La. Supreme Court redesigns its web site

Check out the redesigned, reformatted La. Supreme Court website.

R.I.P. Judge Redmann

Former 4th Cir. judge William V. Redmann has died at the age of 77. His Times-Picayune obituary is here.

Appeal reinstated after appellant misses Rule 2-8.6 abandonment deadline

One week ago, in Hehn v. Hehn, the en banc Louisiana First Circuit reinstated an appeal that had been dismissed as abandoned.

Here's what happened: After the record was lodged, the court sent out its usual notice of lodging, with briefing deadlines. The appellant failed to file a brief by his deadline, which prompted the court to send a notice of abandonment under Uniform Rule 2-8.6. The Rule 2-8.6 notice warned appellant that his appeal would be dismissed if he did not file a brief within 30 days. On the 30th day, the appellant filed a brief, but the brief was rejected by the clerk's office for failing to comply with the type-size requirement of Rule 2-12.2(2), requiring a 14-point font. Four days later, the court dismissed the appeal.

Appellant then filed a motion for rehearing, seeking reinstatement of the appeal. Appellant's counsel explained that she missed the first deadline due to medical reasons. And she attempted in good faith to file a brief within the Rule 2-8.6 deadline, but because this was the first appeal brief she had done since the rule change to 14-point type, she was unaware of the type-size requirement. The en banc court granted reheaing and reinstated the appeal, but warned that its decision should not be read as "a deviation from our usual policy of [enforcing] Rule 2-8.6, but rather as a unique exception to the rule."

Judge Guidry concurred in the decision, but added that in order to reach it, the court should overrule Lout v. Booty's Deli, 868 So.2d 26 (La. App. 1 Cir. 9/26/03). There, a panel of the First Circuit held that under similar circumstances, it lacked jurisdiiction to consider the appeal, once appellant failed to file a rule-compliant brief by the Rule 2-8.6 deadline and the order of dismissal had been issued.

Appellate tip of the day

When most lawyers prepare an application to a court of appeal for a supervisory writ, the last thing they do before having it photocopied is assemble the documents to be included in the appendix. But you can make the job easier by assembling and page-number your appendix first, before you write the writ application. Number the pages in the appendix consecutively, A1 through A-whatever. If you do this, you can give the court a pinpoint cite to a specific page in your appendix whenever you refer to any document there.

Adams and Reese merges with Nashville firm

Adams and Reese will merge with Stokes Bartholomew, a Nashville firm, effective June 30, 2005. The firm name will remain Adams and Reese LLP. With 36 attorneys in two Nashville offices, the total size of the firm will approach 300 attorneys in nine offices, in eight cities: Nashville, New Orleans, Birmingham, Houston, Jackson, Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Washington D.C.

p.s. (5 May 2005): Click here to read Adams and Reese's press release about the merger. Click here to read coverage by Tennesseean.com; or here to read the Times-Picayune story.