A motorcycle accident in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, claimed the life of a Minden, Louisiana woman on August 15, 2010. The motorcycle accident occurred on U.S. Highway 80. A wet roadway from a recent rain is a suspected factor in the crash. According to the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, there have been 29 deaths from Louisiana motorcycle accidents in 2010.
Continue reading
Baton Rouge, Louisiana trial lawyer, Donald W. Price, was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America ® 2011 in the fields of Personal Injury Litigation and Medical Malpractice. (Copyright 2011 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.). Inclusion in Best Lawyers ® is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 39,000 attorneys cast almost 3.1 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas.
Since its inception in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”
Continue reading
Baton Rouge, Louisiana personal injury attorney, Paul H. Dué, was again selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America ® 2011 for the seventeenth straight year (1995-2011), this time in the fields of Personal Injury Litigation and Products Liability. (Copyright 2011 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.). Inclusion in Best Lawyers ® is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 39,000 attorneys cast almost 3.1 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas.
Since its inception in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”
Continue reading
Many new Louisiana traffic laws enacted during the 2010 Louisiana Legislative session will soon go into effect. Included in the new laws are the following:
-(effective August 15, 2010) Text messaging, using a wireless communication device while driving a motor vehicle, are now a primary offense for all Louisiana drivers. Now that the offense is primary, police officers may initiate a traffic stop for the offense alone, without having another reason to stop the motorist. The new law also prohibits persons 17 years of age or younger from operating a motor vehicle while using any “wireless telecommunications device”, including cell phones, PDAs, laptops, pagers and similar communication devices.
-(effective January 1, 2011) the amount of time a minor with a learner’s permit will spend in supervised “behind-the-wheel” training will be increased to fifty (50) hours, with at least fifteen (15) of those hours to include nighttime driving. Those drivers holding an intermediate license (unless accompanied by a parent or guardian, a licensed adult at least twenty-one (21) years of age, or a licensed sibling at least eighteen (18) years of age), are restricted from driving from 11 pm to 5 am. The law also restricts them from transporting more than one passenger that is under the age of twenty-one (21) and who is not an immediate family member.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana trial attorneys, Randy Piedrahita and Kirk Guidry, of the Louisiana personal injury law firm, Dué, Guidry, Piedrahita and Andrews, obtained a jury verdict in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, in excess of $15,000,000. Multiple members of the same family were burned when their house exploded due to fugitive natural gas that was negligently released into their rent house. The gas utility, CenterPoint Energy, had turned off their natural gas at the meter due to non-payment of their gas bill. After several weeks, a family member broke the plastic lock placed on the meter by CenterPoint with a household wrench, forgetting that he had left an open gas line in the house after removing a gas appliance. Plaintiff Attorney Randy Piedrahita presented evidence to the jury that the plastic lock did not meet industry standards and that a metal lock, as used by many competitors, should have been in place to prevent consumers from turning on their own gas, so as to prevent foreseeable explosions. CenterPoint alleged that in addition to the plastic lock, that it installed a metal blind plate inside the meter to prevent the flow of gas, and that the blind plate must have been removed by the consumer. After deliberating for several hours, the St. Landry Parish jury disagreed, finding CenterPoint Energy 50% at fault for the accident and resulting burn injuries.
Continue reading
Louisiana State Police Troop F Troopers investigated the twenty-third fatal car wreck of 2010 on July 23, 2010, in Lincoln Parish, Louisiana. A Florida man was killed and several others injured when a 2002 Chevrolet Suburban traveling on I-20 swerved right and struck a 2002 GMC truck traveling in the adjacent lane. The injured persons were transported to Lincoln General Hospital for medical treatment.
Continue reading
Louisiana State Police Troop I investigated its 36th fatal car crash on July 9, 2010 on Louisiana Highway 347 in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. A Loreauville, Louisiana man who was not wearing his seat belt lost his life when he failed to negotiate a curve and ran his 1996 Pontiac Grand Am into a ditch, striking a culvert.
Continue reading
Courts have recognized the potential for a “conspiracy of silence,” whereby local doctors would refuse to find one another at fault in medical negligence cases, and the adverse effects this would have on patients. To offset this danger in Louisiana, the specialist’s duty is governed by a national standard of care. As such, a specialist is held to a higher standard of care because he has held himself out as having expertise in that specialty. See La. R.S. 9:2794; Ogletree v. Willis-Knighton Memorial Hospital, Inc., 530 So. 2d 1175, 1180 (La. App. 2nd Cir.), writ denied, 532 So.2d 133 (La.1988), citing Ardoin v. Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., 360 So.2d 1331, 1335 (La. 1978); and Bryant v. St. Paul Fire and Marine, 382 So.2d 234, 237 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1980), citing Ardoin v. Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., 360 So.2d 1331, 1335 (La. 1978).
Continue reading
A 19 year old active duty soldier was killed in a single vehicle car crash in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana on July 2, 2010, when his 1994 Ford Explorer ran off the right side of Louisiana Highway 120 in a curve. As the driver attempted to reenter the highway, he over-corrected and his Ford Explorer began to rotate to the left and then rolled over. The driver was not wearing his seat belt.
Louisiana State Troopers in Troop E have investigated 32 fatal car crashes this year, resulting in 37 fatalities Continue reading
The plaintiff in a medical negligence case is not required to show that she would have obtained a perfect outcome in the absence of medical treatment that fell below the accepted standard of care. Rather, the plaintiff may recover on a showing that the physician’s unacceptable care denied the plaintiff a chance of a good outcome. Graham v. Willis-Knighton Medical Center, 27,338 (La.App. 2 Cir. 9/29/95), 662 So.2d 161.
If a defendant physician, by action or inaction, has substantially increased the chances of a patient developing complications and damages, then such conduct by the defendant physician is considered to be a cause of the patient’s damages. Hastings v. Baton Rouge General Hospital, 498 So.2d 713, 720-21 (La.1986).
Continue reading
Louisiana Injury Lawyer Blog
