Louisiana Supreme Court
Chief Justice John Weimer, left, and Associate Justice Piper Griffin were among the the people issued a new rule regarding extensions for lawmkers who are also attorneys. (Matthew Hinton/AP Photo, Pool)
The Louisiana Supreme Court issued guidance to state judges Wednesday encouraging them to grant state lawmakers who are attorneys extensions on court proceedings during legislative sessions in most cases.
The court’s new rule comes less than a week after the justices declared unconstitutional a law that gave lawyers who legislators a similar but much broader benefit. The defunct statute had granted such lawmakers automatic delays in court actions when they interfered with a wider range of legislative duties, including travel to the State Capitol.
The justices were troubled the legislative continuance mandate had essentially no wiggle room. It did not give opposing counsel or judges the discretion to challenge a lawmaker’s request for a delay in a court case.
The Supreme Court’s new rule this week hems in the previous privilege for legislators in court while also instructing judges to err on the side of allowing legislators’ delays.
The guidance was issued somewhat urgently because the lawmakers are headed into a special legislative session Wednesday that is expected to last almost three weeks. Legislators who are attorneys have said they have court proceedings that will conflict with the special session calendar.
Votes during the session, which will be focused on tax policy, are also expected to be unusually close. This means parts of Gov. Jeff Landry’s tax package could fail if just one or two lawmakers are absent.
“It’s fair to say that the session did result with us moving with more deliberation than we would normally do,” Chief Justice John Weimer said about the rule in an interview Thursday.
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Under the new legislative continuance rule, opposing attorneys will now have the right to challenge when a lawmaker wants to reschedule court proceedings if they suspect it would cause an “unnecessary delay” or “increase the cost of litigation.” They can also ask for it to be denied if it would cause their client “substantial and immediate irreparable harm.”
Attorneys who are lawmakers will also face a new requirement when asking for a legislative continuance. They will have to provide an affidavit showing they will be attending the legislative session that causes a conflict with their court proceedings. The lawmaker will also have to demonstrate that he or she is an attorney actively working on the case in question.
Outside of legislative sessions, lawmakers will also only be able to obtain continuances if they present an affidavit that shows “good cause” for the delay. In the past, judges had no choice but to grant a legislative continuance, regardless of when it was requested.
The new restrictions the justices have imposed are supposed to address concerns raised by attorneys who aren’t lawmakers in recent years. They include that legislators sometimes enroll as counsel on cases where they don’t do much work to allow their side to take advantage of automatic delays. Another frustration is that cases drag on for years because lawmakers ask for multiple extensions.
The lawmaker complaining in the loudest, most public way about the Supreme Court overturning the state legislative continuance law also happens to be an attorney whose conduct led to the supreme court’s ruling.
“I think a working knowledge of civics is not required to serve on the Louisiana Supreme Court,” Sen. Alan Seabaugh said in an appearance on KEEL-AM in Shreveport. “The ruling that the court passed down last week is absolutely nonsensical.”
Two plaintiffs attorneys asked the state Supreme Court to throw out the legislative continuance statute after struggling to close an automobile accident lawsuit where they faced off against Seabaugh and state Rep. Michael Melerine, Shreveport Republicans who are partners in the same law practice.
The plaintiffs lawyers said Seabaugh and Melerine’s legislative extensions had unreasonably delayed resolution of their client’s lawsuit over six years. The court sided with the plaintiffs attorneys after describing Seabaugh’s unusual delays in the lawsuit as reprehensible.
Seabaugh has been a state lawmaker since 2012, including 12 years in the Louisiana House of Representatives before he was a stte senator. Melerine took Seabaugh’s seat in the House in January.
In the radio interview, Seabaugh alleged the court ruling was payback for lawmakers scuttling a new Louisiana Supreme Court district map some of the justices had favored.
“The fact of the matter is it was retaliation because of their redistricting plan, which the Senate killed twice,” Seabaugh said. “This was the Supreme Court flexing their muscle to the Legislature.”
“This was judicial activism at its worst,” he added
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Weimer said Seabaugh is “entitled to say whatever he wants,” but the justices didn’t throw out a law because they were upset about the Supreme Court district map.
“We don’t sit around anxiously waiting to strike down a law as unconstitutional,” Weimer said. “I make decisions based on logic and reason and not emotion.”
Though the ruling is less than a week old, Seabaugh and Melerine have already run into personal problems getting at least one trial rescheduled based on the newfound discretion to reject legislative extensions.
Judge Nicholas Gasper of the 42nd Judicial District Court in DeSoto Parish denied their motion to move a jury trial scheduled to start Monday because of the special session, which gets underway two days later, according to court filings.
Seabaugh and Melerine are appealing Gasper’s decision to Louisiana’s 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal.
Other legislators plan to try to resolve the legislative extension issue over the next few weeks. Bills will be filed in the special session to establish a new continuance law, said Sen. Greg Miller, R-Norco, who is an attorney.
“I want to keep the framework that we had but address the Supreme Court’s concerns” about abuses, Miller said in an interview Thursday.
Miller said he didn’t think the court’s new rule fully covers the problems that arise from conflicting legal and legislative schedules. For example, under the new rule, a judge could schedule a trial for the day after a legislative session ends, which would give an attorney who is a lawmaker little time to prepare.
“We are at the mercy of the courts,” he said.
Sen. Jay Luneau, D-Alexandria, said the Supreme Court’s rule also doesn’t address scheduling conflicts the Legislature’s staff attorneys might have during session. Some work on private cases to supplement their incomes outside of the regular legislative session, he said.
The law declared unconstitutional also granted those legislative staff attorneys access to legislative continuances, but the court’s recent rule doesn’t, said Luneau, who is also a lawyer.