Louisiana Premises Liability Blog : Louisiana Premises Liability Lawyer & Attorney : Irwin Fritchie Urquhart & Moore Law Firm : LA Slip & Fall, Property Security : New Orleans, Baton Rouge

The case Falcon v. Louisiana Dept. of Transportation arises out of a motor vehicle accident involving a mother and her three children. On the day of the accident the mother was driving her vehicle with her three minor children as passengers. When she approached a T-shaped intersection, she allegedly ran a stop sign and then after attempting to turn left her vehicle was broadsided by a truck traveling on the intersecting highway. Although her children only sustained minor injuries, she suffered a severe closed head injury, which ultimately required that she be legally interdicted under the curatorship of her father “Plaintiff”. 

Plaintiff filed a personal injury action on behalf of his daughter and her three children alleging that defendants’ placement of a large billboard at an intersection of two roads constituted an unreasonably dangerous condition to motorists. Named as defendants were the State of Louisiana, through the Department of Transportation and Development (“DOTD”), the owner of the land on which sign was erected and its insurer, as well as the owners of the sign and their insurers. The billboard in question measured sixteen (16) feet in width by approximately eight (8) feet in height and was alleged to have extended two feet into the State's right-of-way along La. Hwy. 1 in violation of La. R.S. 48:461.2. This statute provides, in part:

No outdoor advertising shall be erected or maintained within six hundred sixty feet of the nearest edge of the right of way and visible from the main traveled way of the interstate or primary highways in this state....

The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment asserting that the entire lawsuit should be dismissed because the placement of the billboard did not present an unreasonably dangerous condition to motorists and because the mother failed to act as a reasonable motorist. The trial court granted summary judgment as to the landowner, its insurer and the DOTD, but denied the motion as to owners of the sign and their insurers. With respect to those entities, the court found that there existed a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the billboard contributed to the accident. Plaintiff appealed the trial court’s dismissal of the landowner, its insurer and the DOTD on the basis that it was not appropriate to rule as a matter of law that an uncontested sight obstruction did not constitute an unreasonably dangerous condition. The only issues before the appellate court were whether there were genuine issues of material fact (1) as to whether the billboard presented an unreasonably dangerous condition and (2) as to whether the mother failed to act as a reasonably prudent motorist under the circumstances.

The appellate court first considered the issue of whether the billboard presented an unreasonably dangerous condition. The court noted that it was undisputed that at a certain point along the highway, the placement of the billboard obstructed the view of motorists. Thus, the only issue was whether the obstruction was sufficient to constitute an unreasonably dangerous condition. Finding that this inquiry was inherently a factual determination, the appellate court reversed the finding of the trial court and held that there were genuine issues of fact as to whether the billboard obscured the view of the mother thereby creating an unreasonable risk of harm.

The court next addressed the issue of whether the mother failed to act as a reasonably prudent motorist under the circumstances. Defendants argued that to defeat summary judgment Plaintiff had to overcome two separate presumptions: (1) that a left-turning motorist involved in a collision that occurs across the center line is at fault in causing the accident; and (2) that a motorist who runs a stop sign resulting in a collision is similarly at fault in causing the accident. Plaintiffs countered that there were factual disputes with respect to each contention put forth by defendants. First, the other driver in the accident testified that he did not know which direction the mother intended to travel and the investigating officer refused to state that she was definitively attempting to execute a left-hand turn. Second, one of the mother's daughters, who was a passenger in vehicle, testified that just prior to the accident her mother stopped at the stop sign. Lastly, Plaintiffs contended that it was the placement of the billboard that caused the accident – not the mother’s alleged failure to act in a reasonably prudent manner. The appellate court found that these issues of fact were sufficient to defeat defendants’ summary judgment motion and reversed the ruling of the trial court.

Take Away: Courts are reluctant to uphold the dismissal of a case via summary judgment when there are arguable issues of material fact as to the events and circumstances surrounding an accident, especially where a plaintiff has sustained catastrophic injuries.

This article was co-authored by John Garrett, an associate at Irwin Fritchie Urquhart & Moore LLC.

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Although, it is well known that cigarette smoke can be harmful to a person’s health, cigarette butts can also be dangerous.  The question decided by the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal in Adams v. Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport (“LSUHSC”), was whether, as a matter of law, LSUHSC, a public facility, is exempt from responsibility for the damages Sherry Adams sustained when she fell on a wet cigarette butt located on a handicap entrance ramp to the facility. 

On August 9, 2005, Ms. Adams, an off-duty LSUHC employee, slipped and fell when she was going to visit her uncle who was a patient in the hospital. As a result of the fall, Ms. Adams sustained serious injuries to her right hand, fingers, and right ankle. She sued LSUHSC alleging that, at the time of the incident, the ramp was unreasonably dangerous and defective because of the collection of cigarette butts on the ramp.  She further alleged that LSUHSC knew or should have known of the unreasonably dangerous condition or defect associated with the collection of cigarette butts and that the condition could have been prevented if the hospital had exercised reasonable care.

After sufficient discovery, LSUHSC filed a motion for summary judgment, which was granted. The trial court found that: (1) Ms. Adams claims arose under La. C. C. art. 2317 (pdf), which imparts liability upon owners for damages caused by their defective things, and La. R.S. 9:2800 (pdf), Louisiana’s statute limiting liability for public entities arising from public property; (2) Ms. Adams could not meet her burden of proof against LSUHSC; and, (3) the accumulation of cigarette butts did not constituted a defective condition or an unreasonably dangerous condition as contemplated by law. 

On appeal, the Second Circuit reversed and remanded the case to the trial court, holding that the trial court had incorrectly applied Louisiana law regarding a defective condition in property and that Ms. Adams’ claims against LSUHSC were correctly asserted under La.C.C. art. 2315 (pdf), Louisiana’s general tort law. The Second Circuit relied upon its own prior ruling in Holden v. Louisiana State University Medical Center-Shreveport in which it held that La. C.C. art. 2317  and La.R.S. 9:2800 do not apply when a person slips and falls on a foreign substance located on a premises. The court explained that there is a difference between “a defect in the premises” and “a defect on the premises.” Therefore, the court concluded that “the temporary presence of a foreign substance is not, in and of itself, a defect for purposes of strict liability under La. C.C. 2317” and, by extension, La. R.S. 9:2800. Rather, in such cases, the court held that negligence is measured by La. C.C. art. 2315. 

The court also noted that a hospital owes a duty to its visitors to exercise reasonable care to keep its premises in a safe condition commensurate with the particular substance involved but that the standard of care for a hospital is lower than that for a merchant. The Second Circuit held that, because the trial court applied the incorrect law, the trial court failed to consider the relationship between the risk of someone slipping and falling on cigarette butts located on the handicap ramp and the reasonableness of the measures taken by the hospital to eliminate that risk. 

In addition, after conducting a complete review of the trial court summary judgment record, the Court concluded that Ms. Adams had identified material issues of fact that precluded summary judgment. Among the disputed facts was that: (1) LSUHSC had some knowledge of the cigarette butts at the entrance where Ms. Adams fell; (2) someone was supposed to clean the entranceway where Ms. Adams fell; and, (3) the person who cleaned the entrance may not have done it regularly. Moreover, the Court held that the evidence in the record was enough to provide factual support that LSUHSC had actual or constructive notice of the cigarette butts on the ramp. The Court also held that it was a jury’s function, not the court’s, to decide if LSUHSC’s policy for keeping the entrance ramp clean was reasonable. The Court, ultimately, held that LSUHSC failed to carry its initial burden of proving there was no genuine issue of material fact and that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Take-Away: The Adams’ case demonstrates that a state run hospital can not rely upon La. R.S. 9:2800 to exempt it from its general duties to keep its premises safe. This case also demonstrates that a hospital cannot prevail on a summary judgment if the plaintiff establishes that the hospital may have had some knowledge of a potentially defective condition or did not have a policy to reasonably rectify a known defective condition.

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