In an appeal filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, from the Western District of Louisiana, the Court affirmed a district court verdict ruling in favor for the IRS. The Plaintiff, S.P. Lewis was ordered to pay monthly installments to the government to pay for…
Louisiana has a Direct Action Statute that allows injured third parties to sue an insurance company directly when the insurance company’s insured causes an injury. For example, if you are involved an automobile accident where you are not at fault, you can sue the at-fault driver’s insurance company directly instead of suing the…
When you signed up for automobile insurance, you might have noticed that many states now require automobile insurance agencies to include some sort of uninsured motorist (“UM”) clause in your insurance agreement. Oftentimes, the only way to get out of including this in your coverage, and therefore having to pay…
In a previous blog post, we discussed how exactly uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM) benefits can be rejected in Louisiana. While that post went through some of the legal technicalities involved in rejecting UM coverage, it did not discuss in depth some of the scenarios in which coverage might be rejected and…
If you have ever been injured on the job or if you have ever known an employee who broke the law while on the job, you might know something about an employee-employer relationship and the legal obligations that come with such a relationship. Typically, if you are working for an…
One area where lawyers must continue to improve is drafting contracts. It is imperative that lawyers learn the intricacies of legal writing and the different meanings words have in the legal community and their ordinary meaning. If a word or phrase in a company’s contract is ambiguous, it is susceptible…
In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Louisiana legislature set deadlines for the filing of claims for damages resulting from the hurricanes. These dates were September 1, 2007 for claims of damage resulting from Hurricane Katrina and October 1, 2007 for claims of damage resulting from Hurricane Rita.…
Regardless of your level of legal training, we’re all guilty of ignoring the fine print but insurance coverage is often determined by the placement of an unnoticed word or punctuation mark in the language of the policy. Under Louisiana law, the insured bears the burden of proving that an incident…
Defendant Robert Turnage was in an accident with Plaintiffs Heather and Nicholas Tate on Memorial Day 2011 on Louisiana Highway 28 East, in Pineville. Tate attempted to pull out of a McDonald’s parking lot when she was struck my Turnage’s vehicle. Tate filed a petition for damages and the trial…
In April 2010, an offshore drilling rig, the Deepwater Horizon, exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven workers died and crude oil from the well spilled into the Gulf for months after the accident. The result was a mass of litigation involving multiple defendants. In order to deal…