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A group of experts in Louisiana worked for two years studying the state’s drunk driving laws. From that panel’s study came a set of reforms in the state’s drunk driving laws that passed during the most recent legislative session and were signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal. The reforms set out to, among other things, add greater clarity to the law and reduce the number of suspended or home-incarceration sentences.

According to a dailyworld.com report, one circumstance that the new law addressed was that of multiple offenders. The existing law created mandatory minimum sentences for various DWI offenses, but it did not remove judges’ discretion to suspend those sentences. As a result, even repeat offenders often served no jail time. Act 385 revised R.S. 14:98 to state that a driver convicted of his or her fourth or subsequent DWI offense cannot receive a suspended sentence.

If a driver acquired a third DWI after previously receiving a suspended sentence, probation, or parole, the new law requires that driver to serve two to five years in jail. The amended statute now requires these drivers to serve at least two years of their sentences before courts may consider granting them probation, parole, or a suspended sentence. The changes also take home incarceration off the table for these offenders, except in cases where certain special circumstances exist.

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Attorney Cliff Cardone has had the privilege of successfully representing multiple victims in a tragic accident that occurred at the Louisiana Superdome. During a Saints’ football game on December 16, 2007, an elevator crashed with 18 people on board which caused life changing injuries. Mr. Cardone was able to receive settlements for many of the victims, but did go to trial on behalf of the three remaining passengers. Judge Ethel S. Julien presided over the non-jury trial and found in favor of the three women who were parties to the case. The judge awarded over $2 million dollars in damages for surgeries, past and future mental and physical pain and suffering, past and future loss of enjoyment of life, past lost wages, future lost earning capacity, and past medical expenses.

The incident happened at the end of the football game as everyone was leaving the game. As the group of people were in the elevator, it went into a free-fall due to overcrowding. After being lifted back to an unloading position, the elevator fell again with the passengers on board. The judgment is against SMG, which is a private entity that manages the Superdome for the state. In 2012, attorneys for SMG argued that the company was only liable for a maximum amount of $500,000 dollars in damages. Louisiana law provides that there is a monetary cap of $500,000 dollars for claims against the state. SMG tried to argue that since there was a contractual relationship with the Louisiana Superdome and Exposition District that this cap would apply to them and that they could not be held liable for any amount over $500,000 dollars. However, the judge rejected this argument and allowed Mr. Cardone to proceed with their case in which they received an amount vastly greater than the cap.

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A recent ruling from the Louisiana Supreme Court changed the landscape of DWI arrests in the state, for it eliminated a four-item mandatory checklist created by the Louisiana Court of Appeal four years earlier in cases where an out-of-jurisdiction police officer stops a driver. The new ruling declared that the Constitution does not require checklists and that the proper analysis focused upon reasonableness under the “totality of the circumstances.”

The appeal involved the arrest of John Emmitt Gates. Gates was arrested by Brian Bell, a police officer in Haughton, a small town near Shreveport. Bell was on duty and within the Haughton city limits when a couple in a SUV told him about a suspected drunk driver. Bell spotted the vehicle the couple described just outside the city limits. Due to the driver’s extremely erratic driving, Bell stopped the truck.

Bell detained the driver but did not question or arrest him. When a Bossier Parish deputy arrived, the deputy performed a field sobriety test and arrested Gates for DWI. The driver argued successfully at trial for the suppression of evidence related to the stop, asserting that the stop was unconstitutional because Bell did not get permission from the Bossier authorities to stop Gates before doing so.

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A recent incident occurred that could have easily been prevented. David Jackson, 26, became involved in a road rage incident with a 50 year old male driver of a 2007 Chevrolet pickup truck. The incident started when Jackson flung a cigarette butt outside of his vehicle hitting the side of the pickup truck. When this occurred, the driver of the pickup truck followed the car and cut it off on purpose. The dispute raged on for a few miles on Interstate 10 until the driver of the car, Jackson, pulled out a gun and fired three bullets at the truck on I-10 near Williams Boulevard. Inside the truck was the driver’s 10 year old son, who suffered a graze wound and is in stable condition. After the shots were fired, the driver of the pickup truck rammed into Jackson’s car to make sure he would not get away. Jackson was eventually arrested by the police and charged for multiple felonies.

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Over the weekend a fiery crash occurred between two pickup trucks traveling west on Interstate 10. The crash happened on the Bonnet Carre Spillway Bridge, which has been proven to be a dangerous stretch of the interstate heading into or away from the city of New Orleans. The collision happened around 1 pm in the afternoon on Father’s day in which the police believe one pickup truck rammed into the back of another. The driver of the truck that was hit slowed down in order to avoid hitting the vehicle in front of him. Photos of the accident have been uploaded to social media sites which show the extent of the vehicle fire that produced a column of black smoke. Fortunately, the state police are reporting that there were no serious injuries.

This stretch of the interstate is known for horrible crashes due to the excessive speed of drivers and the lack of police officers patrolling the area. This section of the interstate often has one lane closed due to repairs on the bridge or the installation of traffic monitoring systems which lead to bad back ups and car crashes. A year ago, state police reported two fatal accidents that happened on the same section of the bridge as the crash that occurred over this past weekend. The fatal accident crash occurred around 4 am when a car was driving westbound when it hit the left guardrail and spun around facing oncoming traffic with its lights out. An 18 wheeler stopped to block the car from other vehicles but a street sweeper crashed into the 18 wheeler at a high rate of speed causing the death of the driver and passenger of the sweeper.

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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.

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.

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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.

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In this digital age, it seems that a social media site exists for nearly everything. This is even true with regard to law enforcement sobriety checkpoints. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have pages notifying users of the location of police checkpoints. While New Orleans law enforcement has criticized the practice in the past, other police departments have taken a more favorable view, seeing the sites as helping to place an even brighter spotlight on law enforcement’s aggressive effort to detect and arrest impaired drivers.
When the State of Louisiana issued its Highway Safety Plan for Fiscal Year 2014, it made some strong conclusions regarding drinking and driving. “Driving after drinking is taken too lightly in Louisiana. A cultural shift toward understanding the realities and consequences of drinking and driving must take place.” The plan also called for numerous sobriety checkpoints around the state.

According to WGMB TV, however, savvy Facebook users are using the social media site as a tool for escaping these sobriety checkpoints. A Facebook page now exists entitled “Baton Rouge DWI Checkpoints.” Baton Rouge Police Lt. Cory Reech told WGMB that the checkpoint-related social media sites were highly successful. “The Facebook page or the Twitter or any kind of social media explodes within a few minutes of us setting up a checkpoint.”

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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.

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A case recently argued before a Louisiana appeals court could potentially have statewide effect depending on its fallout. In the case, a man convicted of DWI is challenging the costs assessed against him, which included not only court costs, but “cost-of-investigation” and “cost-of-prosecution” charges, as well, the News-Star reported.

Jesse M. Griffin II was arrested for a first DWI offense in 2012. In Sept. 2012, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor and received a $600 fine. In addition to his $600 fine and court costs, which were payable to the Union Parish Sheriff’s Office, Griffin was also hit with an additional $200 — $100 for the cost of investigation and another $100 for the cost of prosecution related to his case.

Griffin objected to these extra charges, but the trial court ruled against. Griffin then took his case to the Court of Appeal, which heard arguments on the case earlier this month. According to Griffin’s attorney, the trial court includes in its orders tacked-on obligations of $300 each for cost of investigation and cost of prosecution (for a total of an extra $600) for every felony DWI case and $100 each (an extra $200 total) for the costs of investigation and prosecution of misdemeanor matters. The court order instructs offenders to pay their fines to the sheriff’s office and to make their cost-of-investigation and cost-of-prosecution payments payable to the “3rd JDDA Prosecution Fee”.

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