NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) - A Louisiana construction company allegedly responsible for severing phone lines of three businesses while on contract with the city of New Orleans lost its appeal in a ruling that distinguished “mental anguish damage” from “inconvenience damage.”
In an opinion issued on Dec. 9, the Louisiana Court of Appeal Fourth Circuit agreed with a lower court that denied Hard Rock Construction its motions for partial summary judgment, and its exception of no right of action.
In December 2017, Hard Rock allegedly severed a main telephone cable that provided telephone and fax services to the law firm of Darleen Jacobs Levy and Darleen M. Jacobs, Home Finders International, Inc., and First Choice Restoration, LLC.
In filing for damages, the plaintiffs classified their losses as “severe inconvenience.” Levy, who also discovered that her home phone wasn’t working, added “emotional stress and strain” to her loss classification.
In January 2020, Hard Rock filed its motion for partial summary judgment seeking to dismiss the claims of the three business entity plaintiffs, arguing these plaintiffs could not seek to recover mental anguish damages.
Hard Rock “also filed a peremptory exception of no right of action to dismiss the claims of First Choice, arguing that First Choice was not entitled to recover for damage to phone lines that First Choice neither paid for or owned," the opinion says.
In her opinion, Judge Sandra Cabrina Jenkins agreed that the case law cited by Hard Rock demonstrates that corporate entities are not entitled to recover damages for mental anguish but, “we find a distinction in juris prudence between damages awarded for mental anguish and damages awarded for loss of use and inconvenience.”
One case the judge cited, Adams v. Union Pacific Railroad Company, held that homeowners were entitled to damages for inconvenience, absent accompanying physical injury or property damage, associated with the evacuation of their homes and the temporary loss of use of property
“Moreover,” she wrote, “this Court holds that corporate, business entities are entitled to compensation for loss of use of property, as distinguished from awards for mental anguish due to property damage.”
She also denied a writ of review on the trial court’s ruling on exception of no right of action.