Nieset Summary Judgment Victory

John Nieset won a defense summary judgment on behalf of an elevator maintenance company in Orleans Parish District Court and successfully defended it through the plaintiff’s challenges in the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court. The case involved allegations that the plaintiff was injured after tripping and falling into an unlevel elevator. Mr. Nieset demonstrated to the trial court that the maintenance company was not negligent, resulting in a dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims against the company. On appeal, Mr. Nieset rebuffed the plaintiff’s argument that elevator maintenance companies’ negligence should be presumed from the mere occurrence of an accident. In doing so, Mr. Nieset helped clarify and strengthen Louisiana law applicable to cases against companies that provide maintenance or repair services to complex machinery.

This is the latest in a string of summary-judgment victories Mr. Nieset has won on behalf of elevator companies. Late last year, he won another summary judgment in District Court in Franklin, Louisiana, in a case involving the sudden and unexpected stop of an elevator. Mr. Nieset was able to prevail by proving that the stop was not a malfunction, but was instead a function of one of the elevator’s many safety systems. Shortly before this, he won summary judgment in a pair of cases in Orleans Parish involving other types of elevator and escalator accidents by persuading the trial court judges that the duty to prevent these accidents was actually borne by entities other than the elevator companies.