Articles Posted in Car Wreck

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LOOK OUT FOR MOTORCYCLES!!!

According to performance measures developed by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) and The Governor’s Highway Safety Association, 80 motorcyclists were killed in Louisiana accidents in 2011, 59 of whom were helmeted. On June 15, 2013, another fatal motorcycle accident occurred on Louisiana Highway 1065 in Tangipahoa Parish. A Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana motorcyclist was killed when a an oncoming pickup truck allegedly made an illegal left turn into a private driveway on Louisiana Highway 1065 near its intersection with Louisiana Highway 442 in Tickfaw, Louisiana. The motorcycle crashed into the side of the pickup truck and, despite wearing a helmet, the rider was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Louisiana State Police investigated the ninth auto accident fatality of the year in Troop D yesterday in Beauregard Parish, Louisiana. According to the LSP news release, a truck driven by an unbelted DeRidder man crossed the center line of Louisiana Highway 26. An oncoming SUV took evasive action, but was unable to avoid a collision into the belted driver’s door. The truck flipped several times, ejecting the unbelted driver who was pronounced dead at the scene. The belted driver of the SUV sustained moderate injuries. According to the news release, eight of the nine auto fatalities in Troop D were of unbelted drivers.

Nationwide statistics show that for SUV, pickup, and van occupants, seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 60%. And, while air bags can save lives of belted occupants, they can actually make injuries much worse for unbelted occupants. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana accident and injury lawyers at Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C. encourage everyone to buckle-up and to remember that most fatal crashes happen within 25 miles from home.
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Louisiana Trial Lawyer, B. Scott Andrews, of the Baton Rouge, Louisiana personal injury law firm of Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C., has been selected for membership in The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Trial Lawyers. Scott Andrews is already a 2012-2013 member of The National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40.

The National Trial Lawyers is a member-driven organization composed of premier trial lawyers from across the country who meet stringent qualifications as civil plaintiff trial lawyers. Through educational and networking opportunities, the organization strives to help its members build law practices which encompass superior knowledge, skill, experience and success.

Only top trial lawyers from Louisiana who are actively practicing in civil plaintiff and/or criminal defense law are eligible for invitation. Invitees must demonstrate superior qualifications, leadership skills, and trial results as a legal professional. The selection process for this elite honor is based on a multi-phase process which includes peer nominations combined with third party research. Prospective members of The National Trial Lawyers are carefully screened prior to receiving an invitation for membership. Membership is not automatically renewed; attorneys are reevaluated annually to determine whether their activities and accomplishments qualify them for continued membership.
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Every member (Paul H. Dué, Kirk A. Guidry, Randy A. Piedrahita and B. Scott Andrews) of the Baton Rouge, Louisiana personal injury law firm of Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C. has been named to the 2013 Super Lawyers list for Louisiana. The reason is clear – more than 25 years handling referrals of complex and difficult personal injury cases from lawyers around the world. This success is rooted in academia, with all firm members having graduated at the top of their law school class and having served as members of or as editors of their Law Reviews. The firm boasts former Louisiana Supreme Court and U.S. Fifth Circuit law clerks, Adjunct Professors of Law, past Presidents of the Louisiana Association for Justice, and both a former Louisiana appellate judge and an esteemed University of Texas Law Professor “of counsel”.

This background, combined with hard work and extensive experience, has led to hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts. This success has been shared with the many attorneys who refer cases to the firm – who find the firm’s experience and funding assistance invaluable in representing their clients.

The members of Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C. combine their academic backgrounds, practical trial experience and financial “staying power” to add up to success for clients and the lawyers trusting the firm with referrals.
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Baton Rouge, Louisiana personal injury trial lawyer, Paul H. Dué, has been selected by his peers to be included in The Best Lawyers in America, 19th edition for his work in the practice areas of Admiralty & Maritime Law, Personal Injury Litigation, and Product Liability Litigation. Listing in the 2013 edition marks fifteen years since Paul H. Dué was first listed in Best Lawyers. Through this distinction Paul H. Dué has proven to be a consistent and dedicated member of the law community.

Selection for Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive and rigorous peer-review survey comprised of more than 4 million confidential evaluations by the top attorneys in the country. Our annual Best Lawyers publication has been described by The American Lawyer as “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.” Because no fee or purchase is required, being listed in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor.

Best Lawyers in America is one of the most visible and targeted peer review publications in the legal profession.

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Dué, Guidry Piedrahita & Andrews has been named to the U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” 2013 list, with first tier rankings in Personal Injury Litigation-Plaintiffs and Product Liability-Plaintiff. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana personal injury law firm has been ranked in the first tier every year since the inception of the Best Law Firms rankings.

The U.S. News Media Group and Best Lawyers 2013 “Best Law Firms” rankings provide a comprehensive view of the U.S. legal profession that is unprecedented both in the range of firms represented and in the range of qualitative and quantitative data used to develop the rankings.

The third edition of these rankings features law firms given consistently impressive performance ratings by clients and peers. Achieving a high ranking is a special distinction that signals a unique combination of excellence and breadth of expertise.

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We lawyers are paid to talk, and talk we do. We talk too much. We never learn anything by talking, but we are driven to it.

I saw this at a closing I attended with my wife. The closing attorney talked the whole time, interrupted my wife and everyone else in the room, and insisted on his voice being the only one heard. It made my wife mad, and she felt that he refused to answer her questions. As a lawyer, I knew he was trying to explain the process; still, his inability to listen and understand the concerns of everyone in the room irritated me, too. He knew what he was doing and was trying to educate us, but because he didn’t listen (or at least appear to) better, he did poorly.

The hardest skill to learn is listening. When I went to the FBI course on Crisis/Hostage Negotiations, they taught me not just what to say, but what to hear. Jury selection in a trial is not just asking the right questions, but actually listening to and expanding upon the answers you get. Good lawyering requires good listening at all levels, and it is the hardest thing for us lawyers to remember, frequently because we are so unused to doing it!

Writing this column today helped me to remember that. Every lawyer (including me) has done exactly what this competent real estate attorney did. I am even embarassed to recall all the talking I did today without actively listening to what others said. I guess the lesson of this week’s blog is actively listening to everyone in all we do (lawyering or not) will make us do a better job, or at least be perceived as such. After all, isn’t how people perceive you almost as important as how you really are?

Randy Piedrahita Continue reading

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In Marcus v. Hanover Ins. Co., Inc., 740 So.2d 603 (La.1999), the Louisiana Supreme Court held that a “business use exclusion” in a personal automobile liability policy which excludes coverage for damages resulting from the operation of “your insured car, in any business other than an auto business,” is against public policy and is unenforceable because it contravenes Louisiana’s compulsory liability insurance law and the public policy of Louisiana, which is to provide compensation to injured third parties. Because there was previously a split in the law on this issue, the Supreme Court further held that because the insurer issuing the policy with the unenforceable exclusion, “had no intent to thwart such law and the public policy behind it,” that the policy would be construed to provide the statutorily required minimum limits of coverage, rather than the higher limits of coverage otherwise provided by the policy.

Based on the rationale of the Supreme Court, insurers maintaining policies after the Marcus decision with an unenforceable “business use exclusion” that excludes coverage for “your insured car” should be presumed to intend to thwart the compulsory liability insurance law of Louisiana and the public policy behind it, and the actual policy limits should apply to any covered loss under the policy.

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Using the duty/risk analysis, it must be determined whether the insured’s conduct of which the plaintiff complains is a legal cause of the accident. If so, then it must be determined whether the insured’s conduct arose out of the “use” of an automobile. In order for the insured’s conduct to arise out of “use,” the automobile must be essential to the theory of liability being asserted against the insured. The specific duty breached by the insured must flow from “use” of the automobile. If the specific duty breached by the insured existed independently of the “use” of the automobile, then liability does not arise out of “use” even though the insured’s duty could have been performed by use of an automobile. In the final analysis, common sense must be utilized in making the determination of whether “use” of the automobile is an essential ingredient of the duty breached by the insured. McKenzie & Johnston, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Insurance (West).

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Congratulations to Baton Rouge, Louisiana trial lawyer, Scott Andrews, of the law firm of Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C., for being recognized as one of America’s top young trial lawyers. Scott Andrews has been invited to join the invitation only professional organization, The National Trial Lawyers: Top 40 under 40. No more than 40 attorneys per state are asked to join and invitations are extended exclusively to those individuals who meet stringent qualifications, who demonstrate superior leadership skills, and who exert passion and personal conviction as a young trial attorney.