315 results for 'court:"USDC Eastern District of Louisiana "'.
J. Fallon grants a request by officials of a parish council, dismissing the claims of a resident alleging they violated his due process rights by improperly denying him a permit to sell Valentine���s Day gifts. The entrepreneur���s councilman withdrew an enabling resolution, after admonishing the resident for his treatment of council staff. He accused parish elected officials of abuse of power. The Valentine���s Day salesman���s suit is dismissed as previously litigated in state courts.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Fallon, Filed On: May 1, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv2035, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Procedure, Constitution, Government
J. Vance grants the unopposed request for summary judgment to a Toyota manufacturer and a sales company, dismissing product liability claims by the driver of a 2014 Lexus ES350 who alleges injuries from the car���s airbag failure to deploy when he crashed into a guard rail. The Toyota companies presented certified medical records taken at the hospital where the litigant was treated after the accident, in which the treating physician stated that he reportedly ���drank a significant amount of alcohol and then crashed his car on purpose [in] an attempt to end his life secondary to depression and suicidal thoughts after a break-up 5 months ago.��� Furthermore, the litigant has failed to present evidence sufficient to establish the essential elements of his defective airbag claims.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Vance, Filed On: May 1, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv4607, NOS: Personal Injury - Product Liability - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Evidence, Vehicle, Product Liability
J. Milazzo grants a preliminary injunction to a 71-year-old widow with a medical condition and sole custody of her 6-year-old granddaughter. The Louisiana Department of Health is ordered to continue paying the woman���s Medicaid health premium while she challenges the state���s termination of her benefit based on its ���size of the family��� criteria that does not include children or grandchildren. Louisiana stopped paying the grandmother���s monthly Medicaid premium in early April 2024, based on its conclusion she lived in a one-person home, a finding that does not include the child, who is dependent upon her for financial support. Louisiana���s Medicaid manual limits the state���s family size criteria to a household of two - an applicant and an eligible spouse.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Milazzo, Filed On: April 30, 2024, Case #: 2:24cv728, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Government, Health Care, Medicaid
J. Africk denies summary judgment to an insurer and its insured homeowners on claims the insurer acted in bad faith by failing to pay for hurricane damages within 30 days upon proof of loss. ���Although the question is close,��� the facts of the payment at issue are sufficient to create a genuine dispute as to whether the original inspection constituted satisfactory proof of loss.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Africk, Filed On: April 30, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv377, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Insurance, Damages
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J. Currault denies the request of a prevailing litigant to compel the remote deposition of former counsel in the case of a man accused of falsely representing his HIV status to induce unprotected sex, resulting in litigant���s infection with the incurable virus after a sexual encounter in 2019. The former counsel has intervened to assert a lien and any recovery the prevailing litigant may realize from a ruling of default judgment. The prevailing litigant���s recent voluntary relocation to Poland does not, on its own, constitute good cause to order remote depositions. Moreover, he has not argued that travel to New Orleans for the depositions would jeopardize his health or impose a financial burden.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Currault, Filed On: April 25, 2024, Case #: 2:21cv2242, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Civil Procedure, Evidence, Discovery
J. Fallon finds an international commodity trading company based in the U.K. is entitled to $629,000 in unpaid invoices for fuel delivered to a cargo vessel in Spain. The fuel provider has not been paid by either of two charterers or the vessel. The vessel was arrested in the Port of New Orleans and released on a $775,000 bond. The commodity trader is provided to a maritime lien against the vessel���s owner for the unpaid fuel, plus interest and fees for a total amount of $722,000.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Fallon, Filed On: April 25, 2024, Case #: 23cv595, NOS: Marine - Contract, Categories: Maritime, Damages, Banking / Lending
J. Zainey denies a request by Walmart to dismiss as time-barred an overnight stocker���s malicious prosecution and defamation suit. She argues the clock on her claims did not begin running until after a city prosecutor dismissed Walmart���s theft claims. The store had her arrested for twice purchasing multiple packages of newly marked-down meat after her shift ended. In neither instance did she alter the pricing labels, and she paid full price for the meat. Walmart may raise its prescription argument later.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Zainey, Filed On: April 23, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv6441, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Employment, Defamation
J. Van Meerveld grants summary judgment to the city of New Orleans, dismissing a Title VII racial discrimination suit by a fired white police sergeant who alleges he was disciplined more harshly than nine black officers for similar offenses. The sergeant���s eight social media posts clearly advocate unnecessary force and use terms historically used to demean black people, such as ���animals,��� and ���savages," to describe Black Lives Matters protesters after the murder of George Floyd. The black officers cited were not comparators. The Louisiana Supreme Court reinstated the sergeant with back pay and emoluments on appeal.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Van Meerveld, Filed On: April 23, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv5060, NOS: Employment - Civil Rights, Categories: Employment Discrimination, Police Misconduct
J. Milazzo awards a total of $646,000 in damages to a registered nurse on her car collision action against the U.S. Postal Service and its driver. Evidence, including the opinion of an orthopedic surgeon who examined the 36-year-old mother of three young children that the crash aggravated her shoulder complaints and caused a new injury to her neck, supports the award.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Milazzo, Filed On: April 22, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv241, NOS: Motor Vehicle - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Tort, Damages, Experts
J. Currault grants a request by the owner of a self-propelled spud barge, compelling a marine repair yard to produce personnel files on all seven of its employees who worked on its vessel at the time it was damaged by a fire. Training records of the employees performing work on the vessel are relevant to the claims and defenses of this case and must be produced. The repair yard's objections on the basis of overbreadth and undue burden are overruled as improper.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Currault, Filed On: April 19, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv243, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Maritime, Discovery
J. Ashe grants a request by Arkansas-based Walmart to dismiss a Florida resident's claim for punitive damages in a slip and fall action. Louisiana law prohibits the award of punitive damages unless they are expressly authorized by statute, and, in this case, that Walmart is a Louisiana domiciliary.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Ashe, Filed On: April 18, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv7230, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Tort, Damages, Choice Of Law
J. Currault grants a request by a woman injured in a traffic accident with the driver of a truck owned by a holding company, compelling disclosure of the individual owners of all members of its limited liability corporations. The holding company���s responses are insufficient, and the citizenship of the truck���s owners is a ���fundamental threshold issue��� that must be addressed. ���Although this may be a case in which sealing the identities of upstream owners may be justified,��� the holding company must provide the litigant with a redacted list of individuals or entities.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Currault, Filed On: April 18, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv480, NOS: Motor Vehicle - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Civil Procedure, Tort, Discovery
J. Vitter finds for a two-member limited liability corporation in Louisiana, holding two Texas-based LLCs jointly liable for the outstanding balance of a $4 million loan. Although the obligation was vested to one LLC by operation of a merger, the original borrower-LLC was never released from its obligation under the promissory note. Furthermore, while the original borrower validly allocated its obligation under the promissory note to the other Texas LLC in the merger, thereby making it the primary obligor of the note under Texas law, nothing in Texas law supports that original borrowing LLC extinguished all liability via the merger.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Vitter, Filed On: April 16, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv1707, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Corporations, Banking / Lending, Contract
J. Papillion grants a New York resident���s request for an emergency temporary restraining order against a man she met online, barring him from spending a total of $380,000 she transferred into his private cryptocurrency wallet after he fraudulently represented he was using various websites allegedly owned and operated by Coinbase. She has met all four criteria for the order, which is necessary to prevent the transfer of the New Yorker���s allegedly stolen assets into unidentifiable digital wallets.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Papillion, Filed On: April 16, 2024, Case #: 2:24cv480, NOS: Other Fraud - Torts - Personal Property, Categories: Fraud, Restraining Order, Conversion
J. Morgan denies a request by an Illinois-based insurer to compel arbitration of a dispute with a New Orleans-based law firm for its defense and indemnity from a lawsuit in the state of California. That the underlying litigation is in California is an insufficient reason to trigger the application of California law. Louisiana���s policy interests would be most seriously impaired if its law were not applied.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Morgan, Filed On: April 16, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv6235, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Arbitration, Choice Of Law
J. Morgan denies summary judgment to a pest control company and its employee who allegedly hit a bicyclist while trying to park in New Orleans��� historic French Quarter. The company argues the bicyclist was peddling the wrong way on the street, adding he is solely at fault for the accident and his injuries. However, a partial ruling would not settle the question of liability and other issues, such as whether the cyclist bears any blame for the accident and his injuries.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Morgan, Filed On: April 15, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv3870, NOS: Motor Vehicle - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Employment, Negligence
Upon remand, J. Barbier rules on the Fifth Circuit's question of ���who, specifically��� directed the closing of Louisiana's Bayou Steel plant and the illegal mass layoff of its 300 employees in 2019, without the 60-day notice required by the federal WARN Act. Black Diamond, the company that owned the private equity fund that acquired Bayou Steel, is not liable for closing the plant or terminating its employees without proper notice, merely for its decision to make additional loans to the financially troubled mill. Three directors Black Diamond installed on Bayou Steel���s board of directors apparently made the ���ultimate decision��� to shutter the plant once it become clear there would be no additional funding. Furthermore, the laid-off workers acknowledged Black Diamond had no legal obligation to continue lending money to the mill.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Papillion, Filed On: April 15, 2024, Case #: 2:20cv1476, NOS: Other Labor Litigation - Labor, Categories: Employment, Business Practices
J. Morgan refuses to dismiss for insufficient evidence conspiracy and excessive force claims filed by a black woman who stands 4-foot 8-inches tall and weighs less than 100 pounds. The woman claims that she was walking home after being attacked by teenagers when the deputy, who was responding to a 911 call about a fight, grabbed her by the hair, lifted her off the ground and slammed her to the ground. He remains on the force despite an alleged history of disciplinary infractions and public complaints of excessive force against minorities. She has sufficiently stated a ���causal link��� between the allegedly deliberately indifferent practices of the sheriff���s office and the deputy���s use of excessive force against her.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Morgan, Filed On: April 12, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv3332, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Constitution, Evidence, Police Misconduct
J. Fallon grants a policyholder���s request for default judgment against an insurer for liability in connection with its alleged failure to provide sufficient funds to cover hurricane damage to her two properties. Although the insurer received service in October 2023, it did not engage in the litigation by February 2024. The insurer also did not participate in a March 2024 hearing in which the property owner took the stand and testified to ���the saga she has experienced in the years following Hurricane Ida [2021] attempting to work with various State Farm adjusters, inspectors and representatives." Citing an incomplete evidentiary record as to the more than $4.5 million sought, a separate proceeding must be held on the damages to which the property owner is entitled.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Fallon, Filed On: April 12, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv4618, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Evidence, Insurance, Damages
J. Papillion denies a request by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction a Chinese citizen's claims concerning the delay in adjudication of her request for asylum. She alleges the agency has failed to comply with a non-discretionary requirement of federal agencies that requires adjudication of asylum applications ���within a reasonable time.��� The provision means jurisdiction exists as a federal question under a statute governing the administration of federal agencies.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Papillion, Filed On: April 12, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv2, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Immigration, Agency, Jurisdiction
J. North grants a request by two employees who prevailed in an overtime-pay suit against their employer at a residential heating, air conditioning, and ventilation installer, awarding them $23,000 in attorney fees and costs. The requested $37,000 in fees and costs is reduced, in part, by a reduction in hourly rates.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: North, Filed On: April 10, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv3953, NOS: Fair Labor Standards Act - Labor, Categories: Employment, Attorney Fees, Labor
J. Lemelle denies a request by an insurer to dismiss two homeowners��� breach of contract and bad faith claims related to their insurer���s alleged failure to compensate them for hurricane-related property damage. The insurer mistakenly contends the property owners��� insurance suit is time-barred for failure to provide notice of their claim within 365 days of the event. State law prohibits insurance policies from limiting its insured's right to sue to a period of less than two years.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Lemelle, Filed On: April 9, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv5396, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Insurance, Damages
J. Morgan reverses, in part, a magistrate's denial of an inmate's motion concerning spoliation of evidence. Although four prison guards argue they lost surveillance video and body scans that justified four days of fruitless searching of an inmate suspected of inserting contraband in his rectum, there is evidence the guards acted with the intent to deprive the inmate of the photos for use in his excessive force suit against them. Furthermore, the body scans the prison produced were not of the inmate.
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Morgan, Filed On: April 9, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv2680, NOS: Prison Condition - Habeas Corpus, Categories: Evidence, Discovery, Prisoners' Rights