Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff Silver Dollar Liquor, L.L.C. ("Silver Dollar") owns the Silver Dollar Liquor Store located within District 6 of Red River Parish. Silver Dollar filed a declaratory judgment action against Defendant Red River Parish Police Jury ("Police Jury"), seeking to have Section 3-18 declared invalid because there has never been a local option election in District 6 pursuant to La. R.S. 51:191. The Police Jury answered that it had authority under La. R.S. 26:493 to regulate the sale of alcoholic beverages. Relying on La. R.S. 26:493, the appellate court found in favor of the Police Jury, holding Section 3-18 to be valid. Finding the appellate court's decision created a split in the circuits, the Supreme Court granted Silver Dollar's certiorari application to resolve the split. Upon review, the Court surmised the heart of this case involved the interpretation and applicability of La. R.S. 51:191, which requires a local-option election in order to authorize a Sunday-closing law; and La. R.S. 26:493, which delegates to political subdivisions the power to regulate the sale of alcoholic beverages. After review, the Court affirmed the appellate court's decision.

To provide relief in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Congress appropriated funds to Louisiana which distributed some of those funds through the "Road Home" program. The State required more than 150,000 Road Home grant recipients to execute a "Limited Subrogation/Assignment Agreement." The Road Home program created "perverse incentives" for insurance companies and their insured homeowners: some insurers inadequately adjusted and paid grant-eligible claims, and some grant-eligible homeowners had little motivation for file insurance claims. As a result, Road Home applications skyrocketed and created a $1 billion shortfall in the program. The State filed suit against more than 200 insurance companies, seeking to recover the funds spent and yet to be spent on claims under the Road Home program. The Insurance Companies successfully removed the case to the federal district court. The Insurance Companies then sought to dismiss the State's case, arguing that as a matter of law, anti-assignment clauses in the homeowners' policies invalidated the subrogation/assignment to the State. The federal district court denied the Companies' motion to dismiss. The Companies appealed to the Fifth Circuit. Because interpretation of the policy provisions at issue was a matter of State law, the Court certified interpretation to the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found that there is no public policy in Louisiana that precludes anti-assignment claims from applying to post-loss assignments. The Court commented that the language of the anti-assignment clause must clearly and unambiguously express that it applies to post-loss assignments, and as such must be evaluated on a policy-by-policy basis.