2023 Murphy Rogers Round-Up
31 December 2023
As we look forward to continuing to serve our clients as we move into 2024, the Firm is happy to share just a few of the legal highlights from a busy but productive 2023.
Favorable Jury Verdict for the House in Jefferson Parish
In mid-July 2023, directors John Musser and Tarryn Walsh obtained a defense verdict for Treasure Chest Casino in a slip-and-fall jury trial in the 24th Judicial District Court for the Parish of Jefferson.
For a snapshot of the facts of the case, the plaintiff alleged that he slipped and fell on a wet floor in one of the casino’s bathrooms on a busy Saturday night, consequently suffering back injuries as a result. Maintaining that he laid on the restroom floor for approximately a half-hour after his fall, the plaintiff did not report his accident to casino security for at least a half hour, but inspection of the restroom immediately upon report of the accident revealed a dry floor with no indicia of any troublesome area. And given how unlikely it was that no one else had entered one of the frequently-trafficked restrooms on the main floor of the casino for over thirty minutes on a busy Saturday night in 2012, in addition to the fact that the plaintiff had pre-existing balance problems that could well have caused any alleged fall, the issue of plaintiff’s credibility was a large piece of the trial.
At the completion of a two-and-a-half day trial before a Jefferson Parish jury, the jury found in favor of Treasure Chest, denying plaintiff any recovery and dismissing his claims.
Summary Judgment Dismissal of Merchant Liability Claim in the U.S. Western District of Louisiana
On 5 July 2023, the Honorable Judge David Joseph of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana handed down his ruling granting the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by defendant Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino, which was represented in the case by directors John Musser and Tarryn Walsh.
In short, the case was of the trip-and-fall variety, in that the plaintiff alleged that his foot got stuck on the floor of an Evangeline Downs walkway, allegedly causing him to fall forward and suffer personal injuries. However, as became particularly consequential to Judge Joseph’s decision in favor of the casino, the plaintiff could not affirmatively identify the alleged defect or hazard on the floor that allegedly caused his injuries, which the Judge found to be fatal to his claim. Highlighting that the plaintiff had been unable in his deposition to identify that any hazardous condition existed, Judge Joseph reminded that “[s]peculative allegations as to the presence of a substance on the floor are
insufficient to defeat summary judgment.” Because the plaintiff had failed to present any evidence that an unreasonably dangerous condition existed, he lacked evidence as to an essential element of a Merchant Liability Act claim, which mandated a summary dismissal.
The decision can be found on Westlaw at 2022 WL 2866208 (W.D. La. Case No. 6:22-CV-01180).