The Louisiana Supreme Court has overturned a state law that allows legislators to automatically delay court proceedings in which they are an attorney representing a client or otherwise involved. (WES MULLER/LOUISIANA ILLUMINATOR)
The Louisiana Supreme Court, in a lopsided 6-1 vote, overturned a state law Friday that gives a special privilege to state lawmakers who are attorneys to automatically delay court proceedings in which they are involved.
The ruling could have broad implications for the Louisiana Legislature’s operations, since dozens of lawmakers are also lawyers who operate private practices alongside their elected duties. Lawmakers who are attorneys use legislative continuances to push back court appearances and filings for clients they represent when they conflict with their statehouse responsibilities.
It also comes at a sensitive time for Gov. Jeff Landry, who intends to convene a special legislative session for in November to pass a one-in-a-generation tax system overhaul.
If numerous lawmakers have scheduling conflicts between the session and their day job as a lawyer that are harder to move, it could make the special session more difficult to operate efficiently.
Yet in an opinion written for the majority, Justice Jeff Hughes said it is imperative that judges, not lawmakers, have the final say over a case’s schedule.
“The constitution does not permit legislators who are also attorneys unchecked authority to continue any deadline whatsoever for any reason simply by virtue of their status as a legislator especially when doing so may not be in the best interest of their own client,” Hughes wrote.
In a hearing over the issue last month, Supreme Court justices expressed exasperation that lawmakers had adequately addressed complaints broached about the automatic court delays through legislation in recent years.
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To the contrary, lawmakers approved a bill earlier this year that would have expanded their legislative continuance privilege in some ways, which Landry stopped from becoming law through a veto. At the time, the governor said he was uncomfortable with the “unchecked” nature of legislative continuances already.
In his opinion, Hughes also cited decisions by courts in other states, including Vermont, Nevada, Alaska, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, that threw out out similar provisions.
“Denying a court the power to decide matters historically considered as falling exclusively within the bailiwick of the judicial branch subverts the power of the judiciary in violation of the separation of powers doctrine,” Hughes wrote. “Other state courts have reached similar conclusions.”
The one dissenting justice was Jay McCallum, who is a former legislator. He said the justices should have taken a narrower approach to the issue, instead of throwing out the legislative continuance statute altogether.
“The majority has removed an unattractive wart by using a chainsaw when a scalpel would have remedied the current litigants’ problems and inflicted no collateral damage to our codal system of law,” McCallum wrote in his dissenting opinion.
The constitutionality of legislative continuances came to the Supreme Court through a case in which state Sen. Alan Seabaugh and Rep. Michael Melerine, both Republicans from Shreveport, were co-counsel.
Attorneys for Caddo resident Theresa Fisher alleged Seabaugh, and Melerine unreasonably delayed resolution of Fisher’s automobile lawsuit, first filed in 2019, by demanding numerous extensions related to their legislative work. In the case, Seabaugh and Melerine represented the driver who hit Fisher, the driver’s father and the father’s insurance company.
Seabaugh has served in the Legislature since 2011, including 12 years in the Louisiana House of Representatives. Melerine took Seabaugh’s seat in the House in January.
At last month’s court hearing on the issue, the justices had uniformly agreed that delay caused by Seabaugh and Melerine in the Fisher case was unconscionable. McCallum, the most sympathetic to the legislators’ cause, even referred to Seabaugh and Melerine’s conduct in the case as “repugnant.”
This story will be updated. Please check back for more details.
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