Source: https://www.louisianapersonalinjurylawyerblog.com/category/business-dispute/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 01:42:54+00:00

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It’s a common belief that a landlord is always responsible for the upkeep of a property, and if an injury occurs because of the landlord’s failure to keep premises safe the landlord is financially responsible for any injury suffered. As Kwan Anderson learned the difficult way, however, this is not always the case. A lawsuit out of Parish of Evangeline shows that when a tenant contracts to take on responsibilities of upkeep, they could lose their ability to collect damages for an injury caused by that failure of upkeep.
On September 7, 2012, Anderson fell through a weak part of the floor of a house rented by Meagan Thomas, his girlfriend, and mother of his child. Thomas had rented the house from Wanda Ardoin-Bailey, the owner, on June 9, 2012, and Anderson lived there with Thomas up to the time of his fall. The weak part of the floor had been noted in the lease and the lease also said that Thomas agreed to be responsible for the house’s condition, which included fixing the weak part in the floor. Thomas said her “paw paw” would fix it in exchange for a reduction in rent. The floor was never repaired.
Anderson filed a petition for damages against Ardoin-Bailey, who answered the petition but also filed a third-party demand against Thomas to have the lease provisions enforced. Ardoin-Bailey also filed a motion for summary judgment. A Motion for Summary Judgment is rendered if “there is no genuine issue as to material fact, and that mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” La. C.C.P. art. 966 (B)(2). “A material fact is one that would matter on the trial on the merits.” Southpark Cmty. Hosp., LLC v. Southpark Acquisition Co., LLC, 126 So.3d 805, 815 (La. Ct. App. 2013). If there is no issue on the facts that would matter at a trial, then there is no need for the parties to go further on the lawsuit and it should be dismissed. Summary judgment was granted and Anderson’s lawsuit was dismissed. Anderson appealed.
Is a Franchisor Liable for the Criminal Acts of a Third Party?
When a patron is injured by a third party at a hotel, the patron might wish to seek damages from a national franchisor. There are however several criteria to establish a franchisor’s liability making it very difficult for a patron to recover in the absence of direct links between the injury and negligence. In a recent case out of New Orleans, a shooting victim was left with little recourse against the big company behind the local Motel 6.
In this case, Jorge A. Espinosa was staying at the Motel 6 on Gentilly Boulevard in New Orleans, Louisiana when he was shot in the Motel’s parking lot. The armed robber entered the Motel’s parking lot through a missing section in the Motel’s fence. Mr. Espinosa’s injuries left Mr. Espinosa a paraplegic. Mr. Espinosa filed a lawsuit against the national franchise, Accor Franchising North America (“Accor”) as well as the local franchisee, Century Bayou Hospitality, LLC (“Bayou”) and their respective insurance companies. Mr. Espinosa claimed the missing section of the Motel’s fence led to the robber entering the property and shooting Mr. Espinosa. The District Court for the Parish of Orleans granted Accor’s motion for summary judgment reasoning that Accor could not be held liable because there was no evidence that Accor controlled, owned, or operated the Motel. Mr. Espinosa appealed to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal asserting that Accor was directly negligent and that the company had authority over Bayou making them vicariously liable.
To establish liability, a plaintiff must first show that the defendant had a duty to protect against the plaintiff’s injury. To prove that defendant had a duty to protect against a property defect, the plaintiff must show that the defendant had custody over the thing which caused the damage and this thing contained a defect posing an unreasonable risk of harm which caused the plaintiff’s injuries. See Wiley v. Sanders, 796 So. 2d 51, 55 (La. Ct. App. 2001). The defective condition must be of a dangerous nature which would be reasonably expected to cause an injury to a prudent person using ordinary care. A business has a duty to take reasonable care to ensure the safety of its patrons. However, this duty does not extend to unforeseeable injuries that were caused by the criminal acts of third parties. See Mundy v. Dep’t of Health & Human Res., 609 So. 2d 909, 912 (La. Ct. App. 1992). Moreover, vicarious liability will not apply to the principal when an independent contractor relationship exists and the principal actor does not control the contractor’s day to day operations. See Morales v. Davis Bros. Const. Co., 647 So. 2d 1302, 1305 (La. Ct. App. 1994).
A primary concern that all business owners have is how to insulate themselves from any improper actions that their business engages in. Without some mechanism to separate the actions of the business from the business owner, a business owner would be personally liable for the business’s actions and could face legal claims against him or her for actions that the business engaged in. States, recognizing this problem, created many forms of corporate structures with varying levels of liability protection. Examples of such corporate structures are limited liability companies (L.L.C.), professional corporations (P.C.), and C corporations. While these, and other types of corporate structures, provide business owners with insulation from liability, business owners could still be personally liable for their company’s actions if those actions fall under a narrow set of circumstances. Recently, the Louisiana Supreme Court addressed whether one of these narrow circumstances occurred when determining whether an owner of a home construction company was personally liable for the actions of the company.
Jennifer Nunez contracted with Pinnacle Homes, L.L.C. (Pinnacle) to construct a home in Cameron Parish. Allen Lenard, a state licensed construction contractor and owner of Pinnacle, entered into a contract with Ms. Nunez on behalf of Pinnacle. The contract stated that the construction of the home would comply with all applicable national, state, and local building codes and laws. The Cameron Parish permitting board required that Ms. Nunez’s new home be ten feet above sea level. Not only would Ms. Nunez’s home need to be ten feet above sea level to comply with the permitting board, but the home would need to be ten feet above sea level for Ms. Nunez to obtain flood insurance.
After Pinnacle completed construction, Ms. Nunez ordered an elevation certificate so that she could obtain flood insurance. Through the certification process, Ms. Nunez was informed that her house did not meet the ten-foot base flood elevation as the permit required. Ms. Nunez’s home only stood at an elevation of approximately 8 and one-half feet. The house was fully constructed on a concrete slab and it was determined that it would cost approximately $201,600 to raise the base to the required ten-foot elevation.
It is no secret that lawsuits are expensive creatures. It is perhaps baffling then that a party would retain an attorney, file a lawsuit, and maintain that lawsuit for over thirteen years without sufficiently actively pursuing that lawsuit. Yet, that is exactly what happened in a recent case out of Livingston Parish. And as the case explains, such inactivity within a case subjects the lawsuit to dismissal for abandonment. Money and time wasted for all parties involved.
In 2001, R.L. Hall and Associates, Inc. (“R.L. Hall”) filed a lawsuit against Brunt Construction, Inc. (“Brunt”) and Fidelity Deposit Company of Maryland (“Fidelity”) over a lien arising out of a construction contract. The next action on record does not occur until 2005 when R.L. Hall filed a motion to compel discovery. Then, in 2007, R.L. Hall filed the first motion to set a scheduling conference. After the 2007 telephone conference between the parties, nothing else appeared in the record until the plaintiff filed a second motion to set a conference in December of 2010. After the court established discovery deadlines following the 2010 conference, nothing appeared in the record again until the plaintiff filed a third motion to set a conference on June 4, 2014. During 2011 however, counsel for R.L. Hall did send letters to lawyers for the defendants in an attempt to schedule depositions. The informal correspondence, however, was not filed and does not appear in the court record. The defendants then filed a motion to dismiss R.L. Hall’s claim because there were no steps taken to further the action in over three years. The Judicial District Court for the Parish of Livingston dismissed the matter as abandoned.
R.L. Hall appealed the dismissal to the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal. Pursuant to La. C.C.P. art. 561 an action “is abandoned when the parties fail to take any step in its prosecution or defense in the trial court for a period of three years[.]” Upon the passage of three years without any steps taken in the case, the case is automatically dismissed without the need for a court order. To maintain a case, a party needs only to take some step within three years of the last action toward the prosecution or defense of the action and the step must be in the proceeding and on the record. See Clark v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Corporation, 785 So.2d 779 (La. 2001). Attempting to schedule a deposition through informal correspondence without a filed formal notice of deposition does not constitute a “step” which would interrupt the abandonment clock.

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 art. 561
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