The lives of hardworking Houma residents with families, careers, and responsibilities can be thrown into chaos by an unexpected injury. With over 30,000 people calling Houma home, personal injuries happen far too often. These injuries can leave victims and their loved ones grappling with mounting medical expenses, ongoing pain, long-term disabilities, and more. If someone else is at fault for your or your loved one’s injury, our Houma injury lawyers are ready to fight for maximum compensation on your behalf.
A personal injury occurs when physical or emotional harm results from another person’s negligent or intentional actions. A variety of potentially life-altering actions can be grounds for a victim’s personal injury case.
Traffic accidents are a leading cause of personal injury in Houma, Louisiana. The force of a car crash can cause a multitude of serious injuries, including bone fractures, spine injuries, burns, and brain injuries.
In 2023, Terrebonne Parish reported 776 injury-causing motor vehicle crashes, in which 1,210 people were harmed. An additional 12 collisions caused 15 deaths. While the parish’s suspected vehicle crash injury rate decreased by 15% from 2022, fatalities remained at the same number from the previous year.
Many of these crashes were not accidental — rather they resulted from another party’s negligent actions. Alcohol-related crashes caused 44 suspected injuries and five fatalities in 2023. Six injury crashes involved drivers distracted by another occupant in their vehicle, while eight involved distraction by a handheld mobile device. The leading type of known driver violation was inattentive, erratic, or careless driving, which was a factor in 277 harm-inducing crashes. Other major reported violations causing serious motor vehicle collisions in Terrebonne Parish included:
Some collisions are a result of roadway environmental factors rather than driver error alone, but drivers still have a responsibility to adjust their driving accordingly. For example, construction zones can create distractions and sudden changes in traffic patterns, and this was a factor in three Terrebonne Parish injury crashes in 2023. Regular traffic congestion contributed to another 26 injury crashes, while road surface conditions contributed to 27.
Houma and the surrounding area is a hotspot for major industries such as oil and gas, shipping, and fishing. U.S. 90 runs just north of Houma and carries a significant amount of commercial truck traffic each day. Despite its role in the local economy, the area’s heavy truck presence creates a high risk for truck accidents.
In 2023, 33 serious traffic crashes in Terrebonne Parish involved a truck tractor or other large truck. These vehicles can weigh up to 80,000 pounds when fully loaded, which makes them difficult to stop quickly and increases the force of impact in a collision.
Six percent of all serious large truck crashes in Terrebonne Parish in 2023 were fatal compared to just 1.5% across all vehicle types. Comparing the fatality rate to the injury rate for commercial truck crashes shows even more dramatic differences: truck tractor crashes represented 13% of all fatal crashes and less than 1% of all injury crashes. In other words, a large truck’s involvement in an accident significantly increases the likelihood of death.
Negligence on the part of truck drivers, their employers, and third parties such as cargo loaders is a common factor in commercial truck accidents. Driver fatigue, overloaded trailers, and improper vehicle maintenance are some of the many causes that can contribute to a serious truck crash.
Motorcyclists are some of the most vulnerable users of Houma’s roads, but they get a bad reputation for being reckless. The truth is that motorcycle accidents are often the fault of other drivers who fail to yield to these smaller vehicles. Driver distraction, impaired driving, and speeding can hinder a driver’s ability to see or react to a motorcyclist’s presence in time to avoid a collision. Road hazards, such as potholes or debris, can also be more risky to motorcycles than other types of vehicles.
There were 23 serious motorcycle crashes reported in Terrebonne Parish in 2023. One of these crashes was fatal. Motorcycle crashes represented just 1.5% of all injury crashes that year but accounted for 6.7% of all fatal crashes, which demonstrates the high risk of death in these types of accidents.
Motorcyclists can reduce their likelihood of suffering serious harm by wearing a DOT-approved helmet. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that helmets are 37% effective in preventing motorcycle rider deaths and 69% effective in preventing brain injuries. Unfortunately, not all motorcyclists in Houma wear helmets even though it is required by law.
Of the 15 traffic crash fatalities that occurred in Terrebonne Parish in 2023, five of them were pedestrians. Pedestrians are some of the most vulnerable users of roadways, as they lack the protection of a vehicle and have little to no impact mitigation in an accident.
Driver error plays a major role in Houma pedestrian accidents. Factors such as distracted driving, failure to look for pedestrians when turning, and failure to yield at crosswalks contribute to these tragic incidents.
Poor lighting and a lack of sidewalks in some areas of Houma also increase the risk of pedestrian accidents. Houma lacks a comprehensive pedestrian safety plan — in fact, a 2019 report named Houma-Thibodaux as the second most dangerous metro area in Louisiana for walkers. The area’s streets are designed primarily for cars, with little regard for pedestrians, and this can have deadly consequences.
Twenty bicycle crashes occurred in Terrebonne Parish in 2023. While none of these crashes were fatal, serious injuries are a significant risk for cyclists in Houma.
Houma’s pedestrian safety problem extends to cyclists as well, with the same issues of driver error and inadequate infrastructure contributing to bicycle accidents. Cyclists face many dangers in the Houma area, such as being “doored” by parked cars, improper passing and turning from drivers, and drivers following too closely.
Bicyclist-friendly infrastructure, such as dedicated bike lanes and signals, can help mitigate the risk of accidents for cyclists in Houma. However, these features are lacking throughout the city.
Houma is located near many waterways, including the Bayou Petit Caillou, Lake Gero, Lake Quitman, Lake Long, Lake Fields, Lake De Cade, and the Gulf of Mexico. Its location offers many opportunities for boating for both business and leisure, but it also presents a higher risk of boat crashes.
News reports of side-by-side boat collisions, crashes with barges, and drownings highlight the dangers of boating in Houma and surrounding areas. Some of these incidents are genuine accidents, but some form of human error is common in boat crashes. Operating a boat while intoxicated is illegal in Louisiana, but many people do so anyway. Some boaters get too confident in the open waters and drive recklessly, while others lack proper experience for safe boating.
About one-fifth of Louisiana’s workforce is employed in occupations that carry high risks of workplace fatalities. Over a hundred people across the state die from work-related incidents annually, with many more incurring life-altering injuries.
Serious workplace injuries tend to congregate in certain industrial sectors, including transportation, warehousing, mining/natural resource extraction, manufacturing, and construction. Heavy machinery contact, slips/falls, transport accidents, and exposure to harmful substances are all more common and more likely to result in fatalities within these industries. In Houma specifically, where top employers include Bollinger Shipyards, Danos, Edison Chouest Offshore, and John Deere, industrial accidents are a persistent concern.
Workers’ compensation benefits are eligible for workers injured on the job in Houma, as well as for deceased workers’ surviving family members. Although injured workers usually cannot sue their employers due to the workers’ compensation system’s stipulations, a personal injury lawsuit may be an option if third-party negligence is involved.
Property owners have a legal duty to keep their premises reasonably safe for patrons and other visitors. When they fail to do so and cause injuries, they may be liable for the victim’s damages. This area of the law is known as premises liability.
Premises liability cases can occur in private residences, retail locations, public parks, hotels, multi-family residential buildings, schools, and other places. Common causes of premises liability claims include slip and fall accidents, inadequate security measures leading to assaults or theft, dog bites/animal attacks, and unsafe conditions that cause trips and falls.
Many premises liability claims revolve around a property owner’s awareness of a dangerous condition and their failure to address it. For example, if a customer slips and falls in a grocery store due to a spilled liquid that had been leaking for hours, the store may be liable for their injuries if it failed to clean up or warn customers of the hazard.
Commercial products must be safe when used for their intended purpose, with adequate warnings and instructions provided for appropriate use. If a product harms a consumer due to a defect or lack of warnings, the manufacturer or distributor may be held liable for any injuries in a product liability claim.
Product liability cases can involve a wide range of products, including dangerous pharmaceuticals, contaminated food products, and defective vehicle parts. Three main types of product defects can lead to liability claims: design defects, manufacturing defects, and marketing defects, such as inadequate warnings or instructions.
Personal injury compensation can include any losses you experienced due to your injuries. These damages can be economic or non-economic and may include:
Additionally, losing a loved one due to another party’s negligence or wrongdoing may be grounds for wrongful death damages. Wrongful death law in Louisiana allows surviving family members to seek compensation for losses they suffered from the death of a loved one, including lost financial support, lost companionship, and funeral costs.
A strong personal injury case relies on proving four key elements of negligence. If your case meets these, you are likely eligible to receive compensation for your damages:
Insurance companies often try to avoid paying fair compensation by disputing the above elements. Pushing back against their tactics is challenging without help from a lawyer. The right Houma personal injury attorneys can build a powerful case for negligence and negotiate on your behalf.
Because negligence is not always straightforward, several parties share responsibility for many Houma accidents. There are many examples of shared negligence, including instances in which the injured party took improper safety measures.
In 2023, 25% of drivers killed in Terrebonne Parish traffic accidents were not properly wearing seatbelts. If a speeding driver collided with someone who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, they’d likely both be responsible for resulting injuries. The injuries of the driver not wearing the seatbelt would not have been as severe if the driver had been following proper safety protocols, regardless of the speed of the car that crashed into them.
Comparative negligence is an important concept in this situation. Louisiana’s comparative fault law allows victims of accidents to receive compensatory damages even if they are deemed partially at fault for their injuries, and the total compensation is reduced by the percentage of their fault. For instance, if the total value of your case is $200,000, and your negligence contributed to your injuries by 50%, you’d be eligible for a maximum of $100,000 in damages.
The statute of limitations for filing a personal injury lawsuit in Louisiana is one year. This means you must file a personal injury lawsuit in Houma within one year of the injury date.
Meeting this deadline is crucial in recovering potential compensation for injuries. If you miss the one-year deadline, you’ll likely lose your right to seek compensation.
Note that exceptions exist for this rule. For instance, if the victim seeking damages was under the age of 18 or deemed legally incompetent at the time of the accident, they may have more time to file a lawsuit.
Even if you believe you may qualify for an exception, it’s always recommended to consult with our personal injury attorneys in Houma as soon as possible after an accident. We can advise you on which statutes of limitations apply to your case and help you file your claim within the deadline.
Insurance companies have highly trained professionals whose jobs are to minimize payouts for personal injury claims. Their priority is to protect the interests and profits of their company rather than your well-being. That’s where we come in.
Our Houma injury lawyers are prepared to handle your case from start to finish. When you turn to us for legal counsel, we will:
We work on a contingency fee basis, meaning it costs nothing upfront to work with our injury attorneys. We offer a free consultation to explore your rights and options, so you have nothing to lose by reaching out to us. If you or someone you love has suffered an injury due to someone else’s negligence, contact us today to speak with our team. We’re ready to hear your story and start moving forward.
“We focus on being the best at 3 things: preparing hard for our cases, making sure we deliver what clients need, and making sure they are treated well throughout the process.”
"*" indicates required fields
