lacked “positive evidence” that the store had a dangerous condition that caused the guest to fall, and that the store allowed the dangerous condition to exist for an unreasonably long period of time without correcting it. The ruling points out the sometimes uncertain nature of pursuing a slip-and-fall case against a merchant that is based upon a theory that no possible explanation for the accident could exist other than the merchant’s negligence.

The incident leading to this lawsuit took place on a rainy June morning in 2013. Libby Ammon traveled to the Dillard’s store in Baton Rouge’s Mall of Louisiana to attend a 10:00 AM appointment with a Lancome make-up artist. Halfway between the store’s entry doors and the base of its escalators, Ammon slipped and fell. Ammon opined that, immediately before falling, she felt as though she had stepped “on ice or something.” Ammon fell on her hand and also hit her head and left side.

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When one is facing a charge of DWI, one can go to trial or engage in plea bargaining with the state. Deciding to negotiate a guilty plea, just like going to trial, carries with it its own set of potential advantages and disadvantages. If you plead guilty, the state can use that offense against you if you are charged again in the future for another DWI, unless you can show that your plea was improperly obtained. One driver from St. Tammany attempted to defeat his guilty plea by arguing that he did not knowingly and voluntarily waive his rights. The Louisiana Court of Appeal was unpersuaded, though, since the evidence in the case showed a knowing and voluntary plea, even though the trial judge did not obtain an express statement of waiver of rights from the driver in open court.

On Aug. 31, 2010, a Louisiana State Trooper reported to the scene of a single-car accident on US 190 in St. Tammany Parish. In investigating the vehicle, the trooper found a bottle and a cup that smelled of alcohol. At a nearby hospital, the trooper performed sobriety tests, which the driver, Thomas Mason, III, failed. A blood-alcohol test yielded a result of 0.17. The driver had alcohol, Ambien, Xanax, and hydrocodone in his system.

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An insurance company and an auto auction company will not face being sued for spoliation of evidence based upon their negligent failure to preserve a vehicle involved in an auto accident that injured the vehicle’s driver. The Louisiana Supreme Court recently ruled that the state’s law does not recognize a civil claim for negligent spoliation of evidence, although the companies’ failure may allow the injured driver to sue for breach of contract.

In March 2008, a multi-vehicle wreck left Richard Reynolds injured and his car totaled. Reynolds sued one of the other drivers, Robert Bordelon III, for negligence for his role in the accident. In addition to suing Bordelon, Reynolds also advanced claims against the manufacturer of his 2003 Infiniti G35, stemming from the car’s failure to deploy its airbags in the crash. Despite the driver’s alleged requests to the contrary, the auction company that took possession of the Infiniti on behalf of Reynolds’s insurer did not preserve the car, which meant that it was never inspected for defects.

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In a recent Southeastern Louisiana case, the expert testimony of two doctors, along with a driver’s own testimony, was not enough to secure a verdict in the driver’s injury lawsuit against the owner of her trailer park. Since a jury’s finding can only be overturned when it is blatantly erroneous, and evidence existed in the driver’s case that cast doubt on the credibility of the driver’s testimony and that of her doctors, the Louisiana Court of Appeal concluded that the verdict was not reversible.

The case centered around Wendy Richardson’s single-car accident in July 2011. Allegedly, the driver’s vehicle lurched when the right rear tire landed in a hole in the surface of one the entrances to the trailer park where Richardson lived. The driver claimed that the accident caused her to suffer serious neck injuries that required spinal surgery to address.

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Sometimes, when one driver crashes into another and injures or kills that second driver, there are more people or entities at fault than just that first driver. In the case of one motorcyclist’s death in a “demo ride” event, however, neither the event’s sponsor nor its host were liable. The Louisiana Court of Appeal agreed with a trial court’s conclusion that the deceased driver’s family failed to prove that the sponsor and host fell short of satisfying their duties to protect the safety of the motorcyclists.

In the early spring of 2010, Keith Alleman encountered a group of motorcyclists participating in a “demo ride” in a small town in Lafayette Parish. Alleman became distracted by the bikes and lost control of his car, slamming into a motorcycle driven by Ralph Doucet. Doucet died from his injuries.

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