Businesses Even Less Likely To Invest In Louisiana After They Read This

Louisiana is a judicial hellhole, and a story this week about a New Orleans personal injury lawyer staging tractor trailer accidents to score big in court only makes matters worse.

That man, Danny Patrick Keating, Jr. was sentenced last week to nearly three years in federal prison.

This case demonstrates precisely why many people think of Louisiana as a tough place to do business.

Out-of-state investors already hesitate to set up shop in Louisiana…and the example set by Keating won’t help.  

Here’s what happened.

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In a press release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana said Keating — who was indicted six years ago — didn’t act alone and was part of a mass conspiracy. So far, the feds have charged 63 people in this case.

Keating paid a man to stage 31 tractor trailer accidents and later filed lawsuits on behalf of 77 plaintiffs, who lied under oath at depositions about who caused the accidents as well as injuries that they never, in fact, sustained. 

He also used the U.S. Postal Service to mail out-of-state companies to demand settlements.

Keating is the extreme version of a system that makes big-money injury lawsuits easy and common. 

Almost a year ago, the American Tort Reform Foundation’s (ATF’s) Judicial Hellhole website called out Louisiana for its nuclear verdicts, including an auto accident case that resulted in a $220 million verdict. 

Louisiana state courts awarded $409 million in nuclear verdicts against businesses in 2023, according to one study. 

A separate study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Louisiana placed eighth among the states for the most nuclear verdicts in personal injury and wrongful death cases in 2023.

“The Louisiana Supreme Court caved to political pressure from the plaintiffs’ bar and discarded established constitutional protections in favor of lawsuits,” the website said. 

“Public trust in the state’s judicial system has been on the decline, and this latest action only magnifies this concern.”

The ATF called out Louisiana’s past and present governors for taking sizable donations from plaintiff’s lawyers and said that that jeopardizes any possible civil justice reforms at the state level. 

Politicians take a lot of money from injury lawyers, and that makes it harder to pass rules that make the system fair for everybody. 

Louisiana’s interstates and television airwaves are riddled with billboards and advertisements for personal injury attorneys.

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A system that celebrates huge jury awards and fills the roads with fancy billboards for personal injury attorneys more or less gives Keating permission to start testing the waters — and stage major traffic accidents.  

Granted, Keating was caught and prosecuted, but an environment far less accommodating to personal injury attorneys might have discouraged this. 

Schemes like these could continue for several more years. 

Just as bad, potential out-of-state investors who consider Louisiana as a place to start a business see just how aggressively these lawyers advertise and realize that the state’s laws are not business friendly….so they invest elsewhere.

Louisiana needs more business owners — and far fewer attorneys — writing the laws in Baton Rouge.  

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