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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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A Jefferson Parish man received a decade in jail and a $5,000 fine for his 2013 DWI conviction. Why was his sentence so severe? Because the year before, the driver, facing four counts of DWI among other charges, negotiated his own plea deal without the assistance of an attorney. That 2012 deal resulted in four convictions on the four DWI counts, meaning that the state was entitled to charge him in 2013 as a fifth-time DWI offender. The Louisiana Court of Appeal recently affirmed his conviction and sentence on the 2013 charge, concluding that the man understood what he was doing when he voluntarily waived his right to an attorney in the first case.

John Henry Boyd, Jr. appeared in court in Jefferson Parish in April 2012 facing four counts of DWI, along with charges of resisting arrest, driving without a license, and possession of alcohol in a vehicle. Boyd, who was proceeding without a lawyer, agreed to take a deal offered by the prosecutor in which he pled guilty on all four DWI charges. In exchange, the state would drop the other charges Boyd was facing. Boyd signed four forms stating that his intent was to waive his rights and plead guilty.

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A Jefferson Parish couple received a damages award in excess of $300,000 after their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter broke her arm while playing on a piece of playground equipment meant for children ages five and up. The fact that the child’s daycare satisfied the state’s standards for the minimum teacher-to-child supervision ratios did not automatically shield it from liability. Even though the daycare was adequately staffed, the Louisiana Court of Appeal decided that it could be found liable for not preventing the child from playing on equipment unsafe for someone of her age.

The accident victim was Kaitlyn Skillman, a toddler who attended the daycare facility owned and operated by the Riverside Baptist Church in Jefferson Parish. In September 2010, the 19-month-old girl fell from some playground equipment and injured her arm. The playset from which the child fell was recommended for children no younger than age five.

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A New Orleans woman suffered a significant leg injury when she fell on the property of the apartment she rented. The woman’s landlords sought to escape liability for her injuries by arguing that the hole that felled the tenant was “open and obvious” to all. The Louisiana Court of Appeal‘s recent decision upholding a trial court’s refusal to grant summary judgment in favor of the landlords provided an insightful recitation regarding what a property owner must show to succeed on a claim of “open and obvious danger” in a premises liability case.

The case pitted a tenant, Jennifer Hooper, against her landlords, Val and Mary Brown. The apartment Hooper rented, located off Canal Boulevard, had a wooden front porch that, according to the tenant, contained at least one board that was rotten, leaving a hole in the porch. The landlords allegedly promised numerous times to fix the porch, but they did not. In September 2013, the tenant, who temporarily required the assistance of crutches, fell while attempting to enter the apartment, breaking her leg.

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If you’re arrested on suspicion of DWI, you have the option of refusing a chemical test to measure your blood-alcohol content. If you are arrested multiple times and refuse multiple tests, this may have an impact on the status of your Louisiana driver’s license. If the state suspends your license, the law gives you certain rights with regard to challenging that suspension. In one recent case, a ruling against a driver was overturned by the Louisiana Court of Appeal because a District Court did not follow the correct procedure for hearing the driver’s challenge of his license suspension.

The driver involved was Johnny Cook, Jr., whom law enforcement officers arrested in March 2013 on suspicion of driving drunk. The driver received the option of submitting to a breathalyzer test. Both the driver and the arresting officer signed a form stating that the officer informed the driver of his rights regarding chemical tests. Cook refused the test.

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Nursing home staffs have a duty to care for their vulnerable patients, and cases of negligence are a breach of that duty. Families who find themselves in this position must move swiftly because the law imposes strict deadlines for action. The law may, however, delay these deadlines if the patient’s family neither knew nor should have known about the misconduct, which was a key factor in a patient’s family’s recent victory before the Louisiana Court of Appeal.

Delvin Hume’s family placed him in the Ferncrest Manor Living Center in 2009 for a one-month stay while his wife underwent and recovered from eye surgery. Within less than a week, the patient allegedly fell from his bed and missed his diabetes medication because the nursing home staff erroneously refused to administer it.

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If you’ve been injured in an accident that was the fault of another driver, there’s a lot that goes into obtaining a successful outcome in court and recovering the compensation you deserve. You not only have to prove that the other driver was negligent, but also that you suffered injuries that were the result of that accident. One Jefferson Parish driver’s personal injury case failed, not because the driver did not have injuries and not because the other driver wasn’t negligent, but because the jury did not believe that the driver’s injuries were caused by the accident, and the Louisiana Court of Appeal recently upheld that decision.

The lawsuit arose from an auto accident that occurred on the day after Thanksgiving 2010 in Jefferson Parish. Andre Stevenson was in a gas station parking lot, waiting to turn right onto Veterans Memorial Boulevard when a Chrysler driven by Sandra Serth slammed into a Nissan, which caused the Nissan to collide with Stevenson’s vehicle. Stevenson sought medical care for his injuries, and an MRI revealed two bulging discs in his neck and one torn disc in his back.

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