Published by The Pellegrin Firm November 29, 2019

On November 15, 2019, the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge affirmed a Terrebonne Parish district judge’s grant of summary judgment in the case of a Houma doctor injured in a bicycle accident. The plaintiff suffered a broken neck and other injuries when he attempted to hop over a small gap in a sidewalk on his bicycle and the front wheel separated from the bike, sending him flying over the handlebars. The case is Dr. Arthur Delahoussaye et. al. versus Frederick Boelter, III et al. Docket No. 2019-CA-0026 in the court of appeal.

The Louisiana Product Liability Act is the exclusive remedy for Louisiana consumers who are injured by defective products. In order to show liability under the Louisiana Product Liability Act, a plaintiff must prove: 1) that the defendant is the manufacturer of the product, 2) that the claimant’s damage was proximately caused by a characteristic of the product; 3) that this characteristic made the product “unreasonably dangerous” and 4) that the claimant’s damage arose from a reasonably anticipated use of the product by the claimant or someone else. A product is unreasonably dangerous if and only if: 1) the product is unreasonably dangerous in construction or composition, 2) the product is unreasonably dangerous in design, 3) the product is unreasonably dangerous because an adequate warning about the product has not been provided, or 4) the product is unreasonably dangerous because it does not conform to an express warranty of the manufacturer.

The trial court held, and the court of appeal agreed, that the manufacturer submitted ample evidence that a secondary retention device had been removed from the bicycle after it had left the manufacturer. (The injured plaintiff was the third owner). Evidence showed that the retention device had been filed off. The plaintiff tried to argue that the bicycle was unreasonably dangerous even with the secondary retention device, but the courts held that the manufacturer met its obligation to produce a safe product because the accident would not have happened if the secondary retention device was left on like it was supposed to be. This case shows the difficult standard of proof in Louisiana product liability cases. It is essential to show that the product left the manufacturer in an unsafe condition in order to recover damages.