Slocum v. Anderson et al

Filing 54

RULING AND ORDER: Plaintiff's 49 Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is DENIED. Signed by Judge Brian A. Jackson on 2/12/2020. (KAH)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
SUZETTE SLOCUM CIVIL ACTION

VERSUS
JESSICA ANDERSON, ET AL. NO.: 17-01781-BAJ-EWD

RULING AND ORDER
Before the Court is Plaintiffs Motion for Partial Summary Judgment
(Doc. 49). This motion is opposed. .See (Doc. 50). For the reasons stated below,

Plaintiffs Motion is DENIED.

I. BACKGROUND
On December 16, 2016, Plaintiff Suzette Slocum, an Emergency Medical
Technician employed by Acadian Ambulance, was injured on the job while riding in
the back of an ambulance with a patient. The ambulance was struck by a large truck
operated by Defendant Jessica An-derson on behalf of Defendant XPO Express, Inc.
(Doc. 49-2 at p. 32). Upon impact, Plaintiff alleges, a stretcher was knocked loose
from its locking mechanism and rolled violently into her legs. (Doc. 49-1 at p. 5-6).

This lawsuit followed.
Now, Plaintiff moves for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability,
claiming Defendant Anderson is entirely at fault for her injuries. In support, Plaintiff
offers evidence from Defendant Anderson s deposition in which she agreed that she

was at fault for causing the accident and took responsibility for it. (Doc. 49-2 at p.

33). Further, Plaintiff provides testimony from the same deposition indicating that
Defendant Anderson admitted to driving too close to the ambulance. Id. at 28.
In response, Defendants emphasize the need to consider comparative fault and

argue that Plaintiffs injuries had two possible additional causes that preclude
summary judgment on the issue of liability. The first additional cause of Plaintiffs
injury that Defendants allege is Plaintiffs violation of her employer's safety policy for
travel in the back of the ambulance. Defendants cite an investigation of the accident
that determined that the root cause of Plaintiffs injuries was her failure to comply
with those policies. (Doc. 50m6, at p. 7). Second, Defendants argue that Plaintiffs
injuries may have been caused by the failure of her employer's equipment and cite

testimony that such a collision ordinarily should not have broken the stretcher or its
locking mechanism. Id. at 10.

II. LEGAL STANDARD
Summary judgment is proper if Plaintiff shows that there is no genuine dispute
as to any material fact concerning liability, and that she is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law. FED. R. ClV. P. 56(a). In deciding whether Plaintiff has made that
showing, the Court views facts and draws reasonable inferences in Defendants' favor.

Midwest Feeders, Inc. v. Bank of Franklin, 886 F.3d 507, 513 (5th Cir. 2018).
In her Petition for Damages, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Jessica
Anderson s actions or omissions are the sole cause of her injuries and damages,

constituting fault and negligence under Louisiana Civil Code Article 2315. (Doc. 1-2
y). To prove a negligence claim under Louisiana law, Plaintiff must establish: (1)

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that Defendant had a duty to conform her conduct to a specific standard, (2) that
Defendant's conduct failed to conform to the appropriate standard, (3) that
Defendant's substandard conduct was a cause in fact of Plaintiffs injuries (4) that
Defendant s substandard conduct was a legal cause of Plaintiffs injuries, and (5)
actual damages. Audler v. CBC Innovis Inc., 519 F.3d 239, 249 (5th Cir. 2008).
Defendants aver that comparative fault must be assessed as part of causation,
making summary judgment improper. In Louisiana, comparative fault applies "in
any action for damages brought "under any law or legal doctrine or theory of

liability[.F LA. Civ. CODE art. 2323. Comparative fault means that "100% of the
causative fault for a harm must be allocated" and "each joint tortfeasor is only liable
for his degree of fault." Thompson u, Winn-Dixie Montgomery, Inc., 2015-0477 (La.

10/14/15), 181 So. 3d 656, 664. Articles 2323 and 2324 of the Louisiana Civil Code
place Louisiana in a pure comparative fault system." Dumas v. State ex rel. Dep't of

Culture, Recreation & Tourism, 2002-0563 (La. 10/15/02), 828 So. 2d 530,535.
Louisiana s pure comparative fault system under Article 2323 requires a full
apportionment of fault among all potentially reasonable parties and renders
summary judgment inappropriate where reasonable minds could disagree about the

apportionment of fault. McCoy v. Energy XXI GOM, L.L.C., 695 F. App'x 750, 756 (5th
Cir. 2017), citing Alien v. Integrated Health Servs., Inc., 743 So.2d 804, 807 (La. Gt.

App. 1999) (Because we conclude that reasonable minds might differ as to the
apportionment of fault under these circumstances, we hereby reverse the trial court's

grant of partial summary judgment which assessed the defendants with all the fault
for the accident/'); Grabowski v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 149 So.Sd 899, 908 (La. Ct.

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App. 2014), writ denied, 159 So.3d 1057 (La. 2015) (reversing the grant of summary
judgment in favor of a medical sales representative defendant because the summary
judgment record revealed a genuine dispute as to a material fact as to whether he

was potentially at fault).

III. DISCUSSION
Defendants sufficiently allege material disputes of fact that provide reasonable
doubt as to whether Defendant An-derson is, as Plaintiff contends, 100% at fault for
her injuries. Plaintiff avers that Defendant Anderson is presumed negligent in
causing the accident. (Doc. 1-2 1|8); Alexander v. Ford, 03-887 (La. App. 5 Cir.

1/27/04), 866 So. 2d 890, 896 ("The following motorist in a rear-end collision is
presumed to have breached this duty, and he bears the burden of exonerating

himself) (citations omitted). In support, Plaintiff argues that Defendant Anderson
admitted in her deposition that she was tailgating the ambulance before the accident
and violated Baton Rouge City Ordinance 11:143 in doing so. (Doc. 49-1 at p. 2-3).

Additionally, Plaintiff cites to a case from the Eastern District of Louisiana, White
v. Wimberly, where a plaintiff was awarded summary judgment on the issue of

liability after having been rear-ended in a car accident. The court in White noted the
lack of any evidence suggesting that the defendants were not solely liable. White v.
Wimberly, No. CIV.A. 09-3152, 2010 WL 3720914, at *1 (E.D. La. Sept. 10, 2010).
Even with the presumption of negligence in rear-end collisions, White is
distinguishable. Unlike WJzite, where the defendants simply argued that allocation of
fault was unclear because the plaintiffs offered "no evidence to show conclusively that

Plaintiff was not also negligent," Defendants here do offer concrete arguments
indicating a genuine dispute concerning fault apportionment.

Assuming arguendo that Defendant Anderson is fully at fault for causing the
accident, Louisiana s pure comparative fault scheme requires the Court to consider

whether any other parties could also be liable for Plaintiffs injuries. Defendants cite
to several depositions that indicate Plaintiff may have failed to comply with safety
standards. In her root cause analysis, Brittany Nada Thompson, the personnel lead

investigator at Acadian Ambulance, initially concluded that Plaintiffs failure to wear
a seatbelt, as is required by Acadians safety guide (which would have been
distributed to any employee in the ambulance) was the cause of Plaintiffs injuries.
(Doc. 50-6 at p. 7-9).

Further, Defendants argument that that Plaintiffs employer may be at least
partially at fault raises material doubt as to how liability should be apportioned.
Acadian's Director of Fleet Operations, Trampus Gaspard, testified that the stretcher
or its locking mechanism should not have broken loose as a result of this accident. Id.

at 10. Although Defendants concede that Plaintiffs employer may be statutorily
immune from negligence, the Court agrees that Plaintiffs employer's fault, if any,
must be properly evaluated. Each of Defendants arguments is enough to raise

material doubt as to whether fault for Plaintiffs injuries can be fully apportioned to
Defendant Anderson.

IV. CONCLUSION
Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs Motion for Partial Summary Judgment
(Doc. 49) is DENIED.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, this J_^-'"""day of February, 2020.

(L

JUDGE BRIANtA. JAlCKSON

UNITED STATE15TTESTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA