On February 3, 2021, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed a trial court’s ruling that granted a summary judgment motion finding plaintiffs failed to submit specific evidence of asbestos exposure necessary to create a genuine issue of material fact. Steib v. Lamorak Ins. Co., et al., 20-0424 (La. App. 4 Cir. 2/3/21). In 2018, Charles Steib (“Mr. Steib”) filed a petition for damages against approximately forty defendants, alleging that he contracted mesothelioma as…

On February 5, 2021, the Fish Wildlife Service (“FWS”), under the Biden administration, announced that it was delaying the effective date of a rule promulgated by the Trump administration regarding “incidental takes” and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (“MBTA”). On January 7, 2021, the Trump administration published a final rule interpreting the MBTA as not prohibiting incidental takes, and this rule was set to take effect on February 8, 2021. The Biden administration delayed the…

Technology Assisted Review (TAR), also known as predictive coding or computer-assisted review, has been defined as “[a] process for prioritizing or coding a collection of documents using a computerized system that harnesses human judgments of one or more subject matter expert(s) on a smaller set of documents and then extrapolates those judgments to the remaining document collection.” Maura R. Grossman and Gordon V. Cormack, “The Grossman-Cormack Glossary of Technology Assisted Review,” 7 Fed. Courts L.…

Governor Edwards’ Climate Initiatives Task Force published the Louisiana Climate Initiatives Interim Report earlier this month, which outlines the process by which the Task Force plans to develop climate actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Louisiana.…

Texas Public Utility Commission orders all TDUs in the ERCOT region to rotate customers such that no such customer is subjected to an electricity outage of more than 12 hours.…

The Corporate Transparency Act, adopted as part of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (the “Act”), will require certain business entities (defined as “reporting companies”) to disclose to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) the identities of their beneficial owners and applicants. FinCEN will use these disclosures to create a national database to combat terrorism and money-laundering schemes which have used business entities to hide the identity of their owners.…

In In re Deepwater Horizon, No. 20-30300, 2021 WL 96168, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal held that fishermen who intentionally came upon the scene of the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon failed to state a claim of negligent infliction of emotional distress under general maritime law.  The district court dismissed their case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).  On January 11, 2021, the Fifth Circuit panel affirmed.…