Billizon v. Conoco Inc.

• Decision Date: 12 October 1994
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 91-2749.
• Parties: Donald BILLIZON, Plaintiff, Danos & Curole Marine Contractors, Inc., Intervenor, v. CONOCO INC.; Atlantic Richfield Company; Texaco Producing Inc.; Oxy USA Inc., also known as Cities Service Oil and Gas Corporation; Oxy USA Inc., Incorrectly referred to as Oxy USA Inc. a/k/a Cities Service Oil & Gas Corp. in orig. complt; AAA Oilfield Contractors Inc., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

864 F. Supp. 571

Donald BILLIZON, Plaintiff, Danos & Curole Marine Contractors, Inc., Intervenor, v. CONOCO INC.; Atlantic Richfield Company; Texaco Producing Inc.; Oxy USA Inc., also known as Cities Service Oil and Gas Corporation; Oxy USA Inc., Incorrectly referred to as Oxy USA Inc. a/k/a Cities Service Oil & Gas Corp. in orig. complt; AAA Oilfield Contractors Inc., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 91-2749.

United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana.

October 12, 1994.

H. Edward Sherman, Law Offices of H. Edward Sherman, New Orleans, LA, for plaintiff.

J. Mark Graham, Henderson, Hanemann & Morris, Houma, LA, for intervenor.

Patricia A. Krebs, Nesser, King & LeBlanc, New Orleans, LA, Richard Joseph Guidry, Broussard, David & Daigle, Lafayette, LA, Kathryn A. Pardo, Paul A. Rabalais, PLC, Baton Rouge, LA, and Susan A. Daigle and Bryan David Scofield, Broussard, David & Daigle, Lafayette, LA, for defendants.

ORDER AND REASONS

FELDMAN, District Judge.

This motion spotlights a new issue in Louisiana law regarding the interruption of prescription. Before the Court is AAA Oilfield Contractors, Inc.'s motion for summary judgment. For the reasons that follow, the motion is DENIED.

Background

Donald Billizon claims he was injured on August 18, 1990 when he fell down some stairs while working on a fixed platform on the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of Louisiana. At the time of the accident, he was employed by Danos & Curole Marine Contractors, Inc., an oilfield service company. After the accident, he filed claims against his employer under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. 901, et seq., and received compensation payments from August 18, 1990 through May, 1994.

On June 24, 1991, less than one year after the accident, Billizon filed suit against four owners and operators of the platform, and asserted that they were solidarily liable for his injuries under theories of strict liability and negligence. On June 29, 1992, approximately one year and ten months after the accident, Billizon filed an amended and supplemental petition naming AAA Oilfield Contractors, Inc. as an additional defendant. He alleged that AAA Oilfield had performed work on the platform for one of the operators, and that because of the negligence of its employees during the repair and maintenance of the platform, AAA Oilfield was also liable for Billizon's injuries.

The claims against the owners and operators of the platform were later dismissed when this Court granted their motions for summary judgment. As the only remaining defendant in this dispute, AAA Oilfield now seeks summary judgment on the ground that Billizon's lawsuit against it has prescribed.

AAA Oilfield argues that because the Court dismissed the claims asserted against Conoco, Atlantic, Texaco, and OXY, there can be no solidary liability and, therefore, prescription was never interrupted. AAA Oilfield invokes Gibson v. Exxon Corporation, 360 So.2d 230 (La.App.1978), writ denied, 362 So.2d 575 (La.1978) for support. Billizon counters that under current Louisiana law, a claim that is timely made against the employer for worker's compensation benefits interrupts prescription as to a subsequent claim against a third-party tortfeasor when the employer and the tortfeasor are solidarily liable to the plaintiff. See Williams v. Sewerage & Water Bd. of New Orleans, 611 So.2d 1383 (La.1993). Specifically, Billizon contends that Danos & Curole's worker's compensation payments to him, beginning in August of 1990, were an acknowledgment of the obligation and interrupted prescription.

I. Employer and Tortfeasor as Solidary Obligors

It is uncontested that Billizon's accident occurred on a fixed platform located on the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of Louisiana. Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the law of the state adjacent to the accident determines the applicable prescriptive period. Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971). The constituent doctrines to prescription and interruption are well-known. In Louisiana, delictual actions, such as Billizon's claims against AAA Oilfield, are subject to a one year prescriptive period which begins to run from the day the injury or damage is sustained. La.C.C. art. 3492. Prescription is interrupted by the filing of suit in a court of competent jurisdiction. La.C.C. art. 3462. But prescription is also interrupted when one acknowledges the right of the person against whom he had commenced to prescribe. La.C.C. art. 3464. And the interruption of prescription against one solidary obligor is effective against all solidary obligors. La.C.C. arts. 1799 and 3503. When it is clear that a claim is prescribed, the plaintiff bears the burden of showing that prescription has not occurred. Lima v. Schmidt, 595 So.2d 624, 628 (La.1992). In spite of that burden, prescription statutes are to be construed in favor of permitting, rather than barring, a claim. Bustamento v. Tucker, 607 So.2d 532, 537 (La.1992).

What animates the result here is La. C.C. art. 1799: the interruption of prescription against one solidary obligor is effective against all. Defendant bases this motion on Gibson v. Exxon Corp., 360 So.2d 230 (La.Ct. App.1978), in which the plaintiff timely sued Exxon, his employer, and then filed against other alleged tortfeasors more than one year after the injury. The court held that because Exxon was an improper defendant (shielded from tort liability by the Workers' Compensation Act), Exxon was not a solidary obligor with the later-named defendants. Id. at 231. Therefore, the interruption of prescription that occurred when Gibson sued Exxon did not affect the running of time with respect to the other parties, and defendants' motion for summary judgment was granted. At first glance, Gibson seems helpful.

More recently, however, the Louisiana Supreme Court held that when the obligation of an employer and the tort liability of a third-party tortfeasor are solidary, a suit that is timely filed against the employer for worker's compensation interrupts prescription as to a subsequent claim against a third-party tortfeasor. Williams v. Sewerage & Water Bd. of New Orleans, 611 So.2d 1383 (La. 1993). The facts of Williams are also similar to those before the Court. Plaintiffs (relatives of a Sewerage and Water Board employee who was killed in an accident) sued the Board for worker's compensation and tort damages almost one year after Williams' death. The tort claim was later dropped because the Board, as employer, was immune. Within a year of the filing of the suit, but more than a year after the accident, plaintiffs amended the complaint to include a third-party tortfeasor. The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the suit for worker's compensation interrupted prescription for the later-named tortfeasor as well, because the two were solidarily liable. Central to Williams is a recognition that the employer who is liable for compensation payments and the tortfeasor who is liable for damages "share coextensive liability to repair certain elements of the same damage" and are, therefore, solidarily liable to the injured employee. Williams, 611 So.2d at 1387. Here as well, tort and worker's compensation regimes harmonize to provide the relief Billizon seeks.

AAA Oilfield urges that Williams is not applicable to this case because Williams was injured before the 1987 amendments to La. C.C. art. 2324 (the accident causing Williams' death occurred in 1986).¹ The Supreme Court's opinion in Williams, announced in 1993, in no way indicates that the court's decision was based upon the fact that Williams was killed prior to the 1987 amendment, nor does it even seriously allude to article 2324 (except to comment upon the apportionment of damages in a footnote). To accept AAA Oilfield's interpretation, one would have to conclude that the Williams court somehow failed to mention the two central points upon which the decision supposedly turned: that the accident took place prior to the 1987 amendment and that article 2324 should not be applied retroactively. This Court is not persuaded that the Louisiana Supreme Court made such omissions. Accordingly, the Court finds that AAA Oilfield is solidarily liable with Danos & Curole under the doctrine of Williams.

II. Worker's Compensation Payment and Interruption

The next question for Court, then, is whether or not the worker's compensation payments by Danos & Curole constituted an acknowledgement of liability so as to interrupt prescription. That issue was not reached in the Williams case because plaintiffs has actually filed suit to recover worker's compensation.² Of course, an acknowledgment in any form interrupts the ticking clock of prescription. That much seems certain. Acknowledgment is merely the recognition of an obligation or "a simple admission of liability" and requires no particular form in Louisiana. Schmidt, 595 So.2d at 634. A delictual action for unliquidated amounts may even be tacitly acknowledged. Id. at 633. Tacit acknowledgment is defined by the Louisiana high court as occurring when a debtor "performs acts of reparation or indemnity, makes an unconditional offer or payment, or lulls the creditor into believing he will not contest liability." Id. at 634.

Regarding the issue of interruption of prescription, the consequences in law of an employer who has been sued for worker's compensation do not conceptually differ, then, from those resulting from an employer's voluntary payment of compensation benefits in response to an administrative request. On the contrary, the law should favor such payments, and should not inspire law-suits simply as a model to interrupt prescription. Furthermore, because Danos & Curole paid worker's compensation this case seems distinguishable from Morris v. Equitable Shipyards, Inc., 1993 WL 330016 (E.D.La. August 23, 1993), aff'd, 18 F.3d 935 (1994), where the court held that merely filing for worker's...