Lettie Caruso v. Rodney Wooten And Arch Insurance Company

Supreme Court of Louisiana
June 03, 2020
Clerk of Court
For the Court
The Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana
LETTIE CARUSO
VS.
RODNEY WOOTEN AND ARCH INSURANCE
COMPANY
No.2020-CC-00327
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I
N RE: Rodney Wooten, et al. - Applicant Defendant; Arch Insurance Company -
Applicant Defendant; Applying For Supervisory Writ, Parish of Calcasieu, 14th
Judicial District Court Number(s) 2019 -000696, Court of Appeal, Third Circuit,
Number(s) CW 19-00746;
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June 03, 2020
Writ application granted. See per curiam.
Hughes, J., would deny.
BJJ
JLW
SJC
JTG
WJC
JHB
06/03/2020 "See News Release 020 for any Concurrences and/or Dissents."

06/03/20
SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA
NO. 2020-CC-0327
LETTIE CARUSO
v.
RODNEY WOOTEN & ARCH
INSURANCE COMPANY
ON SUPERVISORY WRIT TO THE FOURTEENTH JUDICIAL
DISTRICT COURT, PARISH OF CALCASIEU
PER CURIAM
On March 20, 2017, plaintiff, a Texas resident, was involved in an automobile
accident with Rodney Wooten, a Louisiana resident, in Dayton, Texas. Nearly two
years later, on February 8, 2019, plaintiff filed the instant suit in Louisiana against
Mr. Wooten and his insurer, Arch Insurance Company. 1 In her petition, plaintiff
alleged the suit was governed by Texas law, which applied a two-year statute of
limitations to such actions.
Defendants filed an exception of prescription, arguing plaintiff’s suit was
prescribed on its face. The district court denied the exception, and the court of appeal
denied writs, with one judge dissenting. Defendants now seek relief in this court.
As a general rule, La. Code Civ. P. art. 3549(B) provides, “[w]hen the
substantive law of another state would be applicable to the merits of an action
brought in this state, the prescription and peremption law of this state applies. . . .”
However, the article provides an exception in subsection B(1) as follows:
(1) If the action is barred under the law of this state, the
action shall be dismissed unless it would not be barred in
the state whose law would be applicable to the merits and
1 Plaintiff later amended her suit to include Mr. Wooten’s employer, Performance
Contractors, Inc., a Louisiana corporation doing business in Calcasieu Parish.

maintenance of the action in this state is warranted by
compelling considerations of remedial justice.
The first requirement of the exception is satisfied here, as the parties
acknowledge this case is governed by Texas law and would be timely under the two-
year statute of limitations applicable to such actions under Texas law. Instead, the
dispute turns on the second requirement – namely, whether maintenance of the action
in this state is warranted by compelling considerations of remedial justice.
Official Revision Comment (f) discusses this requirement as follows:
The second necessary prerequisite to the application of the
exception is that “maintenance of the action in this state is
warranted by compelling considerations of remedial
justice.” This language is borrowed from the 1987
Revision of § 142 of the Restatement, Second, of Conflict
of Laws. The examples given by the Restatement are
pertinent to the application of this provision and illustrate
its exceptional character. These examples refer to cases
where “through no fault of the plaintiff an alternative
forum is not available as, for example, where
jurisdiction could not be obtained over the defendant in
any state other than the forum or where for some
reason a judgment obtained in the other state having
jurisdiction would be unenforceable in other states . .
. also situations where suit in the alternative forum,
although not impossible would be extremely
inconvenient for the parties.” Restatement (Second) of
Conflict of Laws, 1986 Revisions, § 142 comment f (Supp.
March 31, 1987). As might be surmised from the initial
phrase of the quotation, none of these examples should be
seen as requiring the forum to entertain an action solely
because it is time-barred in all or most other states. The
disapproving reference to Keeton v. Hustler, 465 U.S. 770
(1984), as an “egregious example of forum shopping” in
the comments to this section of the Restatement leaves
little doubt that the plaintiff's own procrastination is not
likely to ever make his case compelling enough to reach
the threshold of this exception. [emphasis added].
The few reported cases interpreting this requirement of La. Civ. Code art. 3549
have limited its application to situations where facts beyond the plaintiff’s control
prevented the plaintiff from bringing the suit in another forum. See McGee v. Arkel
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Int'l, LLC, 671 F.3d 539, 549 (5th Cir. 2012) (finding maintenance of an action in
Louisiana which was governed by Iraqi law and timely under that country’s law was
“warranted by compelling considerations of remedial justice” because of the
challenges of bringing it in Iraq); Smith v. ODECO (UK), Inc., 615 So.2d 407, 410
(La. App. 4th Cir.), writ denied, 618 So.2d 412 (La. 1993) (explaining “[i]n the
absence of an alternative forum in which there is jurisdiction over all defendants,
‘compelling considerations of remedial justice’ exist which warrant maintenance of
this suit in Louisiana.”).
In the case before us, plaintiff has not set forth any compelling reasons why she
could not have brought her suit in Texas. Plaintiff has not shown any facts which
indicate the Texas courts would have lacked jurisdiction over this case.2 Although
she suggests it may have been “extremely inconvenient” for the parties to litigate the
matter in Texas, she has produced no support for this assertion, especially in light of
the fact plaintiff herself is a Texas resident. Even assuming a Texas forum may have
caused some inconvenience to the Louisiana defendants, this impact clearly pales in
comparison to the situation in McGee, 671 F.3d at 549, where the court explained the
alternate forum, Iraq, was a country which “might reasonably be avoided as a
desirable forum in which Americans can litigate.”
In summary, we find plaintiff failed to establish the “maintenance of the action
in this state is warranted by compelling considerations of remedial justice” as
2 Plaintiff also asserts she would be prejudiced if she was forced to bring her suit in
Texas because a direct action against the defendants’ insurer would not have been available in
Texas. However, our jurisprudence has consistently held “[t]he direct action statute does not
create an independent cause of action against the insurer, it merely grants a procedural right of
action against the insurer where the plaintiff has a substantive cause of action against the
insured.” Descant v. Administrators of Tulane Educ. Fund, 93-3098 (La. 7/5/94), 639 So.2d 246,
249; Dumas v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 241 La. 1096, 1117, 134 So.2d 45, 52
(1961); Ruiz v. Clancy, 182 La. 935, 950, 162 So. 734, 738 (1935).
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required by La. Civ. Code art. 3549(B)(1). Accordingly, the district court erred in
overruling defendants’ exception of prescription. That judgment must be reversed.
DECREE
For the reasons assigned, the judgment of the district court is reversed. The
exception of prescription is sustained, and plaintiff’s action is dismissed with
prejudice.
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