Opinion ID: 1833794
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Broussard's Fault

Text: It was incumbent upon Joseph to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that Broussard was negligent and that this negligence caused his damages. See Cay v. State, Dept. of Transp. & Dev., 93-0887 (La.1/14/94), 631 So.2d 393. In his presentation of the case, Joseph contended that Broussard was negligent in failing to secure the layers with glue [9] and in improperly crosstying the rice sacks. In finding that Broussard failed to refute Joseph's evidence in these two particulars, we find that the trial court failed to recognize that the jury heard conflicting testimony on the question of gluing. Although Shuff testified that the sacks of stacked rice were sliding off the pallets at the Port because there was no glue on them, the jury heard testimony from Keith, the mill owner, that glue is mechanically applied to the rice sacks as the last stage of preparing the rice for shipment by truck to the Port. He stated that the conveyor system shuts down automatically if glue is not applied to the polyweave sacks. There was no testimony that the conveyor system stopped when this lot of rice was prepared for shipping at the Broussard mill. Likewise, Keith testified that the purpose for adding the glue was to stop the loss of rice falling off pallets in transit. Keith theorized that it probably would have been impossible for an unglued load of rice to have traveled on a flatbed truck from the mill to the Port without bags falling. In addition, Keith stated that he would have expected someone from the Port to call had an unglued rice shipment arrive in bad condition. However, there is no record of anyone notifying the mill that this shipment of rice arrived at the Port in poor condition. Accordingly, the reasonable inference which the jury could have drawn from this evidence was that glue was applied to the rice sacks which comprised this lot. As made clear in Anderson, the trial court should not evaluate the credibility of witnesses, and all reasonable inferences or factual questions should be resolved in favor of the nonmoving party. Anderson, 583 So.2d at 832. Thus, we find that the lower courts improperly concluded that JNOV was proper on this highly controverted factual question. On the other hand, the jury heard the testimony of Gary Nelson, Joseph's expert in the field of safety engineering and safety management, that the multiple incidents of falling rice on the day of Joseph's accident indicated that the sacks were not level when they left Broussard and that the crosstying method utilized at the mill was itself defective. At this juncture, Nelson opined that the four by two system that Broussard utilized was not secure because it was not interlocking. Although Broussard relied on the fact that its method of stacking and crosstying had existed for years, it did not refute Nelson's expert evidence which lay blame on Broussard for the condition of the pallets of rice when it left the mill. For this reason, we find that the jury could have found evidence of fault on Broussard's part.