Louisiana Voice

There’s a cheesy TV commercial that’s been running the past few days warning all of us of the evils of litigation but the State of Louisiana may have already found a way to thwart plaintiffs and their attorneys—but not the defense attorneys who work for the state.

On Oct. 20, LouisianaVoice published a story revealing that the state had more than $100 million in 40 lawsuit settlements and judgments pending but still UNPAID. And that is just the face value. With judicial interest accruing daily, that total now stands at well north of $300 million.

Three days later, on Oct. 23, we ran another story that contained a somewhat disturbing revelation: the state spent $309,000 in legal fees to defend a LAWSUIT against the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) and its former director, Troy Hebert, a suit that settled for $250,000.

And while the New Orleans defense firm of Frilot, LLC and its attorney, Renee Culotta, contracted to defend the state have already received their $309,000 (attorney fees are paid as they accrue), the plaintiff in the case, former ATC agent Brett Tingle and his attorney, J. Arthur Smith III, may have to wait several years before they see a penny of the settlement amount.

That’s also the case with those 40 judgments on the books right now. Legislative bills have been introduced and passed for payment but the money isn’t there so at the present time all the plaintiffs and their attorneys have is a judgment but in reality, nothing more than a piece of paper—apparently because the financially-strapped state is just too broke to pay anyone but defense attorneys.

LouisianaVoice pulled 17 of those 40 cases and made a public records request of the Louisiana Office of Risk Management (ORM) through the Division of Administration (DOA) for an accounting of legal fees in each of the cases. (The 1983 class action lawsuit over the disastrous flood in Tangipahoa Parish which resulted in a $98 million judgment was not one of those we examined. With interest, that judgment alone comes to about $300 million.)

Those 17 cases resulted in a combined total of $8.8 million. Some are judgments stemming from trial and others are consent judgments, or settlements, reached before trial. The plaintiffs in those cases.

None of the plaintiffs have received any of their judgments. Plaintiff attorneys in such cases usually work on contingency, meaning they do not get paid unless their client wins his case. The cut for plaintiff attorneys is usually in the area of 30 percent, or in these cases, about $2.6 million. Like their clients, the plaintiff attorneys have received nothing for their work.

Defense attorneys involved, however, get paid regardless. For the 17 reviewed cases, they received more than a third of the total amount of judgments—$3,064,800, to be precise. Of that amount, $426,238 was spent on expert witnesses and on surveillance of plaintiffs.

As in the Tingle ATC case, in three of the cases listed below, attorney fees, expert fees and surveillance fees combined to exceed the actual amounts of the judgments by a combined $192,490.

Here are the cases for which we asked DOA to pull the payment records, the parishes where the suits were filed, and the final judgments. The defense attorney, expert witness and surveillance fees are added in parenthesis (legal fees that exceeded judgments in boldface):

• Michael and Mary Aleshire, Calcasieu Parish: $104,380.82 ($194,361);
• Kayla Schexnayder and Emily Legarde, Assumption Parish: $1,068,004 ($325,868);
• Debra Stutes, Calcasieu Parish: $850,000 ($428,130);
• Peter Mueller, Orleans Parish: $245,000 ($110,270);
• Steve Brengettsy and Elro McQuarter, West Feliciana: $205,000 (88,514);
• Jeffrey and Lillie Christopher, Iberville Parish: $175,000 ($78,785);
• Donald Ragusa and Tina Cristina, East Baton Rouge: $175,000 ($468,166);
• Stephanie Landry and Tommie Varnado, Orleans Parish: $135,000 ($144,343);
• Jennie Lynn Badeaux Russ, Lafourche Parish: $1.5 million ($128,561);
• Adermon and Gloria Rideaux and Brian Brooks, Calcasieu Parish: $1.375 million ($103,980);
• Theresa Melancon and DHH Medicaid Program, Rapides Parish: $750,000 ($172,262);
• Rebecca, Kevin and Cheryl Cole and Travelers Insurance, East Baton Rouge: $400,000 $122,772);
• Samuel and Susan Weaver, Lafourche Parish: $240,000 ($180,917);
• Henry Clark, Denise Ramsey and Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, Lafayette Parish: $326,000 ($55,401);
• Anya and Abigail Falcon and Landon and Nikki Hanchett, Iberville Parish, $946,732.53 ($265,598);
• Adam Moore and James Herrington, East Carroll Parish: $150,000 ($132,643);
• Traci Newsom, Gerald Blow, DHH Medicaid and Ameril-Health Caritas, Tangipahoa Parish: $150,000 $46,231).

Judgments with round figures like the Traci Newsom and Gerald Blow case are most likely consent judgments, meaning there would be no judicial interest. But irregular judgments like the Anya and Abigail Falcon case, Michael and Mary Aleshire, or Kayla Schexnayder and Emily Legarde were likely trial decisions which would mean judicial interest is accruing every day.

In four of the 17 cases, private law firms were contracted to handle the defense with the attorney general’s office defending the remaining 13. But even in cases handled by the attorney general’s staff attorneys, ORM pays the attorney general’s office via interagency payments.

While the argument could be made that without putting on a legal defense, judgments may well have been much higher.

But if judgments are not being paid, why not simply allow a default judgment and save all those legal fees? It’s not like a plaintiff attorney can seize the State Capitol.