Legendre v. Harrah's New Orleans Management Company et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

NELLIE LEGENDRE CIVIL ACTION

VERSUS NO. 23-3674

HARRAH’S NEW ORLEANS
MANAGEMENT CO. ET AL. SECTION: “H”

ORDER AND REASONS
Before the Court is Defendant Jazz Casino Company, LLC’s Motion for
Judgment as a Matter or Law and/or Alternative Motion for New Trial (Doc.
102). For the following reasons, Defendant’s Motion is DENIED.

BACKGROUND
In this action, Plaintiff Nellie Legendre (“Legendre”) alleged that she
sustained injuries when she and Eddie Giles, Jr. (“Giles”), an employee of
Defendant Jazz Casino Company, LLC (“JCC”), collided while walking at
Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans, Louisiana.
1
The incident was captured on
surveillance video. The video showed that, at the time of impact, Giles had
been looking to his left while walking and that Legendre was approaching from
Giles’s right. Giles then collided with Legendre’s left side, and she fell to the
ground.

1
Upon the parties’ stipulation, JCC was substituted for Defendant Harrah’s Casino New
Orleans Management Company d/b/a Harrah’s New Orleans and Harrah’s Casino New
Orleans, LLC. Docs. 69 and 75.
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2
JCC moved for summary judgment, arguing in part that Giles did not
breach his duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances. After
reviewing the surveillance video and submitted deposition testimony, this
Court granted summary judgment in favor of JCC, finding that Defendant had
not breached his duty to exercise reasonable care.
2
Legendre appealed, arguing
that this Court should have applied a heightened duty of care to Giles’s conduct
and that it erred in finding that Giles did not breach. The Fifth Circuit Court
of Appeals reversed this Court’s decision in part and remanded this matter for
further proceedings, holding that Giles merely owed “a duty to act reasonably
under the circumstances” and stating that “from Giles’s testimony and the
footage, a reasonable jury could find him negligent.”
3

Upon remand, this matter was tried before a jury beginning on March 9,
2026. The parties stipulated that Giles was an employee of JCC acting in the
course and scope of his employment at the time of the collision and that JCC
would therefore be liable for Giles’s conduct.
4
At trial, Legendre introduced the
surveillance video depicting the incident, and the jury heard testimony from
Legendre, her sister, her niece, her medical providers, and Giles during
Legendre’s case in chief. After Legendre rested her case, JCC made an oral
motion for judgment as a matter of law on the issues of whether Legendre was
entitled to future medical expenses; whether Legendre presented sufficient
evidence regarding her negligent hiring, training, and supervision claims; and
whether Giles had breached his duty to exercise reasonable care. The Court

2
Doc. 53.
3
Legendre v. Harrah’s Casino New Orleans, No. 24-30689, 2025 WL 3035752, at *2 (5th Cir.
Oct. 30, 2025).
4
Doc. 70 at 6.
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deferred ruling on these issues.
5
After the three-day trial, the jury began to
deliberate. During the deliberations, the jury submitted questions to the Court
regarding the applicable standard of care regarding Legendre’s conduct and
whether legal fees should be considered in its award for compensatory
damages. The Court answered those questions by referring the jury to the
Court’s original instructions. Shortly thereafter, the jury returned a verdict,
finding that Legendre and Giles were both liable for negligence, and awarding
Legendre compensatory damages.
6
The jury allocated fault to Legendre and
Giles at five percent and ninety-five percent respectively.
JCC now challenges the jury’s verdict. After Legendre filed her
opposition, JCC sought leave to supplement its briefing in order to address the
Louisiana Supreme Court’s May 1, 2026 decision in Thomas v. BNSF Railway
Company.
7
The Court granted that request and provided Legendre with an
opportunity to file supplemental briefing in turn.
8

LEGAL STANDARD
I. Judgment as a Matter of Law
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50, a motion for judgment
as a matter of law should only be granted “if the facts and inferences point so
strongly in favor of one party that reasonable minds could not disagree.”
9
In
deciding a Rule 50 motion, the court should “‘consider all of the evidence—not
just that evidence which supports the non-mover’s case—but in the light and

5
Doc. 93. Legendre later stipulated that she had not presented sufficient evidence to succeed
on her negligent hiring, training, and supervision claims or to recover for alleged future
medical expenses.
6
Doc. 96.
7
Doc. 106; see 432 So. 3d. 727 (La. 2026).
8
Docs. 107 and 108.
9
Gomez v. St. Jude Med. Diag Div. Inc., 442 F.3d 919, 927 (5th Cir. 2006).
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with all reasonable inferences most favorable to the party opposed to the
motion.’”
10
The court “cannot assess the credibility of witnesses or weigh
the evidence.”
11

II. New Trial
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59 provides that on a motion filed by a
party the court may “[g]rant a new trial on all or some of the issues—and to
any party—as follows: after a jury trial, for any reason for which a new trial
has heretofore been granted in an action at law in federal court.”
12
Rule 59(a)
does not list out specific grounds for a new trial.
13
On the other hand, the Fifth
Circuit has clarified that a new trial may be warranted if “the verdict is against
the weight of the evidence, the damages awarded are excessive, the trial was
unfair, or prejudicial error was committed in its course.”
14
“A new trial will not
be granted based on trial error unless, after considering the record as a whole,
the court concludes that manifest injustice will result from letting the verdict
stand.”
15

LAW AND ANALYSIS
I. Judgment as a Matter of Law
In the instant Motion, JCC renews its request for judgment as a matter
of law regarding whether Giles breached his duty of reasonable care. JCC also
argues that the jury’s allocation of fault implies that it applied differing
standards of care to Legendre’s and Giles’s conduct and that the jury

10
Id. (quoting Info. Commc’n Corp. v. Unisys Corp., 181 F.3d 629, 633 (5th Cir. 1999)).
11
Id.
12
FED. R. CIV. P. 59(a)(1)(A).
13
See id.
14
Smith v. Transworld Drilling Co., 773 F.2d 610, 613 (5th Cir. 1985).
15
Learmonth v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 631 F.3d 724, 730 (5th Cir. 2011) (citation modified)
(quoting Foradori v. Harris, 523 F.3d 477, 506–07 (5th Cir. 2008)).
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improperly applied the elements of comparative fault. Legendre opposes. The
Court addresses JCC’s arguments in turn.
A. Breach
JCC first argues that the evidence presented at trial “demonstrates that
this was not negligence, but an accident between two people, each of whom had
an equal opportunity to see the other” and that “Louisiana law does not impose
negligence just because two people bumped into one another.”
16
Legendre
responds that JCC’s dissatisfaction with the jury’s verdict does not entitle it to
judgment as a matter of law. This Court agrees.
“The jury system is premised on the idea that rationality and careful
regard for the court’s instructions will confine and exclude jurors’ raw
emotions. Jurors routinely serve as impartial factfinders in cases that involve
sensitive, even life-and-death matters. In those cases, as in all cases, juries are
presumed to follow the court’s instructions.”
17
In this case, the jurors were told
of their duty to follow the law as provided by the Court, “regardless of any
opinion that [they] might have as to what the law ought to be.”
18
Regarding
Giles’s duty of care, the Court informed the jury that:
In this case, the basic standard is that the defendant must exercise
the degree of care that we might reasonably expect from an
ordinarily prudent person under the same or similar
circumstances. The standard of care is not that of an
extraordinarily cautious individual or an exceptionally skilled
person, but that of a person of ordinary prudence.
19

16
Doc. 102-1 at 3.
17
CSX Transp., Inc. v. Hensley, 556 U.S. 838, 841 (2009) (citing Greer v. Miller, 483 U.S. 756,
766 n.8 (1987)).
18
See id. (“[T]he trial court in this case correctly instructed the jury as to its legal duty to
‘follow all instructions.’”).
19
18 La. Civ. L. Treatise, Civil Jury Instructions § 3:4 (3d ed.). This instruction is consistent
with the Fifth Circuit’s holding on appeal. Legendre, 2025 WL 3035752, at *2 (holding that
this Court “did not err when it declined to impose a heightened duty” beyond the general
“duty to act reasonably under the circumstances”).
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As to breach, the Court instructed the jury that:
An ordinarily prudent person will avoid creating an unreasonable
risk of harm. In deciding whether the defendant violated this
standard of conduct, you may weigh the likelihood that someone
might have been injured by his conduct and the seriousness of that
injury if it should occur against the importance to the community
of what the defendant was doing and the advisability of the way
he was doing it under the circumstances.
20

At JCC’s request, the Court also cautioned the jury that “[t]he mere happening
of an accident does not shift to the defendant the burden of establishing that
the accident did not occur through its negligence, nor does it create a
presumption of negligence.”
21
Presuming, as the Court must, that the jurors
followed their instructions, the jury reviewed the evidence before it and
concluded that Giles’ conduct amounted to a breach of his duty to exercise
reasonable care. Defendant may disagree with the jury’s conclusions, “[b]ut
whether [Giles’s] momentary inattention amounts to negligence is a fact issue”
to be decided by the jury.
22
As the Fifth Circuit already concluded after
reviewing much of the same evidence presented at trial, this Court concludes
that a reasonable jury could have found that Giles was negligent.
23

B. Standard of Care
JCC next argues that, based on the jury’s conclusions as to fault, the jury
must have applied a higher standard of care to Giles’s conduct than to
Legendre’s. The Court’s charge regarding Legendre’s duty was that “the
standard applicable to the plaintiff's conduct is the requirement that she

20
18 La. Civ. L. Treatise, Civil Jury Instructions § 3:4 (3d ed.).
21
See Blanchard v. Sotile, 394 So. 2d. 633, 635 (La. App. 1 Cir. 1980); see also Morales v.
Houston Fire and Cas. Co., Inc., 342 So. 2d 1248, 1250 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1977).
22
Legendre, 2025 WL 3035752, at *2.
23
Id.
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exercise that degree of care which we might reasonably expect a person to
exercise for her own safety and protection.”
24
The Court also told the jury that:
In deciding the question of Plaintiff’s fault, as it is called in the
law, you may ask yourselves this question: “Should the plaintiff as
an ordinarily prudent person, under all the circumstances
surrounding her conduct, have reasonably foreseen some such
injury as she suffered as a result of her conduct, and did she fail to
exercise reasonable care to avoid such injury to herself?”
25

As set forth above, the jury was instructed to determine whether Giles
“exercise[d] the degree of care that we might reasonably expect from an
ordinarily prudent person under the same or similar circumstances.”
26
Again,
the Court must presume that the jurors heeded the Court’s instructions when
reaching a verdict.
27
JCC offers no evidence or reason to rebut that
presumption other than inferences drawn from its dissatisfaction with the
verdict. JCC instead asks the Court to reach a different conclusion than the
jury based on its interpretation of the evidence. The Court, however, cannot
reweigh the evidence in JCC’s favor. Accordingly, judgment as a matter of law
on this issue is not warranted.
C. Comparative fault
JCC’s third argument is based in part on the fact that jury asked a
clarifying question regarding Legendre’s duty. Because the jury asked that
question, JCC assumes that “the jury misapplied the duty to exercise
reasonable care and the principles of negligence.”
28
During deliberations, the
jury submitted the following question to the Court: “We need clarification on
the standard for contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff. Is the

24
18 La. Civ. L. Treatise, Civil Jury Instructions § 5:1 (3d ed.).
25
Id.
26
Id. at § 3:4.
27
Hensley, 556 U.S. at 841 (citing Greer, 483 U.S. at 766 n.8).
28
Doc. 102-1 at 6–7.
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standard for an ordinary person or an ordinary casino patron? What is
considered reasonable under negligence?”

After discussing the question with
counsel and receiving no objections, the Court instructed the jury to consult
the instructions that the jurors were provided. For the same reasons the Court
rejected JCC’s first two arguments, the Court rejects JCC’s speculative
arguments about the jury’s misapplication of its instructions.
In supplemental briefing, JCC argues that the Court should follow the
Louisiana Supreme Court’s rationale in Thomas v. BNSF Railway Company
and that, as in Thomas, this Court may reallocate fault based on objective video
evidence.
29
However, the Thomas court found that the jury’s assignment of
fault was manifestly erroneous where, critically, there was a clear reason to
believe the jury in Thomas misapplied the law regarding causation and
comparative fault. In Thomas, the jury concluded that the plaintiff was
negligent but that “his negligence was not a proximate cause of the accident.”
30

The jury then allocated the plaintiff 15% of the fault for his damages, creating
inconsistent findings that “required the trial court to either return the jury for
further consideration of its answers or order a new trial.”
31
To help resolve this
inconsistency, however, the Thomas “plaintiff consented to a judgment
allocating 15% of fault to him, effectively resolving the verdict’s inconsistency
by conceding his negligence was a legal cause of the accident.”
32
Thus, the
judgment before the Thomas court was not “derived from the findings of fact of
the jury.”
33
Because the jury did not find that the plaintiff’s negligence was a
cause of the accident and yet allocated him fault, the Louisiana Supreme Court

29
See 432 So. 3d. at 735 (Weimer, C.J., concurring).
30
Thomas v. BNSF Ry. Co., 399 So. 3d 404, at 405 (La. 2025).
31
Id.
32
Id.
33
Thomas, 432 So. 3d. at 738 (Holdridge, A.H.J., concurring).
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examined the extent of the causal relationship between the parties’ conduct
and plaintiff’s injuries to determine whether the allocation of fault was
manifestly erroneous.
34
Here, however, there is no legitimate reason to suspect
the jury misapplied the law to the evidence presented at trial—other than
JCC’s disappointment with the result.
35
Accordingly, JCC’s Motion for
Judgment as a Matter of Law is denied.
II. Motion for New Trial
In the alternative, JCC moves for new trial, arguing that the jury’s
verdict is against the weight of the evidence with respect to the jury’s allocation
of fault. JCC argues that because the evidence demonstrated that Legendre
and Giles “had equal opportunities to see each other” before contact was made
and the parties were responsible for exercising the same standard of care, the
jury’s allocation of fault to Giles was excessive.
36
While both parties failed to
see and avoid each other, the parties’ conduct, mental states, motives,
capacities, and circumstances were distinct.
37
The jury could have reasonably

34
See id. at 733–34. The Court notes that, in dissent, Justice McCallum argues that there
was “no evidence that [the] defendant[’s] . . . actions or inactions were a cause in fact of the
accident,” meaning that the plaintiff should be entirely responsible for his own injuries. Id.
at 737–38 (McCallum, J., dissenting).
35
The Court also notes that Thomas is factually distinguishable in that the objective evidence
showed that the plaintiff violated several laws which, if not violated, would have prevented
the accident entirely, demonstrating a strong causal link between his conduct and his
injuries. Id. at 733–34. Here, no party suggests that Legendre violated any laws that, if
followed, would have prevented her injuries.
36
Doc. 102-1 at 9.
37
See Watson v. State Farm Fire and Cas. Ins. Co., 469 So. 2d 967, 974 (La. 1985) (“In
determining the percentages of fault, the trier of fact shall consider both the nature of the
conduct of each party at fault and the extent of the causal relation between the conduct
and the damages claimed. In assessing the nature of the conduct of the parties, various
factors may influence the degree of fault assigned, including: (1) whether the conduct
resulted from inadvertence or involved an awareness of the danger, (2) how great a risk
was created by the conduct, (3) the significance of what was sought by the conduct, (4) the
capacities of the actor, whether superior or inferior, and (5) any extenuating circumstances
which might require the actor to proceed in haste, without proper thought. And, of course,
as evidenced by concepts such as last clear chance, the relationship between the
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concluded, for example, that Giles’s conduct was significantly riskier in that he
was not looking in the direction that he was walking, whereas Legendre was
looking ahead. In sum, this Court is not persuaded by Defendant’s argument
that the great weight of the evidence presented at trial is contrary to the jury’s
verdict. A new trial can only be granted if a court concludes that manifest
injustice will result from letting the verdict stand. This Court concludes that
no such manifest injustice will result from letting this verdict stand.
Accordingly, the Court finds that a new trial is not warranted.

CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s Motion for Judgment as a Matter
or Law and/or Alternative Motion for New Trial (Doc. 102) is DENIED.

New Orleans, Louisiana this 13th day of August, 2026.

____________________________________
JANE TRICHE MILAZZO
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

fault/negligent conduct and the harm to the plaintiff are considerations in determining the
relative fault of the parties.”).
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