Kean Miller

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On April 15, 2010, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) calling for the initiation of rulemaking designed to ensure that Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals respect the rights of patients to designate visitors, regardless of whether the visitors are legally related to the patient. In accordance with the Presidential memorandum, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a proposed rule on Tuesday, June 22 to revise the Medicare conditions of participation for hospitals and critical access hospitals to ensure the visitation rights of all patients. Under the proposed rule, hospitals must inform patients of their visitation rights, any clinical restrictions on those rights, and their right to receive any visitors they designate. Hospitals are prohibited from restricting or denying visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. Pursuant to the proposed rule, hospitals must ensure that designated visitors have the same visitation privileges afforded immediate family members.
Continue Reading CMS Issues Proposed Rule Regarding Hospital Patient Visitation Rights

On June 2, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted a final rule which significantly lowers the primary National Ambient Air Quality Standard (“NAAQS”) for sulfur dioxide (“SO2 ”). EPA is phasing out both the annual standard (0.03 parts per million or ppm) and the existing 24-hour standard set at 0.14 ppm, and phasing in a new 1-hour standard set at 75 parts per billion (“ppb”). The new 1-hour standard is met when the 3-year average of the 99th percentile of daily maximum 1-hour averages at each monitor does not exceed 75 ppb. EPA will transition to the new standard with overlap of the existing standards. In areas that are in compliance with the current standards (all of Louisiana), the existing 24-hour and annual standards will be revoked one year after the designations of new nonattainment areas. Designations are to be final in June 2012, so the existing standards will no longer remain effective as of June 2013.
Continue Reading EPA Significantly Tightens National Sulfur Dioxide Standard – Affects Louisiana Parishes

The Limitation of Liability Act provides, inter alia, that a vessel owner may petition a district court of competent jurisdiction for limitation of liability within six months of receiving written notice of a claim.  See generally 46 U.S.C.A §§ 30501-30512 (West 2010).  If the vessel owner fails to petition the court and the six month period lapses, it is thereafter precluded from seeking the Act’s protection.  The Act, however, does not address the effect that one co-owner’s failure to file a petition for limitation has on another co-owner’s right to subsequently seek limitation of liability. In other words, if co-owner “X” of a vessel receives notice of a claim against it and fails to file for limitation of liability within the requisite six-month period, is co-owner “Y,” who did not receive notice, precluded from filing for limitation of liability?
Continue Reading Limitation of Liability – Effect of Notice to a Single Co-Owner

By the Admiralty and Maritime Team

Due to the non-pecuniary nature of pain and suffering, Jones Act seamen will often use various methods to provide the trier of fact with a concrete basis for a damage award for pain and suffering.  One method that Plaintiffs may utilize is to introduce their medical bills for the sole purpose of highlighting the cost of their medical care.  Once the bills have been admitted, Plaintiffs will argue to the trier of fact that the high dollar amount of their medical bills corroborate their pain and suffering.  Alternatively, Defendants may introduce medical bills and point to the low cost of a Plaintiff’s medical care to prove the Plaintiff’s lack of pain and suffering.Continue Reading Medical Bills Are Not Admissible to Prove Pain and Suffering

The United States Supreme Court recently resolved conflicts among the Circuit Courts about the citizenship of a corporation for determining diversity of citizenship jurisdiction (1). This will allow corporations to analyze with more predictable results whether to remove a case to federal court. In Hertz Corp. v. Friend, et al, No. 08-1107 (February 23, 2010) (a unanimous decision, which is unusual in and of itself), the Court decided that when determining a corporation’s citizenship for diversity of citizenship jurisdiction, the “principal place of business” of the corporation is “the place where the corporation’s high level officers direct, control, and coordinate the corporation’s activities”—something that courts have referred to as the “nerve center” of the corporation.
Continue Reading Supreme Court Clarifies Definition of a Corporation’s “Principal Place of Business”

Cordell and Brian Haymon are attorneys, which means the fine points of selling a business do not intimidate them. Yet when the time came to sell Petroleum Services Corporation, a firm their father started in 1952, they didn’t try to do all the work themselves. Instead, they hired Kean Miller’s Blane Clark. As Mr. Clark…

On March 21, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives on almost a straight party-line vote passed two final healthcare reform bills late Sunday night. Initially, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3950, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, by a vote of 219 to 212.

Following the passage of H.R. 3950, the House of…

In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies on March 3, 2010, Administrator Lisa Jackson of the Environmental Protection Agency indicated that EPA plans to move forward with adopting the Greenhouse Gas (“GHG”) Tailoring Rule (74 Fed.Reg. 55,292) later this month.  The Tailoring Rule is intended to ameliorate the impact of GHGs becoming “regulated pollutants” under the Clean Air Act Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V programs, which would otherwise be fully triggered by the enactment of another EPA proposed rule concerning GHG emissions from cars and light duty trucks. (74 Fed.Reg. 49,454)
Continue Reading EPA To Move Forward With Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule

The February 10, 2010 Federal Register contains a notice of EPA’s final decision that the Baton Rouge ozone nonattainment area “has attained the 1-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS).” (The Baton Rouge area consists of the parishes of Ascension, East Baton Rouge, Iberville, Livingston, and West Baton Rouge.) EPA found that the ambient monitoring data for 2006-2008 demonstrated attainment and noted there were no exceedances of the standard in 2009. Although this 1-hour ozone standard was revoked in 2005 and replaced with a more stringent 8-hour standard, some of the SIP requirements associated with the old 1-hour standard were continued under the Clean Air Act’s “anti-backsliding” provisions. The EPA action, known as a “Clean Data Policy Determination,” formally suspends several requirements associated with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s (“LDEQ’s”) State Implementation Plan (“SIP”) as long as the area continues to achieve the 1-hour standard. These suspended requirements include “a severe attainment demonstration, a severe reasonable further progress plan (RFP), applicable contingency measures plans, and other planning State Implementation Plan (SIP) requirements related to attainment of the 1-hour ozone NAAQS.”
Continue Reading EPA Recognizes That Baton Rouge Area Attained the 1-Hour Ozone Standard

On January 27, 2010, the SEC voted 3-2 to issue an interpretive guidance “on existing SEC disclosure requirements as they apply to business or legal developments relating to the issue of climate change.” Chair Mary Shapiro emphasized that the interpretive release is not intended to create new legal requirements, but is to clarify the requirements already applicable for reporting material risks on public disclosure statements. She was careful to avoid arguments on the science, stating: “We are not opining on whether the world’s climate is changing, at what pace it might be changing, or due to what causes. Nothing that the Commission does today should be construed as weighing in on those topics.”
Continue Reading Securities and Exchange Commission Issues Interpretive Guidance for Reporting Risks Due to Climate Change