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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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Some states require special aggravating circumstances or multiple convictions before they impose an ignition interlock device requirement. Louisiana is not one of them. Louisiana law regarding DWI/DUI contains many strict provisions in the state’s effort to curtail or stamp out drinking and driving. The state is one of only eight that requires even first-time offenders to attach an ignition interlock device to their vehicles. It is extremely important to understand what this process entails and what it means to your ability to continue driving if you’re convicted of drinking and driving. Sometimes, this provision can be waived and not imposed on a first-time offender.

Ignition interlock devices, also known as IIDs or BAIIDs, are mechanisms that attach to vehicles’ dashboards and connect to the ignition system. The device requires the operator to blow a breath sample, which it then analyzes to determine the operator’s blood alcohol content. If the sample indicates that the driver is sober, the ignition system will work. If not, the vehicle will not start.

Be aware that ignition interlock devices are often quite expensive. The ignition interlock device on your car must come from a manufacturer approved by State Police Applied Technology. Currently, the state has seven approved vendors for ignition interlock devices. The driver must pay for the installation of the device and also pay a monthly lease fee. Given that installation may cost as much as $100 or more, along with a monthly fee of $50-100, the total cost of your ignition interlock device can set you back several hundred dollars, even for a duration as short as just six months.

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For many women, little is worse than receiving a diagnosis of breast cancer. For one Jefferson Parish woman, as reported by the Louisiana Record, her pain was allegedly worsened by an incorrectly performed biopsy. The woman claimed in a recent medical malpractice lawsuit that the error delayed her cancer diagnosis by several months, leading her to endure a series of invasive treatments and procedures that she claims she would not have needed if her medical care providers made the correct diagnosis after the initial biopsy.

Tamberly Gray’s health concerns emerged after her gynecologist discovered a lump in her right breast in 2008. The doctor referred the patient for a biopsy to discover if the mass was cancerous. The gynecologist, Dr. Penelope Treece, performed a vacuum-assisted biopsy of the patient’s right breast and told the patient she did not have cancer. Vacuum-assisted biopsies are minimally invasive procedures in which a probe is inserted into a small incision and, using ultrasound image guidance, extracts suspicious tissue for analysis.

The alleged failure in Gray’s case was not with the doctor’s failure to identify the tissue as cancerous; the tissue she removed was cancer-free. The problem was, according to the patient, the doctor inserted the probe in the wrong place and the tissue she removed was not from the mass.

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The holidays are a wonderful time of year for gathering with family and friends. The holidays are also, regrettably, a time of increased incidences of people drinking and driving. If you or a loved one is injured by a drunk driver, it is important to understand what the law allows you to do, and what steps you should take.

Recent accidents in Calcasieu and Washington parishes highlight the risks, and potentially tragic consequences, of driving while intoxicated. When someone is injured in Louisiana as a result of another’s drunk driving, that person is entitled to recover for the damages caused by the drunk driver. Article 2315 of the Louisiana Civil Code generally provides a right to sue for damages, and Article 2315.4 specifically adds a right to seek exemplary damages in cases where the injured person proves that the driver acted with “wanton or reckless disregard for the rights and safety of others.”

You may be unfamiliar with the term “exemplary damages,” but may recognize them as “punitive” damages. Injured persons rarely recover exemplary damages in auto accident actions, except in cases involving drunk drivers. To succeed in receiving exemplary damages, you must show that the driver, in deciding to get behind the wheel in an impaired state, acted with conscious indifference to the consequences of his or her actions. This means that he or she knew or should have known that getting behind the wheel would likely lead to harm, but proceeded to drive anyway.

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The family of an Ascension Parish woman tragically killed along Interstate 10 successfully settled a civil suit against the restaurant that served alcohol to a man who they claimed caused the fatal accident by driving drunk. The family’s suit alleged that the restaurant served the man more than a gallon of beer, even after the man became “obviously intoxicated,” according to a Southeast Texas Record report. Because the crash occurred just outside Louisiana, in Texas, the family was permitted to seek compensation from the restaurant, in addition to the driver.

Amber Roussel and her husband were traveling from their home near Gonzales along westbound I-10 on July 30, 2012. As the couple drove, Caleb Harley and Derek McBride were drag racing along eastbound I-10. McBride lost control of his truck and crashed. The crash separated the brush guard from his truck, which launched into the windshield of the Roussel car, killing the wife.

The family’s action, which sought $32 million in damages, sued both McBride and Hooters Restaurant, where McBride and Harley had been drinking prior to the crash. According to the family, the restaurant served McBride 144 ounces of beer, along with two shots of liquor. Even a 220-pound man, who waited 30 minutes before driving after consuming that quantity of alcohol, would have a blood alcohol level of .250, according to Bloodalcoholcalculator.org. .250 is more than three times the legal limit in each of Texas and Louisiana.

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Greater New Orleans provides a wealth of amazing tourist attractions. The area also boasts several outstanding institutions of higher learning, including Tulane University, Loyola University and Xavier University. The area’s attractions offer artistic, cultural and historical enrichment, but they also present, like any other location, the risk of injury. Whether you’re a student from out of state, or a visiting tourist or business convention attendee, knowing the proper steps to take if you’re injured here is essential to minimizing your stress and maximizing the protection of your rights.

Certainly, one of the most popular destinations for tourists and college students is Canal Street and the French Quarter. Recent events, though, have shown the potential for harm in this area. This past summer, a woman sued over injuries she suffered as a result of stepping into an uncovered water meter hole on Canal Street. A man also filed a negligence suit against a French Quarter bar in January as a result of a severe beating he received in the bar’s parking lot.

While neither the woman not the man may have been students or tourists, their injuries nevertheless spotlight the potential misfortunes that can befall students or tourists visiting New Orleans. Regrettably, injured students and tourists do not know how to handle this situation. Even if they recognize their injuries right away, they may not know where to turn. Others might not discover their injuries until they have returned home, and may feel at a loss regarding how to find an attorney now that they have left the state.

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Experiencing the kind of pain or illness that is bad enough to lead you to the emergency room is bad enough. When the medical providers whose assistance you seek fail to run the necessary tests to determine an accurate diagnosis, and you require invasive, emergency surgery two months later, that is certainly far worse. But that is exactly what happened to a woman when she visited a Jefferson Parish hospital recently, according to a medical lawsuit she filed in state court in Gretna.

Delores Penman-Sisson’s medical odyssey started with a bout of extreme nausea, vomiting and lower abdominal pain. She traveled to the East Jefferson General Hospital’s emergency room for assistance. While there, the staff allegedly administered several pregnancy tests that involved analyzing a sample of urine. However, because the woman had an ovarian cyst, she could not provide an adequate urine sample to yield a conclusive test. In addition to urine-based pregnancy tests, another type of pregnancy test analyzed the woman’s blood.

Two months later, medical professionals determined that the woman actually was pregnant. She had an ectopic pregnancy. In a normal pregnancy, a fertilized egg attaches itself to the lining of the mother’s uterus. In an ectopic pregnancy, the fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus. The most common type of ectopic pregnancy occurs in the fallopian tubes (known as a “tubal pregnancy,”) but ectopic pregnancies may also occur in the abdominal cavity, ovary or cervix.

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A St. Bernard Parish man almost certainly had no idea the peril that awaited him when he decided to use a common device to clear his sinuses. In the wake of the man’s death from a rare, brain-eating amoeba, the makers of the medical device and the home water heater the man used have settled a wrongful death claim initiated by the man’s parents, the Washington Post reports.

In 2011, Jeffrey Cusimano decided to use a “neti pot” to clear his sinuses. Neti pots work by thinning mucus and flushing it from the user’s sinus passages. After using the device, a parasitic amoeba entered the man’s system and he developed meningioencephalitis. The amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, enters the body through the nose. Cusimano died on June 7, 2011.

The man’s parents sued both the neti pot manufacturer, NeilMed Pharmaceuticals Inc., and the maker of his home water heater, Rheem Manufacturing Co., in federal court. The family alleged that both devices contributed to the fatal case of meningitis. The water heater was defective and unreasonably dangerous, the parents maintained, because it failed to heat the home’s water to a temperature high enough to kill the amoeba. The neti pot was also defective and unreasonable dangerous because its construction or material makeup allowed the amoeba build up and flourish, according to the complaint.

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An early morning wreck left a young man dead after crashing into the rear of a slow-moving logging truck. After investigators determined that the truck was improperly lit, the driver received a six-month prison sentence. Now, a jury has resolved the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the young driver’s family by awarding them $2.8 million in damages, according to mlive.com
22-year-old Christopher J. Groulx was on his way to work when his Pontiac car slammed into the back of a logging truck at around 6:20 a.m. He died at the scene. While most typical rear-end collisions involve a rear driver at fault, this was not a typical collision. Police investigators determined that the logging truck lacked the required lighting needed to make it sufficiently visible. The logging truck was also moving at an extremely slow rate of speed (around 15 mph.)

Based upon the improper lighting, prosecutors charged the truck driver with a moving violation causing death, and the driver served a six month jail sentence. Subsequently, Groulx’s family sued the driver and the trucking company for wrongful death. The family argued that, because of the improper lighting, Groulx could not see the truck. The attorney for the driver and the trucking company contended that the young driver was speeding or was inattentive either due to sleep deprivation (from having attended a music concert until 1 a.m. the previous evening) or a cell phone distraction. The family countered by asserting that the man’s cell phone was in his pocket at the time of the impact.

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Nursing homes are tasked with a great responsibility: the care and treatment of those who can least care for themselves, usually the disabled or the elderly. While most facilities undertake this task with the utmost care, some fall short of providing even a basic level of care. That is what two juries, one in Florida and one in West Virginia, concluded as they handed down massive damages awards against nursing homes whose negligent care hastened the deaths of a pair of patients.

In Charleston, West Virginia, Dorothy Douglas stayed at the Heartland of Charleston nursing home for three weeks in 2009. By the time Douglas’s son moved her to another nursing home, she had lost 15 pounds and was near death from dehydration. She passed away shortly thereafter.

Lawyers for Douglas’s son argued at trial that the facility prioritized maximizing patient numbers while minimizing the number of staff, which led to the negligent level of care that ultimately killed Dorothy. A Kanawha County jury agreed, and handed down a $91.5 million judgment. Of that amount, $80 million constituted punitive damages. Earlier this year, a Kanawha County judge rejected the nursing home’s request for a new trial.

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