Louisiana Injury Lawyers Blog

January 5, 2015

Trial Court Shouldn’t Have Punished Medical Patient for Expert Witness’ Disappearance

Personal injury cases involve lots of evidence and lots of witnesses. Managing all of this can be very challenging, but an injury victim is still responsible for meeting his or her deadlines. However, as a recent Louisiana Court of Appeal ruling highlights, the victim is not responsible for forces outside his or her control and, in a case where a medical patient’s expert witness suddenly disappeared, she should have received extra time to submit her evidence to the trial court.

The problems for Patricia Andre, a patient with cystic fibrosis, began when she was placed on the antibiotic drug Tobramycin in the hospital. After discharge, Andre continued receiving Tobramycin on an outpatient basis, administered by staff from HCS Infusion Network.

December 23, 2014

Emergency Vehicle Crashes

by Cardone Law Firm

Normally when a person thinks of an emergency vehicle, such as a fire truck, ambulance, or police car, he or she thinks of the different ways in which these emergency personal can help people in the time of a crises. However, these emergency vehicles do cause crashes and at a rate higher than a person would expect. These emergency vehicles are usually in a rush to another car crash, injury, or crime and forget that they have certain duties to other drivers on the road as well. From 1991 to 2000, the most recent years for which data is available, 300 fatal crashes occurred involving ambulances, resulting in the deaths of 82 ambulance occupants and 275 occupants of other vehicles and pedestrians. The 300 crashes involved a total of 816 ambulance occupants. Statistics also show that motor vehicle crashes are the second leading cause of death for on-duty firefighters. Fire truck crashes, occurring at a rate of approximately 30,000 per year, have potentially dire consequences for the vehicle occupants and for the community if the fire truck was traveling to provide emergency services. Due to the sheer size of the ambulance, fire truck, or other emergency vehicles, the injuries sustained from such a collision can be catastrophic. Louisiana law provides different duties for emergency vehicles if certain criteria have been met. Because of the complicated legal issues that arise when dealing with these types of crashes, it is important to have an experienced Louisiana personal injury lawyer on your side to know how to handle such a crash.

Louisiana Revised Statute 32:24 holds the key to what duties emergency vehicles have and when they apply. It provides:

December 1, 2014

State Allowed to Suspend Driver’s CDL Despite Dropped DUI Charge

by Cardone Law Firm

DWI/DUI arrests can be damaging for anyone, but especially so for a commercial driver. One man, who was arrested on suspicion of DUI but was never convicted of any crime, nevertheless lost his commercial driving privileges for a year. The Louisiana Court of Appeal ruled that the statute that pertains to CDL suspensions allows the state to suspend a driver’s commercial privileges for a year based solely on that driver’s refusal to submit to a blood-alcohol test.

Robert Navarre was pulled over in April 2011 near Lake Charles and arrested for driving drunk. The officer asked the driver to submit to a blood test, but he declined. Based upon the driver’s refusal to complete the blood test, the state’s Office of Motor Vehicles suspended his personal driver’s license for one year, as permitted by statute. The state also barred the driver from driving a commercial vehicle for one year.

November 27, 2014

How to Proceed with Your Medical Device Injury Case

by Cardone Law Firm

Patsy Grabowski’s personal injury action is a clear illustration that, even when misconduct and injury clearly occur, proceeding through the legal process can be filled with complications, often related to selecting the proper person or entity to sue. The woman and her attorneys had to go all the way to the Louisiana Court of Appeal to revive her case relating to harm she suffered from a knee replacement gone wrong.

In 2007, Grabowski went to West Calcasieu Hospital outside Lake Charles for a total knee replacement. After later developing problems, Grabowski returned to the hospital. She underwent a second surgery, after which her surgeon informed her that the artificial knee had malfunctioned because the manufacturer’s sales representative, who was present in the operating room during the first surgery, had given him the wrong-sized part. As a result, Grabowski had suffered damage to a tendon in her knee.

November 20, 2014

Nursing Home Patient’s Choking Death Case Must Go to Medical Malpractice Panel Before Going to Trial

by Cardone Law Firm

In Louisiana, all medical malpractice cases must first go before a medical review panel before proceeding to court. Despite arguments to the contrary by a nursing home patient’s family, a case involving the choking death of a patient was one of medical malpractice and not just simple negligence. The Louisiana Court of Appeal ruled that the case would require medical expert evidence in order to resolve it, so the matter was not one of simple negligence and would need to go before the panel before proceeding to trial.

The case pertained to the choking death of Jerry Don Campbell, who was a patient at Claiborne Healthcare Center after having suffered a stroke. In addition to the stroke, the patient had dementia and difficulty swallowing. On one day in June last year, Campbell retrieved a peanut butter sandwich from a sandwich cart and sat down to eat it. Some time later, nurses found him unresponsive. The staff transferred him to a local hospital, but he did not survive.

November 17, 2014

Supreme Court Says that Breathalyzer Technician Not Required to Testify in DUI Case

by Cardone Law Firm

A recent Louisiana Supreme Court ruling dispelled the notion that, in order to offer into evidence documents certifying the accuracy of a breathalyzer machine, the state was required to make the certifying technician available to testify. The ruling explained that, since the documents were “not testimonial” in nature, their admission without the technician’s testimony did not violate the Constitution’s Confrontation Clause.

The case stems back to the 2012 traffic stop of Maurice Hawley. After a state trooper stopped the man’s vehicle for speeding and an improper lane change, he suspected the driver of being intoxicated. Hawley blew a .144 using an Intoxilyzer 5000 device, prompting the state to charge him with driving while under the influence.

October 15, 2014

What You Post Can Be Used Against You

by Cardone Law Firm

In this new age of technology the use of social media has taken over the daily lives of people. As a society, people crave for attention and are constantly posting pictures of their daily activities including where they are, who they are with, and what they are eating each and every day. This constant posting on social media websites has become another arrow in the quiver of legal defense firms. As Judge Richard Walsh stated, “Only the foolish or uninitiated could believe that Facebook is an online lockbox for your secrets.” These social media websites have become very important impeachment tools for the opposing party. The credibility of the plaintiff will be shattered if he or she is caught on the internet running, jogging, or any other physical activities if in the lawsuit they are claiming injuries that will affect this aspect of life.

A recent case shows the ability of the defense to use these websites as evidence to impeach the credibility of the plaintiff(s). In McMiller v. HummingBird Speedway, Inc. the victim filed suit against the defendant for rear ending him during a cool down lap following a July 7, 2007 stock car race. The plaintiff alleged substantial injuries including possible permanent impairment, loss and impairment of general health, strength, and inability to enjoy certain pleasures of life. As the discovery process progressed, the defendants of the law suit discovered pictures and comments from a fishing trip and attendance to the Daytona 500 race in Florida. The Court in the case held that this information was public information and could be used in trial against the victim. The Court also allowed the defendants to receive the login information for the plaintiff to search for any other post or tweets concerning the fishing trip and racing adventure in Florida. Smoking guns such as these pictures or comments will severely affect your case. This is why it is necessary to have an experienced New Orleans attorney on your side to navigate you through these issues that can affect your case.

September 26, 2014

Jury Entitled to Favor Crash Victim’s Expert in Deciding Fault, But Statute Bars $1M Personal Injury Judgment

by Cardone Law Firm

Personal injury cases can be complicated and difficult generally, and they are even more so when the entity you are suing is a governmental one. While the law does impose certain limitations, success is still attainable with a sufficiently strong case. A recent decision by the Louisiana Court of Appeal upheld a jury verdict against the Baton Rouge Police Department, highlighting that juries have wide discretion in assigning greater or lesser credibility to one expert witness as opposed to another. The family could not receive the full award, though, since Louisiana statutory law caps personal injury damages for cases where the accused wrongdoer is a governmental entity, such as the police.

Nelson Dakmak, Sr.’s tragic auto accident occurred in February 2008 while driving in Baton Rouge. Dakmak was attempting to execute a left-hand turn when a police cruiser driven by Officer Stephen Tibbetts slammed into his vehicle. Tibbetts was driving in excess of 90 mph at the time in pursuit of a possibly stolen vehicle, but he had not sounded his sirens or turned on the cruiser’s police lights.

September 12, 2014

Appeals Court Upholds Jury Verdict Finding Doctor Did Not Commit ‘Inexcusable’ Delay

by Cardone Law Firm

A woman who suffered a neurological injury as a result of complications from knee replacement surgery saw her judgment and damages award wiped out on appeal recently. The woman had received an unfavorable jury verdict in her malpractice action against her doctor, but the trial judge in the case had ruled in her favor and awarded damages. The Louisiana Court of Appeal, however, ruled that both sides had enough credible evidence to support their positions, and, based on that, a jury verdict in favor of the doctor was not patently unreasonable and should have been allowed to stand.

The ill-fated procedure was Margaree Haney’s left knee replacement surgery, performed at Baton Rouge Surgical Hospital. After completing the procedure, Haney’s doctor, Janet Lewis, attempted to detect a pulse in the patient’s left foot but could not find one. After consulting with a vascular surgeon, Lewis transferred Haney to Baton Rouge General Medical Center. Eight hours after the first surgery, Haney underwent a second procedure to repair a damaged artery. Because of the time that elapsed between the two procedures, the patient suffered “foot drop,” a permanent neurological injury marked by the inability to lift the front of one’s foot.

Haney sued Lewis for malpractice, contending that the doctor failed to act quickly enough once a problem with the artery was detected. After a three-day trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the doctor. The patient asked the judge to issue a judgment notwithstanding the verdict (or JNOV) in her favor. The judge agreed, determining that the delay in correcting the problem was “inexcusable under the circumstances.” The judge awarded the patient $678,000 in damages.

August 27, 2014

Use of Incomplete Breathalyzer Test Result at Trial Triggers Reversal of Drunk Driving Conviction

by Cardone Law Firm

All criminal trials include the right of the accused to receive a fair trial. A man charged with drunk driving got his conviction overturned by the Louisiana Court of Appeal because the trial he received was not a fair one. The recent ruling stated that, when the trial court allowed the state to use a partial and incomplete breath analysis test result as proof that the driver had a blood alcohol content above .08 and had violated the law, it allowed the jury to be improperly prejudiced and necessitated a reversal of the conviction.

In May 2010, John Wayne Farley was involved in an auto accident for which he was at fault. Shreveport Police Police arrested Farley for driving drunk. During a breath test, Farley began blowing on the Intoxilyzer device but stopped breathing into the device before it could complete its analysis. According to the officer overseeing the test, the device’s display gave a reading of .17 prior to the driver’s discontinuation of the test.

At Farley’s trial (4th offense DWI), the state offered evidence from the officer regarding the .17 reading. The state used this evidence as proof of that the driver had a blood alcohol content above the legal limit of .08 and that the man was guilty of violating La. R.S. 14.98. The prosecutor told the jury several times about the officer’s observation of the .17 reading and reminded them that a .17 blood alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit.