Suit Against Louisiana Anti-Indemnification Law Dismissed

A Louisiana judge rejected a challenge to the state’s anti-indemnification law, saying the Louisiana Chemical Association had no grounds for its lawsuit in which the group called the statute unconstitutional.

“We’re happy about the decision,” Cathy Gautreaux, executive director of the Louisiana Motor Transport Association, told Transport Topics. “It means that there’s a little bit more comfort level, since it withstood a challenge to the state.”

LMTA and American Trucking Associations filed briefs supporting the law, which prohibits a shipper from assigning legal liability to a trucking company for actions that are not the trucker’s fault.

LCA argued that the law, which took effect in January 2011 after Louisiana’s legislature passed it in 2010, violated the right to enter into contracts, a right outlined in the U.S. and Louisiana constitutions.