Zeigler v. Housing Authority of New Orleans

118 So. 3d 442, 2012 La.App. 4 Cir. 1168, 2013 WL 1775057, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 824
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 24, 2013
DocketNo. 2012-CA-1168
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 118 So. 3d 442 (Zeigler v. Housing Authority of New Orleans) 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
Zeigler v. Housing Authority of New Orleans, 118 So. 3d 442, 2012 La.App. 4 Cir. 1168, 2013 WL 1775057, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 824 (La. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

ROLAND L. BELSOME, Judge.

| , While this appeal stems from allegations of double-crossing, deception, and defamation, our opinion focuses on the discussion of prescription, peremption, and no cause and/or no right of action. According to the plaintiff, this tale of intrigue began with a conspiracy that resulted in defamatory statements being made by defendants, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), through its agent Dwayne Muhammad, and Mir*Fox & Rodriguez, P.C. (MFR), through its agents Everett Blaylock and Rochelle Jones. These statements concerned business dealings between Inspeq Services, LLC, the plaintiffs [447]*447inspection company, and defendant, HANO, and were purportedly republished by Gilmore Kean, LLC, and Edgemere Consulting Corporation, in an operational assessment of HANO. The plaintiff, Lester Zeigler, individually and on behalf of Inspeq, filed suit for defamation and later added additional claims and defendants. He now appeals the trial court’s judgment granting the defendants’ peremptory exceptions and dismissing the plaintiffs entire petition with prejudice. We affirm in part, reverse in part and remand for further proceedings.

i statement of the case and PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The backdrop of this story involves the administration and operation of two housing assistance programs within HANO: the Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as “Section 8” housing, and the Displaced Housing Assistance Program, which is a program to provide temporary housing relief to evacuees and victims of natural disasters. Both programs required housing inspections to insure that the respective property met the minimum requirements under the program.

In his recast petition,1 the plaintiff essentially claims that the defendants unscrupulously schemed to insert MFR into the public housing inspection business and defamed him in the process. The intricate, and sometimes tedious, recitation of the facts that led to the ruination of the plaintiffs business is set forth below.

In August of 2007, Inspeq was awarded a low-bid contract with HANO to inspect housing units under the Voucher Program. Shortly after Inspeq received this contract, Dwayne Muhammad was appointed as the Administrator, and was later promoted to the Chief Operation Officer of the Voucher Program. After two extensions, the contract expired by its terms on November 8, 2009.

Meanwhile, the Harris County Housing Authority was appointed by HUD to manage the Displaced Housing Program in New Orleans. In June of 2008, the Harris Housing Authority hired MFR, a Texas public accounting firm, to assist in performing accounting functions. When Hurricane Ike made landfall in Texas, the | (¡Harris Housing Authority was forced to cease operations in New Orleans. As a result, HANO issued an emergency no bid contract to MFR to perform accounting and administration services for the Displaced Housing Program. MFR issued a sub-contract to Inspeq to perform the required inspections as it had no experience in this field, and Inspeq had the only local certified inspectors. Both MFR’s emergency contract and Inspeq’s sub-contract relative to the Disaster Housing Program were set to expire on August 31, 2009.

Prior to the expiration of its contract with HANO, MFR hired Rochelle Jones. Unbeknownst to Inspeq, Jones was married to Muhammad.

At this point, the plaintiff alleges the following factual scenario in his pleadings. HANO, MFR, Jones, and Muhammad became involved in an elaborate scheme. Their goal was to arrange for MFR to take control of the Voucher Program and eventually perform the inspections, driving In-speq out of business with HANO. In July of 2009, Muhammad also submitted false reports regarding Inspeq and internal employees’ job performances to investigators with the United States Department of [448]*448Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in order to justify the immediate need for MFR’s emergency no-bid takeover of the Voucher Program. In July and August of 2009, Muhammad began to delay payments of Inspeq’s invoices to create pressure and cause dissent among Inspeq’s employees. Just before Inspeq’s contract with HANO was set to expire on August 3, 2009, Muhammad issued a request for proposals. Suspecting that Muhammad intended to disclose his bid information to MFR, In-speq did not respond to the request and |4Muhammad withdrew the request. Consequently, MFR was awarded a no-bid contract to oversee the Voucher Program. Sometime in August of 2009, the plaintiff learned that Jones and Muhammad were married and living in a home subsidized by the Voucher Program. He reported this information to HANO and Muhammad was later prosecuted in federal court.

Once MFR obtained control of the program, however, it intentionally delayed payment of invoices in an attempt to lure Inspeq’s employees to leave. On September 11, 2009, MFR, using a non-existent name, advertised a job fair seeking certified inspectors in the Times-Picayune.

In October of 2009, HUD awarded Gilmore Kean a nine-month contract to provide administrative receivership services to HANO. Gilmore Kean was obligated to provide oversight of HANO’s operations as well as to conduct an operational assessment. Edgemere was retained to assist Gilmore Kean in the assessment. In January of 2010, Edgemere interviewed MFR’s executive, Edward Blaylock, and other HANO employees regarding Inspeq’s job performance. At the interview, false statements regarding Inspeq’s failure to meet its contractual obligations were provided to Edgemere. The erroneous information was later published in the operational assessment of HANO provided to HUD by Gilmore Kean on February 17, 2010. The assessment was made available to the public and circulated throughout the news media.

The plaintiff subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit on August 3, 2010. The case was removed to federal court and remanded back, after Gilmore and 1 fiEdgemere reached a settlement and were dismissed from the case. Several supplemental and amending petitions, which added new claims and defendants,2 were filed. Later, the recast petition, which alleged the foregoing facts, was filed. The causes of action included: defamation, conspiracy, vicarious liability or negligent failure to supervise, violations of the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practice Act (LUTPA), tortious interference with a contract/or business,3 and intentional infliction of emotional distress for Zeigler personally.4

In response to the recast petition, all of the defendants filed similar exceptions of peremption, prescription, no cause of action, and no right of action; however, MFR included immunity among its exceptions. Legal memoranda in support and against the exceptions were filed. Without taking additional evidence or argument, the trial court granted the defendants’ exceptions asserting reasons at a hearing on April 13, 2013. The court signed a written judgment on April 23, 2012.

[449]*449 STANDARD OF REVIEW

“The standard controlling review of a peremptory exception of prescription requires that this court strictly construe the statutes ‘against prescription and in favor of the claim that is said to be extinguished.’ ” Security Ctr. Prot. Servs., Inc. v. All-Pro Security, Inc., 94-1317, 94-1318 (La.App. 4 Cir. 2/23/95), 650 So.2d 1206, 1214 (quoting Louisiana Health Service v. Tarver, 93-2449 (La.4/11/94), 635 So.2d 1090, 1098).

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Bluebook (online)
118 So. 3d 442, 2012 La.App. 4 Cir. 1168, 2013 WL 1775057, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 824, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/zeigler-v-housing-authority-of-new-orleans-lactapp-2013.