Lewis v. Busby

946 So. 2d 665, 2005 La.App. 1 Cir. 2242, 2006 La. App. LEXIS 2145, 2006 WL 2766185
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedSeptember 27, 2006
DocketNo. 2005 CA 2242
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 946 So. 2d 665 (Lewis v. Busby) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lewis v. Busby, 946 So. 2d 665, 2005 La.App. 1 Cir. 2242, 2006 La. App. LEXIS 2145, 2006 WL 2766185 (La. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

MAX N. TOBIAS, JR., Judge, Ad Hoc.

| Theresa K. Lewis, the plaintiff, appeals a judgment of the Twenty-Second Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Tammany that dismissed her suit on a motion for summary judgment against Joseph Busby, ordered her to pay court costs and attorney’s fees, and overruled her exceptions. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the dismissal of her suit and the award of court costs against her, but reverse the award of attorney’s fees and the trial court’s overruling of the exceptions. Facts.

Theresa Lewis alleges that on 20 November 2004 she was employed as a cashier at Danny and Clyde’s Food Store (“Danny & Clyde’s”) in Slidell when the defendant, Joseph Busby, robbed her at gunpoint. She alleges that Mr. Busby, who she and another subsequently identified as the perpetrator in a photographic line-up, pointed a gun at her, cocked the hammer of the gun, and threatened that if she told anyone he would return and kill her. As a result, she maintains that the incident exacerbated her pre-existing psychiatric condition, causing her emotional harm that resulted in “panic, anxiety, mental trauma, fear, depression, nightmares and the like.”

|2The Louisiana Safety Association of Timbermén — Self Insurance Fund intervened in the suit alleging that it was the workers’ compensation insurer of Ms. Lewis’ employer, Danny & Clyde’s, and that in the event of a recovery by Ms. Lewis, it was entitled to recover as a priority creditor such sums as it may pay or have paid in workers’ compensation benefits to Ms. Lewis. However, it does not appear from the record before us that Ms. Lewis ever made a claim against Danny & Clyde’s workers’ compensation insurer or that workers’ compensation benefits were ever paid.

Mr. Busby answered Ms. Lewis suit denying her allegations and asserting an affirmative defense of mistaken identity. He further asserted a reconvention demand against Ms. Lewis, alleging that she was maliciously prosecuting her civil suit, causing him mental and physical pain, humiliation, and embarrassment. He alleged that the state had refused to charge him with the crime because he presented exculpatory alibi evidence consisting of witnesses, fingerprints, and a surveillance video, all of which established that Ms. Lewis had no probable cause to continue her suit. Additionally, he requested La. C.C.P. art. 863 sanctions because her suit was no longer warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law, and was interposed for the improper purpose of extorting money from him and to cause needless litigation.

Ms. Busby filed a dilatory exception of prematurity and a peremptory exception of no cause of action to Mr. Busby’s recon-ventional demand, asserting that her claim had to be resolved first (Mr. Busby had to obtain a dismissal of her claims) before his claim of malicious prosecution could be properly pleaded. She further denied the allegations of- Mr. Busby’s reconventional demand and asserted that the district attorney’s refusal to | ^charge Mr. Busby did not establish his innocence of the crime because the standard of proof in a civil case is different from that of a criminal ease.

Approximately two months after Ms. Lewis filed suit and less than a month after he filfed his answer and reconventional demand, Mr. Busby filed a motion for summary judgment, praying that Ms. Lewis’ suit be dismissed. In his motion and documented by exhibits and affidavits[668]*6681 Mr. Busby asserted that Ms. Lewis had identified him from a mere photographic line-up, that he had videotape evidence from a bar in Lafayette, Louisiana that established that he was at the bar at the same time the robbery was committed, that Slidell police had authenticated the videotape from the bar, that fingerprints of the perpetrator taken from the scene of the crime were not his, that Ms. Lewis’ description of the perpetrator from the night of the robbery varied materially from the physical characteristics of him, and that Slidell was more than two and one-half hours away from Lafayette where he was videotaped entering the bar and remaining there for about thirty-six minutes.

Ms. Lewis filed an opposition to the motion, asserting that Lafayette was indeed more than two and one-half hours from Slidell by motor vehicle (implying that other faster means of transportation existed), that a customer in Danny & Clyde’s at the time of the robbery had also picked out Mr. Busby from a photographic line-up as the perpetrator, that discovery was incomplete for Mr. Busby had not yet responded to interrogatories and requests for production of documents that Ms. Lewis had submitted, and that the videotape attached to Mr. Busby’s- motion was not authenticated. Simultaneously with the filing of the opposition, Ms. Lewis filed a motion to | ¿compel answers to her discovery and requested additional discovery. Ms. Lewis submitted no affidavit or other evidence with her opposition to the motion for summary judgment.2

Mr. Busby responded to Ms. Lewis’ opposition by furnishing additional affidavits from various individuals including police officers and the manager of the Lafayette bar, all of which were filed less than fifteen days prior to the hearing on the motion for summary judgment.

Following a hearing, the trial court granted Mr. Busby’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing with prejudice, Ms. Lewis’ suit, awarded court costs and attorney’s fees on the motion for summary judgment, overruled Ms. Lewis’ exceptions of prematurity and no cause of action, and denied the cross motions for sanctions filed by both Mr. Busby and Ms. Lewis.3

On appeal, Ms. Lewis assigns three errors: (1) the trial court erred in granting the motion for summary judgment; (2) the trial court erred in awarding court costs and attorney’s fees in favor of Mr. Busby; and (3) the trial court erred in overruling the plaintiffs exceptions to the defendant’s reconventional demand.

Discussion.

Assignment of Error No. 1: The trial court erred in granting the motion for summarg judgment.

A court of appeal reviews the ruling of a trial court on a motion for summary judgment de novo under the same criteria that govern the trial |ficourt’s determination of whether the summary judgment should be granted. Adams v. Arceneaux, 00-1440, pp. 3-4 (La.App. 1 Cir. 6/22/01), 809 So.2d 190,194.

The record on appeal reflects that Ms. Lewis filed no affidavit alleging facts that [669]*669would contradict the affidavits attached by Mr. Busby to his motion. Moreover, Ms. Lewis filed an opposition memorandum that asserted by way of argument that material facts existed that preclude summary judgment, to-wit, that both Ms. Lewis and a store customer picked Mr. Busby out in a photographic line-up, that discovery had just begun and that responses to discovery requests were received the week before the hearing, and that certain affidavits were transmitted to counsel for the plaintiff less than fifteen days prior to the hearing in violation of Rule 9.9, Subsection A, of the Uniform Rules of District Court.

La. C.C.P. art. 967 B provides as follows:

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Bluebook (online)
946 So. 2d 665, 2005 La.App. 1 Cir. 2242, 2006 La. App. LEXIS 2145, 2006 WL 2766185, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lewis-v-busby-lactapp-2006.