Luther F. Cole

This case concerned the timing of finality for a Louisiana court of appeal judgment granting a new trial in a criminal prosecution, which determines when the state's one-year period to retry the defendant begins under La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 582. Defendant Roy Bennett was convicted of solicitation to commit murder; the Third Circuit reversed and ordered a new trial, the State sought rehearing and then a writ from the Louisiana Supreme Court (which was denied), and the State retried him within one year of the writ denial but more than one year after the appellate judgment or rehearing denial. The trial court denied Bennett's motion to quash on prescription grounds, but the court of appeal reversed that ruling; the Supreme Court granted the State's writ and reversed again. The court held that the appellate judgment granting a new trial does not become final until the Supreme Court denies a timely writ application, because La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 922 is silent on that scenario while the parallel civil provision (La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 2166) treats the judgment as non-final until then, and the legislature did not intend a different result in criminal cases.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether a driver appealing an administrative suspension of her license for suspected DWI under Louisiana law was entitled to a full trial de novo in district court or merely a review of the administrative record. The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the statute, LSA-R.S. 32:668(C), mandates a trial de novo. This conclusion was reached through interpretation of the statute's language referencing review "in the same manner and under the same conditions as is provided in R.S. 32:414," along with analysis of legislative history and prior jurisprudence showing that such reviews allow for new evidence and hearings in open court.

procedurecriminal law

In Tugwell v. State Farm Ins. Co., the plaintiff sought $1 million in uninsured motorist (UM) coverage under an umbrella policy after being injured in a collision with an uninsured driver, but the insurer claimed coverage had been validly rejected. The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the lower courts' grant of summary judgment to the insurer, holding that the signed rejection form was invalid because it did not offer the insured the option to select lower UM limits or inform the insured of that statutory choice. Under La. Rev. Stat. § 22:1406(D)(1)(a), UM coverage must equal the policy's bodily injury liability limits unless the named insured makes a written, informed rejection or selects lower limits, and the insurer bears the burden of proving any such election was effective. The court reasoned that the form failed to place the insured in a position to make a meaningful selection among the three statutory options, rendering the total rejection ineffective and entitling the policy to provide UM coverage. The case was remanded for further proceedings.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case was a derivative action brought by Dr. Charles C. Mary, a member and director of the Lupin Foundation, against other current and former directors alleging they breached fiduciary duties under La. Rev. Stat. 12:226(A) through self-dealing in the 1981 sale of a nonprofit hospital for an allegedly undervalued price as part of a secret arrangement benefiting the defendants personally. The trial and appellate courts sustained an exception of peremption, treating the claims as seeking recovery for an unlawful distribution of corporate assets under La. Rev. Stat. 12:219(C) and 12:226(D) subject to a two-year limit. The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding that the petition stated a cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty governed by the ten-year prescriptive period because the allegations centered on negligent and intentional misrepresentations and self-dealing rather than an unlawful distribution of assets the corporation never received.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case concerned a wrongful death action stemming from a fatal car collision with an 18-wheeler that was blocking the road during a delivery. The plaintiffs settled with the trucking company and its insurer, then pursued claims against a non-motorist joint tortfeasor (Orona) and the decedent's UM insurer (State Farm). The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that a UM insurer may recover in subrogation from a non-motorist joint tortfeasor the sums it paid to its insured, up to the amount of those payments. The court based this on the text of LSA-R.S. 22:1406(D)(4), which grants UM insurers the right to proceeds from judgments against any legally responsible party, and on the statute's purpose of ensuring full victim recovery while holding tortfeasors accountable.

torts & liability

This consolidated case involved wrongful death claims by Eva Miley on behalf of her deceased son and Murphy Keith Wheat on behalf of his deceased wife, arising from a fatal automobile accident, against multiple drivers, their estates, and insurance companies including Louisiana Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied the writ application for review of the lower court's rulings. Justice Cole indicated he would have granted the writ, but the majority provided no further explanation for the denial. The decision leaves the appellate court's judgment in place without substantive review by the high court.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case concerned gas royalty owners who sued their mineral lessee to recover a share of settlement proceeds from take-or-pay litigation with a pipeline purchaser under the royalty clause granting one-fifth of the amount realized at the well from gas sales. The federal district court granted summary judgment to the lessee, holding that take-or-pay payments do not qualify as part of the sale price because they require physical production and severance of gas. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit initially reversed, concluding the payments constitute economic benefits from the lease and are subject to royalty as part of a cooperative venture, but then certified the question to the Louisiana Supreme Court. The court analyzed the lease terms, Louisiana Mineral Code Article 122's prudent administrator duty, and civil code provisions on sales of future things, determining that take-or-pay payments attributable to the leased gas must be shared with royalty owners.

business & regulatoryproperty

The case involved a personal injury claim by plaintiff Alex Spott against Otis Elevator Company and others for damages allegedly caused when an elevator at Pelican Homestead jerked or dropped while he was transporting paper inside it. The district court dismissed the suit after trial, finding insufficient evidence of negligence or defect, and the court of appeal affirmed. The Louisiana Supreme Court reviewed the record and concluded that the plaintiff's account was contradicted by expert testimony showing the elevator had not fallen, that no safety mechanisms had activated, and that the incident was consistent with a temporary interruption of the door interlock circuit rather than any malfunction attributable to the defendants. The court held that res ipsa loquitur did not apply because the evidence did not establish that the occurrence was of a kind that ordinarily does not happen without negligence, and the plaintiff failed to prove the essential elements of his tort claims under Louisiana law.

torts & liability

In State v. Smith, defendants Clarence Smith and Anthony Scire were convicted by a Louisiana jury of first-degree murder for constructing and using a bomb to kill Robert Collins, a federal witness in a drug case, in exchange for payment. On appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court, the defendants challenged their convictions and death sentences on multiple grounds. The court reversed the convictions, vacated the sentences, and remanded for a new trial, holding that the trial court's jury instruction defining reasonable doubt violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court further concluded that this error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given the facts of the case. It declined to address the remaining assignments of error.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved defendant John Sullivan, who was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder committed during an armed robbery at the C-Note Lounge in New Orleans, after which the jury recommended and the trial court imposed the death penalty. Sullivan appealed both the conviction and sentence on multiple grounds, including challenges related to jury instructions on reasonable doubt and issues in the sentencing phase. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, finding the evidence and proceedings sufficient to uphold the jury's guilty verdict for first-degree murder under La.Rev.Stat. § 14:30(A)(1). However, the court vacated the death sentence and remanded for a new sentencing proceeding, primarily due to deficiencies in the presentation of mitigating evidence and related defense matters during the penalty phase. This decision rested on the need for proper consideration of mitigating circumstances as required by Louisiana's death penalty statutes.

criminal lawprocedure

This case arose from a car accident in which a rental vehicle driven by LeAnne Roy struck the Lindseys, leading to a tort suit against Roy, her insurer Colonial Lloyd's, the Lindseys' uninsured motorist carrier State Farm, and Action Auto Rental's insurer Liberty Mutual. The central issue was whether a rental agreement between Action Auto and Roy could validly limit Liberty Mutual's liability coverage for the lessee to the state's statutory minimum financial responsibility limits (10/20), despite the underlying policy providing up to $500,000. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeal's ruling that the rental agreement's lower limits were enforceable against the lessee. The court held that La. R.S. 22:628, the Entire Contract Policy Statute, did not apply to this situation or was satisfied by the policy endorsement referencing the rental agreement. It further reasoned that agreements between a policyholder and third parties altering coverage are valid unless they violate public policy or a specific statute, and the two-tier coverage structure here did not.

torts & liabilitybusiness & regulatory

In this criminal case, an undercover detective identified defendant Brian Martin as the seller in a cocaine transaction based on a single photograph provided by another officer, which was the only photo shown despite the detective making numerous other buys around the same time. The trial court denied a motion to suppress the identification and allowed the in-court identification at trial, leading to Martin's conviction for distribution of cocaine. The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the conviction, holding that the pre-trial single-photograph identification created a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification that tainted the subsequent in-court identification. The court found the evidence sufficient to support the jury's verdict when including the tainted identification testimony and thus remanded for a new trial rather than acquittal.

criminal lawprocedure

This case, Boyd v. Louisiana Medical Mutual Insurance Company, involved a writ application to the Supreme Court of Louisiana concerning a dispute with a medical insurance provider. The court denied the writ, declining to review the lower court's decision. No detailed facts or reasoning about the underlying claims were provided in the opinion. Justice Cole indicated he would have granted the writ to consider the matter further.

healthcaretorts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved a dispute in the succession of Charlie Doll over whether a daughter who received immovable property as a disguised donation and later collated it back to the estate was also required to return the revenues it generated, including rents, timber sale proceeds, and mineral lease bonuses. The Louisiana Supreme Court addressed the scope of collation under the Civil Code and the timing of any obligation to restore fruits from the property. The court held that the immovable property itself was subject to collation but the fruits derived from it were not, and any duty to return those fruits arose only from the date of judicial demand under articles 1559(4) and 1569. It reversed the lower courts' judgments that had required collation of revenues accruing from the date of acquisition or the donor's death.

family lawproperty

In this criminal case, defendant Raymond Bairnsfather was convicted of crime against nature based on allegations by his eight-year-old niece that he had engaged in sexual acts with her. The Louisiana Supreme Court considered whether the trial court erred by barring the defense from introducing evidence of the victim's reputation for untruthfulness through character witnesses and from eliciting testimony about her prior inconsistent statements denying the abuse. The court held that the trial judge improperly excluded this impeachment evidence under the Louisiana Code of Evidence, as no exception exists for child witnesses and the proper predicate had been laid. Because the state's case rested entirely on the victim's credibility with no corroborating physical evidence, the court found the errors were not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and reversed the conviction, remanding for a new trial.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned a worker's compensation dispute in which plaintiff Lynn Rogers Ross sought enforcement of a 1989 district court consent judgment requiring defendants to pay his medical expenses, after the defendants refused payment for recommended hospitalization. The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the petition was not a new claim but an action to enforce prior judgments, and that the 1988 amendments to the Worker's Compensation Act did not divest district courts of subject matter jurisdiction to enforce their own orders. The court reasoned that the amendments established new procedures for initial claims through the Office of Worker's Compensation but preserved the district court's continuing authority over enforcement of judgments rendered before the amendments took effect.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case involved a defendant convicted of second-degree murder who sought to challenge the prosecution's use of peremptory strikes to exclude black jurors under Batson v. Kentucky, despite not objecting during trial. The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the defendant's failure to make a contemporaneous objection as required by state procedural rules barred his Batson claim on appeal. The court reasoned that Batson did not establish a new right or make such an objection futile, and the contemporaneous objection rule serves important purposes like allowing correction at trial and preserving issues for review. It reversed the court of appeal's decision to remand for a hearing on the claim.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

In Miller v. Leonard, the case involved consolidated suits for damages from an automobile collision at an intersection in Baton Rouge, with each driver claiming the other caused the accident by crossing the centerline. The trial court dismissed both claims after finding the evidence on the point of impact was in equipoise and neither party met the burden of proof by a preponderance, and the court of appeal affirmed. The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of Miller's claim against Leonard, holding that Miller satisfied his burden with the aid of a presumption of negligence that applies when a motorist makes a left turn across the centerline, supported by physical evidence and testimony showing the impact occurred in the eastbound lane.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case concerned whether the Calcasieu Parish School Board could lawfully include a requirement that contractors pay prevailing wages, as determined by the state Department of Labor, in the bid specifications for its public school construction and repair projects. The plaintiffs, a contractors' association and member firms, sued to enjoin the practice and sought a declaratory judgment that it exceeded the Board's authority and violated Louisiana's Public Bid Law. The trial court found the plaintiffs had standing and upheld the Board's authority, but the Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the wage provision would increase project costs and stifle competitive bidding in violation of the statute. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address both standing and the merits of the Board's power to impose such conditions on public works contracts.

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatory

The case involved a minor who was injured when riding his dirt bike into a drainage ditch located about seventeen feet off a state highway within DOTD's right-of-way; the ditch was obscured by overgrown grass. The plaintiff sued DOTD alleging the condition created an unreasonable risk of harm, but the trial court found no duty owed and dismissed the claim. The court of appeal reversed, holding the concealed ditch defective and assigning 50% fault to the rider. The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed, concluding that under the circumstances—including the rider's high speed over unfamiliar terrain—the ditch did not present an unreasonable risk, so DOTD owed no duty to protect against the injury.

torts & liability