Did you know there’s a legal limit to what you can get from an airline settlement. On the other hand, there’s no upper limit to when it comes to automobile crashes.
Personal injury cases are highly complicated, and how they are handled varies by state.
A recent personal injury case has completely realtered how Louisiana courts will handle personal injury case payouts.
The Louisiana Supreme Court was reviewing a $10.75-million personal injury award given to a truck driver who was severely hurt in a car accident in 2018.
The trucker was on I-10 when a contractor from the Louisiana Department of Transportation, who was picking up traffic cones on the right shoulder, veered into the truck driver’s lane, hitting him and causing him to lose control of the vehicle. The truck toppled over, almost taking his life.
What followed was over 300 doctor visits, many corrective surgeries, and years of recovery.
However, after review, the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the jury’s reward in a 4-3 decision, declaring it legally excessive.
The plaintiff's lawyers moved for a rehearing. Then, the court took up the case again and eventually reversed itself, saying that the award was not unreasonable.
This led to a revision of the process of reviewing jury awards in Louisiana.
This revision came as big news because the idea of the extent to which an appellate court can step in and overturn the findings of a jury court has always been a controversial topic in Louisiana, especially after a full-blown civil trial.
Essentially, the revisions state rulings will be more deferential to jury verdicts than it has been historically.
The change is significant because it means large jury verdicts carry more weight, especially in instances of personal injury payouts for general and punitive damages.
This matters in Louisiana specifically because our state differs from others given that, in comparison, we’re very limited when it comes to awarding punitive damages.
So what exactly are the full impacts of this change? I interviewed Loyola Law Professor Dane Ciolino to explain these changes and how courts award personal injury payouts.