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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.

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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.

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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.

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While news stories often cover incidents where drivers facing second, third, or subsequent drunk driving offenses receive seemingly very light sentences, this does not mean that you should fail to take your DWI case seriously. Even first-offense misdemeanor charges can mean jail, as one southeast Louisiana man discovered when the Louisiana Court of Appeal refused to overturn his six-month prison sentence for the misdemeanor of operating while intoxicated.

During the early morning hours of Sept. 27, 2011, a Louisiana State Trooper observed Daniel Morales driving erratically in St. Bernard Parish. The trooper pulled Morales over and ordered the driver to perform field sobriety tests, which he failed. While in custody, Morales refused to take a breathalyzer test. He admitted having consumed 2-3 shots of whisky the night before, but he claimed that his condition was the result of having awoken very early that morning.

The trial court found Morales guilty of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, and issued him the maximum prison sentence of six months. Morales appealed the sentence, contending that it was excessive. The driver argued that, because the 2011 incident was his first offense and his illegal behavior neither caused nor threatened serious harm to anyone, imposition of the maximum prison sentence allowed by the statute was improper and that the court should have considered probation.

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A recent lawsuit has been filed by a tenant in an apartment building who allegedly injured herself after she stepped in an uncovered hole. Denise Sanders filed suit against Eagle Investments, Inc. and its insurer in the 24th Judicial District Court of Jefferson Parish. The plaintiff alleges that she is a tenant of an apartment complex in the City of Avondale and that while she was walking in the complex she tripped and fell after stepping in the uncovered hole. She contends that she has sustained serious personal injuries from the incident. The defendant is accused of failing to inspect the property, failing to properly maintain the property, failing to warn tenants of defective conditions, and allowing a dangerous and defective condition to exist. Damages are being sought for pain and suffering, permanent damage, loss of enjoyment of life, and medical expenses.

Many trip and fall lawsuits are complicated and need a highly experienced attorney to prove the necessary elements. These types of lawsuits are usually governed by Article 2317.1 of the Louisiana Civil Code. The article provides that “The owner or custodian of a thing is answerable for damage occasioned by its ruin, vice, or defect, only upon a showing that he knew or, in the exercise of reasonable care, should have known of the ruin, vice, or defect which caused the damage, that the damage could have been prevented by the exercise of reasonable care, and that he failed to exercise such reasonable care. Nothing in this Article shall preclude the court from the application of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in an appropriate case.” Res Ipsa Loquitur is a legal theory that will allow a jury to use circumstantial evidence to find that there is negligence when there is no direct evidence of the actual happening of the event. A classic example where this legal theory comes into play is in a medical malpractice action when a patient is injured while under anesthesia and the patient was injured in a place that is remote from the surgical site.

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Success in injury litigation involves several components. A successful outcome likely includes compelling facts and considerable credible evidence. In addition, a favorable outcome for an injured person also involves choosing the right person or entity to sue, especially when the injured person is trying to hold a person or entity not directly involved responsible for the accident. The rules regarding third-party liability substantially limit those who may be liable. For a woman injured in a 2011 auto accident, the Louisiana Court of Appeal ruled that the facts of her case did not allow her to extend liability to a Baton Rouge church for whom the other driver was interning when the accident happened, because the church did not maintain the required degree of control over the intern’s actions to create a “master-servant” relationship.

In January 2011, Ms. Cason was injured when her vehicle was struck in the rear by a vehicle driven by Mr. Saniford. When the accident occurred, Saniford was serving as an intern in Bethany World Prayer Center’s 220i internship program. That morning, Saniford was driving his mother’s vehicle and was picking up donuts for a prayer meeting at a local high school that he was to attend as part of his internship. The accident occurred while Saniford drove from the donut shop to the school.

Cason sued Saniford, Bethany World Prayer Center and Bethany’s insurer. The church and its insurer asked the trial to throw out the claims against them, arguing that Saniford and Bethany did not have the type of relationship necessary to impose legal liability for the crash on the church. The trial court agreed and granted summary judgment in favor of the church and insurance company.

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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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