New Orleans Personal Injury Law Blog

A fatal car accident is a tragedy that leaves behind grieving family members, and it sometimes can tear friends and families apart. In the case of a 32-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to killing his best friend in a car accident in Slidell, Louisiana, however, the mother of the victim asked the judge to impose the most lenient sentence possible.

The prosecutor did as the family requested, imposing the minimum sentence. The driver, who pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and negligent injuring charges, admitted he had used drugs shortly before he sent his car hurling into a pine tree. He was sentenced to five years in prison on the vehicular homicide charge; three will be served without the possibility of parole and the other two were suspended in exchange for five years of probation. He also received a six-month sentence for negligent injury that will be served concurrently with the other sentence.

A jury in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, has found a 63-year-old woman criminally negligent for causing a car accident two years ago that left three people dead.

The woman, a resident of Kenner, Louisiana, now faces a sentence that will range from probation to five years in prison.

A Louisiana woman can proceed with her lawsuit against the state agency that employs her, now that an appellate court has ruled she has a viable case pertaining to a car accident in the parking lot of her work.

In July 2009, the woman was backing out of her parking space at the Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville, Louisiana. She had fully removed her car from the space and had come to a complete stop when a van, owned by the medical center and driven by an on-duty staff member, hit the woman's car. She filed a petition for damages against the van driver and the Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University, which oversees the medical center.

Officials of the New Orleans Police Department said they are investigating claims of a couple who said they were the victims of a pedestrian and car accident involving a department patrol car.

The man and woman, both residents of the city and in their early 30s, said they were walking in the central business district at night. The police cruiser, their representative said, went through a red light at St. Charles Avenue and St. Joseph Street, then struck a taxi before it skidded into the couple and eventually into a fence. He said the cruiser's lights and sirens were not on. The couple went to the hospital for unspecified injuries. They were released within the next day.