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Over the weekend a fiery crash occurred between two pickup trucks traveling west on Interstate 10. The crash happened on the Bonnet Carre Spillway Bridge, which has been proven to be a dangerous stretch of the interstate heading into or away from the city of New Orleans. The collision happened around 1 pm in the afternoon on Father’s day in which the police believe one pickup truck rammed into the back of another. The driver of the truck that was hit slowed down in order to avoid hitting the vehicle in front of him. Photos of the accident have been uploaded to social media sites which show the extent of the vehicle fire that produced a column of black smoke. Fortunately, the state police are reporting that there were no serious injuries.

This stretch of the interstate is known for horrible crashes due to the excessive speed of drivers and the lack of police officers patrolling the area. This section of the interstate often has one lane closed due to repairs on the bridge or the installation of traffic monitoring systems which lead to bad back ups and car crashes. A year ago, state police reported two fatal accidents that happened on the same section of the bridge as the crash that occurred over this past weekend. The fatal accident crash occurred around 4 am when a car was driving westbound when it hit the left guardrail and spun around facing oncoming traffic with its lights out. An 18 wheeler stopped to block the car from other vehicles but a street sweeper crashed into the 18 wheeler at a high rate of speed causing the death of the driver and passenger of the sweeper.

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In Louisiana, the law says that, when an intoxicated person caused an accident that injures another person, that intoxicated person — not the business that served alcohol — is responsible for the harm caused. The Legislature has enacted a statute that immunizes servers of alcohol for civil liability in almost all cases. That rule allowed a bar to escape liability recently for the serious injuries one man suffered when a bar patron crashed his car into the victim’s bicycle. The bar succeeded, and the injured man did not, because the Louisiana Court of Appeal ruled that the case simply did not fit into any of the narrow exceptions of the state’s “anti-dram shop” statute.

The unsuccessful lawsuit stemmed from a fatal accident occurring in 2012. On Jan. 21, Mr. Branch had been drinking at a Baton Rouge bar called “The Bulldog.” Branch eventually got behind the wheel and crashed into bicyclists Mr. Morris and Mr. Crowson at around 8:45 at night. Branch drove his car over the lower half of Morris’s body, crushing his legs, hips and pelvis. Crowson’s injuries were even worse; emergency personnel pronounced him dead at the scene.

Branch’s blood alcohol level was .307, or almost four times the legal limit. Morris sued the bar, alleging that the conduct of its staff “affirmatively increased the peril” to Branch and subsequently led to the fatal accident. Bar staff served Branch numerous drinks, even after he became visibly intoxicated. In response, the bar asked the court to throw out the case, based upon Louisiana’s anti-dram shop law. The trial court agreed.

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A patient who suffered protracted negative effects because her doctor incorrectly diagnosed her encephalitis as a sinus infection received a renewed opportunity to seek financial recovery for her harm recently. The Louisiana Court of Appeal ruled that the neurologist the patient retained to testify as expert witness could opine about the proper standard of care of a general practice doctor.

In the spring of 1998, Jeana Kieffer traveled to the Ochsner Clinic in Metarie, complaining of headache, pressure, congestion, and fever. Jo Ellen Plunkett, a doctor at the clinic, diagnosed Kieffer as having a sinus infection and prescribed medication accordingly. Two days later, the woman began experiencing severe memory loss and difficulty breathing. Emergency room doctors diagnosed Kieffer with herpetic encephalitis. The patient eventually recovered but experienced severe headaches and other symptoms for nearly a year.

A medical review panel concluded that the doctor did not act inappropriately. The panel determined that the patient lacked the sort of symptoms, like neck stiffness and neurological deficits, that should have alerted the doctor that Kieffer had a more serious problem.

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In this digital age, it seems that a social media site exists for nearly everything. This is even true with regard to law enforcement sobriety checkpoints. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have pages notifying users of the location of police checkpoints. While New Orleans law enforcement has criticized the practice in the past, other police departments have taken a more favorable view, seeing the sites as helping to place an even brighter spotlight on law enforcement’s aggressive effort to detect and arrest impaired drivers.
When the State of Louisiana issued its Highway Safety Plan for Fiscal Year 2014, it made some strong conclusions regarding drinking and driving. “Driving after drinking is taken too lightly in Louisiana. A cultural shift toward understanding the realities and consequences of drinking and driving must take place.” The plan also called for numerous sobriety checkpoints around the state.

According to WGMB TV, however, savvy Facebook users are using the social media site as a tool for escaping these sobriety checkpoints. A Facebook page now exists entitled “Baton Rouge DWI Checkpoints.” Baton Rouge Police Lt. Cory Reech told WGMB that the checkpoint-related social media sites were highly successful. “The Facebook page or the Twitter or any kind of social media explodes within a few minutes of us setting up a checkpoint.”

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A fatal accident occuring along a train track in a New Orleans suburb resulted in a tragic death and, subsequently, a lawsuit that made it all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Unfortunately for the family of the deaf woman killed in the accident, the high court concluded that the evidence in the case indicated that the accident was the result of the woman’s failure to look out for trains before entering the track, not improper warning signage at the intersection.

58-year-old Cynthia Tuckson was struck and killed as she walked along the railroad tracks at Taylor Street and Kenner Avenue in Kenner. The woman, who was deaf, could not hear the train coming and walked directly into its path. Witnesses at the scene told police that Tuckson did not see the train, according to nola.com. After the accident, Tuckson’s son sued the railroad, the conductor, the engineer and the city of Kenner for the wrongful death of his mother.

The son argued that the intersection where his mother died was inadequately signed, that the city and railroad had a duty to install active warning signals (such as caution lights or crossing arms,) but failed to do so and the failure to install this active warning system caused the woman’s death. An expert retained by the son contended that, due to the intersection’s limited sight lines and history of accidents, a warning system with lights and/or crossing arms was warranted. The trial court disagreed and granted a summary judgment motion that threw out the case, a ruling that the Louisiana Supreme Court concluded was proper.

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A case recently argued before a Louisiana appeals court could potentially have statewide effect depending on its fallout. In the case, a man convicted of DWI is challenging the costs assessed against him, which included not only court costs, but “cost-of-investigation” and “cost-of-prosecution” charges, as well, the News-Star reported.

Jesse M. Griffin II was arrested for a first DWI offense in 2012. In Sept. 2012, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor and received a $600 fine. In addition to his $600 fine and court costs, which were payable to the Union Parish Sheriff’s Office, Griffin was also hit with an additional $200 — $100 for the cost of investigation and another $100 for the cost of prosecution related to his case.

Griffin objected to these extra charges, but the trial court ruled against. Griffin then took his case to the Court of Appeal, which heard arguments on the case earlier this month. According to Griffin’s attorney, the trial court includes in its orders tacked-on obligations of $300 each for cost of investigation and cost of prosecution (for a total of an extra $600) for every felony DWI case and $100 each (an extra $200 total) for the costs of investigation and prosecution of misdemeanor matters. The court order instructs offenders to pay their fines to the sheriff’s office and to make their cost-of-investigation and cost-of-prosecution payments payable to the “3rd JDDA Prosecution Fee”.

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A family who lost their infant child at only nine days of age received a partial legal victory recently in the Louisiana Court of Appeal pertaining to their medical malpractice case against a Slidell hospital and a pediatrician. The appeals court decided that a lower court judgment against the doctor could stand, but that the hospital was not liable in the child’s death because the family’s expert witness failed to testify regarding how the hospital staff’s missteps caused the child’s fatal injury.

The case regarded the treatment of Alex Ducre Jr. at Slidell Memorial Hospital. The child was born at the hospital roughly four weeks prematurely. Although the child initially appeared healthy, he began showing signs of mild jaundice around 36 hours after birth. The child’s pediatrician, Phyllis Waring, nevertheless discharged him the following morning. Three days later, the mother telephoned the hospital because the child showed worsening signs of jaundice. The nurse on the phone told the mother simply to bring the child to the hospital the next day for a regularly scheduled lactation appointment.

By the time the child arrived at the hospital, he was lethargic, and had poor muscle tone with yellow skin and yellowing in the whites of his eyes. The hospital admitted the baby to the pediatric intensive care unit. The child’s condition deteriorated and he died three days later.

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A state District Court judge recently agreed with a lower court in tossing evidence against an allegedly drunk driver arrested in Baton Rouge due to the improper conduct of a sobriety checkpoint, The Advocate reported. The court determined that the Baton Rouge Police Department violated guidelines established by the Louisiana Supreme Court for the proper implementation and conduct of checkpoints created to ensure compliance with the state and federal constitutions. The ruling carried wide implications as the procedural defect impacted not just one, but several drivers, arrested by the Baton Rouge police.

The ruling stems from a case involving Brian Parks, a driver whom Baton Rouge police arrested for DWI in Dec. 2010. Parks was driving through Baton Rouge when he encountered a sobriety checkpoint near the 100 block of Government Street. Parks’ attorney asserted that the way police carried out the sobriety checkpoint that ensnared the driver violated Louisiana law regarding the proper procedure for conducting DWI checkpoints.

In 2000, the state Supreme Court ruled that DWI checkpoints do not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, provided that law enforcement follow certain guidelines that the court laid out. These guidelines, among other things, require law enforcement to establish, in writing, several parameters regarding the checkpoint, including its location, time and duration. Supervisors or administrative personnel must carry out the task of establishing these parameters; it cannot be done by the officers in the field who directly conduct the checkpoint.

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It is already that time of year again. Time for the purple, green and gold. Time for king cakes, krewes, beads and parades. Mardi Gras season brings great joy and revelry to the New Orleans area. However, your feelings of excitement and good cheer can turn sour if you find yourself facing a DWI charge. Should you find yourself in such a predicament, it is vitally important to know what to do in order to prevent a bad situation from becoming even worse, especially if you’re visiting from another state.

During Mardi Gras, the population of New Orleans roughly doubles. Both locals and visitors alike who choose to consume alcohol or other controlled substances as part of their Mardi Gras experience should be keenly aware that area law enforcement agencies ramp up to enforce a “crackdown” on drunk drivers during this time of year. Law enforcement officers have powerful tools at their disposal, too, including a $350,000 mobile unit that can perform DWI breath analyses in the field, the Times-Picayune reported.

This emphasis exists because Mardi Gras typically is the most dangerous time of year on area roads. According to the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission statistics from 2010, the period from Friday evening through midnight on Fat Tuesday saw 509 crashes involving injuries or fatalities. That number was higher than any other holiday during the year. Six people died in drunk driving-related accidents, tying Mardi Gras with Christmas for the most DWI-related fatalities.

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If you find yourself pulled over by a law enforcement officer who suspects you of driving drunk, you have many choices available to you and several decisions you must make. One of the first of these is to submit to, or refuse, a blood, breath or urine test. Refusing to undergo such a test can trigger a number of possible ramifications of which you should be aware.

The law in Louisiana contains a provision known as “implied consent.” Implied consent means that, if an officer makes a legal stop with probable cause to suspect that you were driving drunk, then you must consent to taking a test to determine your blood-alcohol content. The law requires the officer to read you an “Implied Consent Warning,” which states all the possible consequences to you if you refuse to submit to a test. If the officer fails to warn you about the ramifications of refusing, you may later be able to persuade a judge to throw out your refusal and decline to punish you for it.

If the officer gave you with a proper warning, and you still refused, then several things may happen. Refusal to submit triggers an automatic suspension of your driver’s license unless you petition the Office of Motor Vehicles for a hearing, and do so within 15 days of your arrest. Your automatic suspension will last 180 days if this is your first refusal, otherwise the suspension will run 545 days. If it is your first refusal, you may apply for a hardship license after three months. If it is not your first refusal, you are ineligible for a hardship license.

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