111 results for 'court:"USDC Middle District of Louisiana"'.
J. DeGravelles orders the state of Louisiana to pay intervenors in a black voting rights suit, including several voters and a candidate for a state Supreme Court seat, the amount of $36,000 in reasonable attorney fees. The intervenors prevailed in their request to lift a stay of all Louisiana Supreme Court elections, pending reapportionment. The black plaintiffs were not "the driving force" behind the opposition to lifting the stay; state officials were, notably the state Attorney General who has since been elected Governor of Louisiana, along with its Secretary of State, who did not seek reelection. Both officials were heavily involved in the litigation surrounding whether the stay order would be lifted, and thus should have
known the intervenors would request attorney fees.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: DeGravelles, Filed On: March 6, 2024, Case #: 3:19cv479, NOS: Voting - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Government, Attorney Fees
J. Dick grants summary judgment to a Louisiana State University police officer, dismissing malicious prosecution claims by an intoxicated motorcyclist who tested negative for alcohol but positive for ketamine, an anesthetic that can induce sedation, pain-relief and amnesia. The undisputed facts are that the litigant drove recklessly, illegally turned around to avoid a sobriety checkpoint, did not yield to an attempted traffic stop by the officer and then crashed his bike in a single-vehicle accident resulting in his injuries. When deposed, the operator claimed to have no recollection of the events surrounding the 2018 incident, adding there is nothing that could jog his memory.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Dick, Filed On: March 5, 2024, Case #: 3:22cv12, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Constitution, Malicious Prosecution, Immunity
J. DeGravelles grants a request by an ophthalmology practice to dismiss a retina specialist’s fraud claim for lack of detail. The physician is given more time to address deficiencies in his complaint. His fraud claim is based on the practice’s alleged misrepresentation that the business was relatively debt-free during their contract negotiations. The doctor’s fraud claim may be reasserted on amounts he may be owed that are found in the discovery.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: DeGravelles, Filed On: March 4, 2024, Case #: 3:22cv3158, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Fraud, Health Care, Discovery
J. Dick grants remand on jurisdictional grounds to a construction company seeking to recover an arbitration award total of $711,000 from a bankrupt church. The church unsuccessfully argued the contractor’s attempt to garnish FEMA funds allotted to the church presents federal questions requiring federal jurisdiction. Simply because the contractor’s claim involves a federal grant, as the church alleges, does not in and of itself raise a federal question. In addition, there is no federal question raised in the contractor’s state court suit.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Dick, Filed On: March 1, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv332, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Arbitration, Enforcement Of Judgments, Jurisdiction
J. DeGravelles grants summary judgment to the insurer of the lessee of an oilfield service company’s truck and against the insurer of the vehicle’s owner. Both insurance companies are providers of co-primary underinsured motorist coverage in the accidental injury case of the truck’s driver, who was struck by another motorist. Although the insurer of the truck’s owner argues there cannot be co-primary policies because Louisiana law provides for one primary and one excess policy to provide uninsured motorist coverage, this incorrectly states the law.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: DeGravelles, Filed On: February 23, 2024, Case #: 3:22cv123, NOS: Motor Vehicle - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Evidence, Insurance, Vehicle
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J. Jackson transfers a Louisiana lawyer’s claims she was severely “eaten by bed bugs” during her rehabilitation stay at a Virginia-based drug and alcohol facility. The attorney fails to show her multiple payments to the rehab center confers jurisdiction of her payment dispute and bed-bug claims. Significantly, neither litigant requested the transfer. “Transfer, not dismissal, best serves to promote judicial efficiency, conserve the [litigants’] resources and avoid duplication of efforts.”
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Jackson, Filed On: February 16, 2024, Case #: 3:22cv114, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Tort, Jurisdiction, Contract
J. Bourgeois grants a request by a health care facility that treated a personal injury litigant, quashing parts of a subpoena by an insurer for information regarding the facility’s methods for determining the amounts to charge different patients for the litigant’s type of procedure. The insurer’s discovery requests impose an undue burden on the treatment facility because they include no time periods for assessing patient records. The treatment facility also has legitimate concerns that disclosure of its billing methods could affect its ability to negotiate a higher payment for its services from the insurer.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Bourgeois, Filed On: February 15, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv582, NOS: Motor Vehicle - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Health Care, Insurance, Vehicle
J. Doughty grants a request by presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a preliminary injunction barring the Biden Administration from violating the candidate’s constitutional right to free speech by discouraging social media platforms from publishing his anti-Covid-19 vaccine messages. Kennedy and other litigants have produced evidence of “a massive effort by the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.” The administration argues it was trying to protect the public health by discouraging Kennedy and others from spreading disinformation.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Doughty, Filed On: February 14, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv381, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Constitution, Government, Covid-19
J. Dick, ruling in a 91-page decision after a seven-day nonjury trial in December 2023, finds the state House and Senate electoral maps enacted by the Louisiana legislature violates the federal Voting Rights Act. Black litigants satisfied their burden of proving the electoral maps drawn by state legislators unlawfully dilutes black voting strength.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Dick, Filed On: February 8, 2024, Case #: 3:22cv178, NOS: Voting - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Elections, Government
J. Bourgeois grants a request by the manufacturer of a prescription medical device marketed as a noninvasive cosmetic surgery to remove fat, dismissing a patient's state law product liability claims the procedure caused her fat cells to thicken and expand instead. She does not directly state what warranty the manufacturer guaranteed. At best, she implies that the surgery was safe and would remove fat but this is not enough to support a breach of warranty claim.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Bourgeois, Filed On: February 7, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv692, NOS: Personal Injury - Health Care/Pharmaceutical Personal Injury/Product Liability - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Health Care, Product Liability, Warranty
J. Wilder-Doomes denies a request by the parish government of Baton Rouge to halt multiple civil rights suits alleging city police officers used a warehouse to strip-search and humiliate citizens during purported searches for illegal drugs. The parish has not established a stay of civil proceedings against officers of the street crimes unit at the so-called “BRAVE Cave” is warranted. No criminal charges have been filed and there is no information regarding the nature or extent of the overlap with any federal criminal investigation. However, the parish may re-urge its request for a stay, “if appropriate, as additional information develops.”
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Wilder-Doomes, Filed On: February 7, 2024, Case #: 23cv1313, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Emotional Distress, Police Misconduct
J. DeGravelles affirms a bankruptcy court ruling dismissing the voluntary Chapter 7 petition by the majority member, owner and past president of a real estate development corporation. The unanimous consent of the members of the limited liability corporation is required to file a bankruptcy petition. Chapter 7 proceedings cannot dissolve a corporation and bankruptcy code does not provide for the dissolution of corporations; any dissolution of a corporation must be effectuated under state law. Affirmed.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: DeGravelles, Filed On: February 6, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv383, NOS: Bankruptcy Appeal 28 USC 158 - Bankruptcy, Categories: Bankruptcy, Corporations
J. Jackson grants a request by the Army Corps of Engineers to dismiss landowners' claims seeking to reverse its denial of a retroactive permit for their recreational pond, arguing its reforestation plan would cost them $1 million to implement. The district court lacks jurisdiction, as the federal government cannot be sued under state law absent an unequivocally expressed waiver of sovereign immunity.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Jackson, Filed On: February 5, 2024, Case #: 3:21cv478, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Administrative Law, Property, Immunity
J. DeGravelles grants summary judgment to five juvenile sex offenders, declaring key parts of Louisiana’s sex offender registration and notification laws as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment right to free speech. The order bars Louisiana from enforcing a law requiring that driver’s licenses issued to sex offenders adjudicated as juveniles be branded with the orange phrase “SEX OFFENDER.” The state also is prohibited from emblazoning the phrase “SEX OFFENDER” on the identification cards of registered sex offenders who committed sex crimes as juveniles. Louisiana’s lifetime social media ban for sex offenders is declared inapplicable to adjudicated juvenile delinquents.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: DeGravelles, Filed On: February 2, 2024, Case #: 3:20cv837, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Constitution, Evidence
J. Dick grants a request by a movie production studio and the director of the film, “Emancipation,” dismissing a supporting actor’s claims he was struck in the face by a cable-suspended camera hanging in a dangerous manner while on the movie set. The actor's allegations of negligence and intentional misconduct resulting in injury are woefully insufficient to state a claim that falls outside the exclusive remedy of Louisiana’s worker’s compensation laws.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Dick, Filed On: January 30, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv168, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Employment, Tort, Workers' Compensation
J. Jackson grants summary judgment to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, upholding the agency’s 2014 decision to remove the Louisiana Black Bear from a list of endangered species after determining that its population had recovered from the threat of agricultural land clearing efforts in the early 1990s. The Service’s decision to delist the Louisiana Black Bear was lawful and not arbitrary or capricious, as litigant-nonprofit organizations alleged. The Service’s conclusions about the viability of the current Black Bear population were “based on its reasonable assessment of the best available scientific evidence.”
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Jackson, Filed On: January 29, 2024, Case #: 3:20cv651, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Environment, Evidence, Government
J. Dick grants summary judgment to a chemical plant and against a 5-year employee diagnosed with hypertension who was fired for excessive absenteeism. The worker who admits he did not take his blood pressure medication until five years after his diagnosis requested accommodations for his condition that were unreasonable. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not require an employer to allow an employee to miss work or come in late without prior notice or explanation, nor does it require a business to rewrite its attendance policy to accommodate an employee’s excessive absenteeism.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Dick, Filed On: January 25, 2024, Case #: 3:21cv282, NOS: Amer w/Disabilities-Employment - Civil Rights, Categories: Evidence, Employment Discrimination
J. Bourgeois grants and modifies requests by two former employees of a Louisiana-based insurance brokerage, ordering the company to produce redacted personnel files and job descriptions of their former supervisor. The duo seeks the information for its state-law unfair practices suit on the argument they were actually employed by the parent company of the brokerage, not the subsidiary, and, therefore, they were not subject to the allegedly invalid and overly broad non-solicitation agreements with its subsidiary.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Bourgeois, Filed On: January 24, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv596, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Employment, Trade, Contract
J. Jackson grants a bank’s unopposed request for $842,000 in attorney fees arising from a breach of contract suit but denies its “eyepopping” request for $504,000 in legal expenses and costs not normally awarded in federal court. The bank argues its deposit agreement does not limit the types of cost and expenses it should be allowed to recover and the bank should not be limited by federal law either. Ambiguous language in the deposit agreement precludes a finding the bank may seek limitless costs.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Jackson, Filed On: January 19, 2024, Case #: 3:19cv811, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Civil Procedure, Banking / Lending, Attorney Fees
J. Vitter denies summary judgment to university's board of supervisors, refusing to dismiss allegations it knew a college football player had physically harassed one female student before a second woman alleged he punched her so hard in the stomach he fractured her ribs. The two women have raised a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether the board exercised substantial control over the football player, who was ultimately expelled following his arrest for beating the woman and repeatedly disobeying court orders.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Vitter, Filed On: December 22, 2023, Case #: 3:21cv242, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Education, Evidence, Assault
J. Jackson grants a post-judgment request by an offshore marine transportation company and sharply reduces a jury’s award of $1.5 million in punitive damages to an employee for shoulder, back and neck injuries suffered in a personnel basket transfer. The employer’s conduct was “hardly reprehensible enough to support such a shocking sum.” The ruling reduces the punitive damages award to an “elevated, but constitutionally tenable” total of $90,000.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Jackson, Filed On: December 21, 2023, Case #: 3:20cv92, NOS: Marine - Contract, Categories: Jury, Maritime, Damages
J. Dick denies a request for a preliminary injunction by operators of a youth group home on their argument that a local zoning law prohibiting more than four unrelated individuals from living together in a single-family home violates disability discrimination laws. While the operators’ evidence shows four residents would not make a group home financially viable there is no evidence that financial viability can be reached with 10 residents in a proposed group home. The operators have not shown a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits of their case, a key requisite for a preliminary injunction.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Dick, Filed On: December 19, 2023, Case #: 3:23cv408, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Ada / Rehabilitation Act, Housing
J. Jackson grants summary judgment to a city, police department and police officer, dismissing false arrest and excessive force claims by a woman the officer Tased without warning after she twice swung a hammer at the head of another woman. The arrested woman failed to offer any evidence to rebut the officer’s version of events, and the Fourth Amendment permits an officer to use reasonable force to subdue a suspect that poses an immediate threat to the safety of others.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Jackson, Filed On: December 19, 2023, Case #: 3:21cv459, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Civil Rights, Constitution, Evidence
J. Jackson denies summary judgment to a Louisiana state trooper on her argument that a fleeing car passenger cannot produce sufficient evidence to support his claim she violated his constitutional rights when she shot him in the back during a traffic stop, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Having reviewed a security video in real time, a reasonable jury could find that the trooper’s conduct violated a constitutional right.
Court: USDC Middle District of Louisiana, Judge: Jackson, Filed On: November 28, 2023, Case #: 3:19cv391, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Constitution, Evidence, Police Misconduct