An interesting article in Houma Today makes the point that one major reason automobile insurance rates are high in Louisiana are the laws restricting jury trials.

A jury trial in Louisiana must have an amount in contention above $50,000 or you cannot ask for a jury. So, the end result is that most damage suits resulting from automobile accidents end up in front of a judge since the great majority of cases are for less than $50,000. What’s the problem with a trial before a judge instead of before a jury? Well, it boils down to the fact that judges are elected and tend to side with the plaintiffs that voted for them rather than the insurance companies.

The article also notes:

“…insurance companies would rather settle, she said, than cast their lot before a judge they fear might not rule fairly, even if they believe the client is not at fault. Louisiana, insurance experts note, is one of the few states where insurance companies are sued directly rather than just the people they insure.

She cites a new report at insure.com, an insurance-industry Web site, that shows Louisiana’s average auto-insurance rates at $2,452 annually, the second highest in the nation, behind Michigan. Louisiana has held the No. 2 spot for years, checks of various industry reports show.”

UPDATE:  Louisiana has now moved up to the #1 most expensive state for automobile liability insurance coverage. Our average cost is $2,500 per year compared to around $1,500 in most states. Read more here:  http://insurancenewsnet.com/article.aspx?id=308989

Many people in Louisiana do not realize that a law has been in place for years now that gives a big tax break to people 65 and older.This break is frequently called the “Senior Freeze” and actually freezes assessments on homesteads for those who qualify. So, have you been the victim of frequent tax hikes through rising home prices? Have your assessments gone up even though home values have stayed the same or even gone down? Now there is something you can do about it.

The Senior Freeze is available for homeowners who are age 65 or older. If a married couple, then the age of the older person controls. So, if Mom is 60 and dad is 66, the Senior Freeze could be available for them. The real catch is that income must be below a certain point. This can vary a bit from on parish to another, but if the homeowner has reported income much over $65,000, then the freeze may not be available.

One interesting point about the Senior Freeze is that once you qualify, an increase in income will not be a problem. So, a sensible tactic for those who may be above the income limit is to wait for that one year where income as show on your 1040 is below the limit. Apply for the Senior Freeze that year and you are locked in for life.

Call your parish tax assessor. They have the application form and can give you more details on the qualification process. Most parishes now require that you show them your latest 1040.

There is a good bit of controversy over the release from prison of former governor Edwin Edwards. Well, it isn’t the release so much, it is the hiring of Edwards by Louisiana Democratic Party Chairman Buddy Leach to join Leach’s law firm.

Dubos added, “It’s a little surprising to me… that the chairman of the Democratic Party would hire on his law firm staff the man who personifies all of the things that many people see as wrong with the Democratic Party in Louisiana.”

For more on the story, go HERE.

A new law effective this year requires 10-year smoke alarms in all single and duplex dwellings. The new requirement mandates that all smoke alarms in new dwellings and in existing dwellings that are for sale be equipped with lithium batteries designed to last ten or more years.The law applies to single family dwellings and to duplex dwellings.

Realtors must document the requirement and make sure the new alarms are present prior to sale, which is kind of a new twist on the ongoing list of things realtors are now responsible for doing prior to a sale.

According to Butch Browning, the State Fire Marshal: “Some of the fires we did investigate in the last 3 years had the old smoke detectors but the batteries were dead and hadn’t been replaced.”

I gave an ethics seminar recently for the Baton Rouge Bar Association. One of the examples I gave of an ethics lapse was a case where a lawyer was disbarred. It showed just how dumb even highly educated people can be.

In this case, a lawyer was hired to handle a succession. It was a routine and simple matter: just settle the estate and put the heirs into possession of what they were supposed to get. For some reason, which was not explained in the Louisiana Supreme Court decision that disbarred him, the lawyer “made up” the paperwork putting the heirs into possession.

First of all, he never filed any pleadings of any sort. Instead, he took the suit number from another case and fabricated a judgment of possession, which he sent to his clients. The fabricated judgment included a forged judge’s signature and court seals. Needless to say, his fabrication was discovered when the heirs tried to get possession of the property listed in the fake judgment and a complaint was filed.

So, in our new feature entitled “Dumb Lawyer of the Month”, this would easily qualify as the dumbest lawyer of the decade. -In Re Wyche, La Supreme Ct.

On December 15, 2010, Congress passed some drastic estate tax law changes. About the only thing you see in the press is that the federal estate tax exemption is now $5 million. However, there is much more to this and there are more than a few traps for the unwary.

First of all, the title to the short subsection making the changes is “Title III-Temporary Estate Tax Relief”. So, temporary means temporary and in two years it automatically goes back to $1 million. Nothing like leaving this up in the air once again so that estate planners cannot plan.

Portability. Here is the big issue that Congress has totally botched. “Portability” means that a surviving spouse automatically gets the unused estate tax exemption from the spouse who dies first. Ideally, that leaves the family with a $10 million estate tax exemption when the last spouse dies. However, Congress did not just leave it so that the surviving spouse gets the deceased spouse’s exclusion. The surviving spouse is required to file a federal estate tax return within nine months of death and specifically request the exemption on the return. So, what’s the problem? The problem is that an estate tax return is only required for a taxable estate. The surviving spouse now must know to file the return, whether it is required or not, in order to get the exemption. If the return is not filed, then the exemption for the first spouse is wasted.

Since the cost of preparing and filing a 706 return can be quite expensive, and since a return would probably not otherwise be required 99% of the time, it is a shame that Congress has added this requirement.

What this means for lawyers. It likely will put lawyers in the position of advising clients to file a 706 estate tax return even for relatively small estates since we don’t know where the exemptions will be down the road -and if you don’t elect the exemption on the return, it is forever lost. If an exemption is lost and it turns out down the road that it was needed, then I think it is clear that a malpractice situation now exists. I have seen the cost of preparing a 706 range from $3,000 to $30,000 -and that does not include the cost of all the required supporting documents, like professional appraisals on estate property.

The Louisiana Law Blog from La-legal will be here soon.