Louisiana injury lawyer Bob Downing (retired First Circuit Court of Appeal Judge) wrote the following article for the May 2011 issue of the Baton Rouge Bar Association’s monthly publication, Around the Bar, regarding the impropriety of appealing from the denial of a motion for directed verdict: There should be no…
Louisiana Revised Statute 9:2794(D)(1)(a) requires that a physician who testifies as an expert witness in a medical malpractice case must be: “practicing medicine at the time such testimony is given or was practicing medicine at the time the claim arose.” The Louisiana Supreme Court in Johnson v. Morehouse General Hospital,…
On Friday, May 6, 2011, the Louisiana Supreme Court, in the per curiam decision of Johnson v. Louisiana Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company, 11-0476 (La. 5/6/2011), resolved a conflict between the Louisiana courts of appeal as to whether the “mailing or delivery” provision contained in La. R.S. 22:1335 (formerly La.…
Randy Piedrahita of the Baton Rouge, Louisiana personal injury law firm of Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C., recently completed a week long Advanced SWAT school taught by Steve Clagett of TV’s “Dallas SWAT” fame. The first two days, shown here, highlighted shooting and hostage rescue with live fire and…
The first, and most obvious, step before submitting requests for special jury instructions is to obtain the trial judge’s standard form jury instructions, if he has any. The bulk of the necessary instructions are typically included in those forms, so there is no need to submit requested instructions on those…
Assuming that any error has been adequately preserved on appeal, what is the effect of an erroneous jury instruction? There are two possible situations here. The first is when the jury is simply given the wrong law, as in Berg v. Zummo, 786 So.2d 708 (La. 2001). In these kinds…
Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure article 1793(C) states, “A party may not assign as error the giving or the failure to give an instruction unless he objects thereto either before the jury retires to consider its verdict, or immediately after the jury retires, stating specifically the matter to which he…
Trial counsel should always review the final jury instructions prior to closing. Paragraph B of Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure article 1793 provides: “The court shall inform the parties of its proposed action on the written requests and shall also inform the parties of the instructions it intends to give…
Although this paper is primarily concerned with instructions given at the close of evidence pursuant to article 1792(B), paragraph A of that article allows the judge to instruct the jury “[a]t any time during the trial.” This is commonly done, for example, when an expert witness is called to testify;…
The primary responsibility for instructing the jury lies with the judge. La. C.C.P. art. 1792(B). Adequate jury instructions are those that fairly and reasonably point out the issues presented by the evidence and the pleadings and provide correct principles of law for the jury to apply. Luman v. Highlands Ins.…