Louisiana Law Blog

By Brian W. Hightower

Following the 2008 Regular Session, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed House Bill No. 558 ("HB 558") into law. Prior to HB 558(Act No. 726), it was not infrequent that publicly bid contracts were not awarded because all bids exceeded the budgeted funds. Following the change in the law, La. R.S. 38:2212 now requires the designer to provide a cost estimate to the bidding entity prior to advertisement of the project, and states that in the event the designer's estimate for the project exceeds the funds budgeted by the public entity, the project shall not be advertised for bid.

Per its website at http://www.laed.uscourts.gov, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana has closed until further notice, and has suspended "all deadlines and delays in matters pending before this court...until ordered otherwise."

by Alan J. Berteau

On June 29, 2005, the Louisiana Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a statute, La. R.S. 33:9038.21, designed to support the construction of a privately-owned $190 million hotel, featuring more than 600 rooms, in the World Trade Center -- a 33-story, city-owned building at 2 Canal Street -- through the use of revenue bonds secured by a special hotel occupancy tax.

The statute created the World Trade Center Taxing District as a special taxing and tax increment financing district in Orleans Parish, designed to "provide for cooperative economic development between the City of New Orleans, the World Trade Center, the District, and WTC Development Ltd., to provide for the renovation, restoration and development of the city owned property known as the World Trade Center...." The District was empowered to issue revenue bonds to finance "any projects consistent with the purposes of the District," and to pledge those taxes to "any financing of the WTC property in furtherance of the purposes of the district."

The problem? The hotels in the District which would be subject to the new tax -- including the new hotel itself -- were already subject to two hotel occupancy taxes; one levied by the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, and the other by the New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority.

By Lolly White

In-house counsel who are employed in Louisiana but are not licensed to practice law here have until July 1, 2005 to file an application for limited licensure to practice under the Louisiana Supreme Court's new In-House Counsel Rule.

The Louisiana Supreme Court recently handed down a decision in Bridges v. Autozone Properties, Inc. The court determined that the Autozone real estate investment trust had adequate presence in the state of Louisiana to be subject to the jurisdiction of Louisiana's courts. Although the court suggests that it did not reach the question of the tax liability of AutoZone, the decision contains many pages of discussion re: nexus to tax and states, "Since the taxing jurisdiction, Louisiana, has helped to create the income, it should not be prevented from assessing a constitutionally permissible share of those gains in the form on income taxes for the support of government." The Court reversed the granting of AutoZone's exception of lack of personal jurisdiction and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Read the decision.