2025 Louisiana Legislative Tort Reforms
Several important changes to Louisiana law were enacted during the 2025 legislative session. A number of these updates are part of ongoing tort reform intended to address automobile accidents and insurance issues in Louisiana. Let’s review the substance of these changes and consider potential impacts on outcomes in personal injury litigation.
Comparative Fault
First on our list is a very big change to the law of how fault is assessed in personal injury and death cases. Known as “comparative fault,” Louisiana law has long required that in every case where more than one person’s negligence or fault contributed to an accident, the judge or jury must assess a numerical percentage of fault to each such person, including the plaintiff (the person who filed the lawsuit). Here’s an example: we have a two-car collision in which the following vehicle rear-ends the vehicle in front. While the rear-ending driver presumptively is at fault, there may be evidence that the driver in front also was negligent. The driver in front may have braked too quickly, may have failed to maintain working brake lights, or may have been negligent in some other way. The driver in front files a claim as a plaintiff. This plaintiff who suffered injuries from being rear-ended will have a percentage of fault assigned, resulting in reduced recovery for his or her injuries.
Under the law until recently changed, the injured plaintiff who bears some percentage of fault would have his or her recovery of compensation reduced by his or her share of fault. In our above example, if the jury awarded the plaintiff $100,000, but also found the plaintiff to be 50% at fault for braking too quickly, the plaintiff’s recovery would be reduced by 50% of $100,000. Hence, the plaintiff’s recovery would be reduced by $50,000, and he or she would only receive $50,000 in compensation.
The new law, Act No. 15 of the 2025 Regular Session, provides that a plaintiff who is found to be 51% or more at fault will recover no compensation at all. Thus, injured persons will have their recovery reduced if they are 50% or less at fault, but if they are 51% or more at fault, their recovery will be eliminated. As a result, if we change the above example to be that the plaintiff driver who was rear-ended but who also braked too quickly is found to be 51% at fault, the plaintiff will recover none of his $100,000 in damages. The Act specifies that judges will be required to instruct juries about these new features of the law.
Is this change in the law of comparative fault advisable? A proponent of the new law could argue that it will reduce the volume of claims and court cases filed, with resultant lower insurance rates and costs to the public via our judicial system. A critic of the new law could point out that this new zero-recovery rule creates such a high degree of risk, and uncertainty of recovery, in cases where fault is not clearly established that access to justice (such as willingness of lawyers to take cases) will be reduced.
No Pay, No Play
Next is a significant change to our compulsory motor vehicle liability security law, better known as the “No Pay, No Play” statute. See La. Rev. Stat. § 32:866.
Under longstanding Louisiana law, to recover compensation for injuries incurred in an automobile accident (to “play”), the injured motorist must have paid to obtain the minimum liability insurance coverage required by law (to “pay”). If the injured motorist did not have the required liability coverage at the time of the accident (“no pay”), the injured motorist’s recovery of compensation is reduced (“no play”).
For many years, an injured motorist who did not maintain the requisite $15,000 per-person bodily injury coverage and/or requisite $25,000 per-accident property damage coverage would see his or her compensation reduced in equivalent amounts. In other words, such an injured motorist could not recover any of the first $15,000 in bodily injury damages or the first $25,000 in property damages.
Under Act. No. 16 enacted this year, however, such an injured motorist’s ability to “play” is even more drastically reduced: he or she may not recover any of the first $100,000 in both bodily injury damages and property damages. In most cases, this means injured motorists who drive without insurance will not recover any compensation whatsoever.
Let’s take an example of an injured motorist who (1) did not have the required insurance, (2) had bodily injury damages of $50,000, and (3) had property damages of $30,000.
OLD LAW: The injured motorist could not recover the first $15,000 in bodily injury damages. His $50,000 in total bodily injury damages would be reduced by $15,000, meaning he would recover $35,000 in bodily injury damages. Likewise, he could not recover the first $25,000 in property damages, leaving him to recover only $5,000 in property damages ($30,000 minus $25,000).
NEW LAW: To recover any compensation, the injured motorist would need to have bodily injury damages and/or property damages exceeding $100,000. He has neither. He recovers no compensation.
The new law, like the old law, contains some exceptions, including when the driver of the other vehicle drove while intoxicated, intentionally caused the accident, fled the accident scene, or was in the process of committing a felony at the time of the accident. Also exempt from the “no pay, no play” statute are claims by a passenger.
All in all, the 2025 “no pay, no play” statutory amendment imposes a stiff penalty for drivers who fail to obtain the insurance coverage required by law.
Causation of Injury (Housley Presumption)
This year, the Legislature enacted into the Code of Evidence an entirely new statute, which affects how injured plaintiffs may prove that a medical condition was caused by an accident. New Article 306.1 provides that “the lack of a prior history of an illness, injury, or condition shall not create a presumption that an illness, injury, or condition was caused by the act that is the subject of the claim.” Before enactment of this law, the plaintiff could point to the lack of the medical condition before the accident, and the existence of the condition after the accident, to create a presumption that the accident caused the condition. That presumption shifted the burden of proof to the defendant to come forward with persuasive medical evidence essentially disproving causation. Article 306.1 changes that by providing that the plaintiff has no presumption that the accident caused the condition.
For over three decades, Louisiana courts had been applying a presumption of causation in what was known as the “Housley presumption,” stemming from the Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision in Housley v. Cerise, 579 So. 2d 973 (La. 1991). In Housley, a woman seven months into her pregnancy fell on the stairway inside an apartment due to a defect. She then experienced a rupture of membranes with premature delivery of her child, who then had serious health problems. The doctors’ testimony was somewhat tenuous as to whether the fall caused the premature delivery. The Supreme Court, however, found in favor of the pregnant woman because of the presumption: she was in pretty good health with no significant prenatal issues before the fall; her water broke shortly after the fall; and therefore the Court presumed that the fall caused the premature delivery. The evidentiary “boost” from the Housley presumption led to the plaintiffs prevailing on their claims.
Act 18 of the 2025 legislative session, which enacts Article 306.1, expressly overrules Housley. Plaintiffs are no longer able to argue a presumption of causation based on the absence of the condition pre-accident and the existence of the condition post-accident.
What practical impacts will result from this change? Plaintiffs will need to revise their litigation strategies to focus on obtaining the appropriate expert physician testimony based on adequate medical records to prove causation. Defendants will be able to scrutinize claims in a manner that requires plaintiffs to satisfy the evidentiary burden in a post-Housley landscape.
The legislative act clarifies that there are two situations in which the new law does not apply. First, Article 306.1 does not apply to workers’ compensation claims. Second, the new law does not apply to accidents that occurred before May 28, 2025.
What benefits or detriments might we expect to see from this legislative change? Potential benefits are a reduction in frivolous claims and decreased health insurance premiums over time. Potential detriments include the elimination of compensation for valid claims made by injured plaintiffs who lack the requisite funding to pay for expensive medical testimony at trial. Like all efforts at tort reform, only time can tell the effects of the Legislature’s decision to overrule the Louisiana Supreme Court by dispatching Housley.
Collateral Sources
Last in our list of critical 2025 legislative tort reform updates is the change to the “collateral source” rule. The collateral source rule is meant to deter negligent conduct. It means that the tortfeasor (negligent party) may not benefit from the injured plaintiff’s prudence in having obtained insurance before an accident. Thus, even where the plaintiff’s insurance benefits have helped to compensate the plaintiff for the harm caused by the tortfeasor, still, the tortfeasor has been required to pay the plaintiff’s damages.
An issue that frequently arises in applying this rule to personal injury cases is quantifying the medical expenses that the plaintiff may recover where he or she had health insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, or similar coverage. Is the plaintiff limited to recovering the expenses actually paid, or may he or she recover the higher amounts often billed by the healthcare provider to the insurer?
Courts have grappled with this question for many years, and the Louisiana Legislature has made ongoing revisions to the law. Once upon a time, the plaintiff could recover the entire amount of medical expenses billed to a private health insurance plan (and sometimes Medicare—although not Medicaid), even if the insurer paid less than the amount billed. Then, several years ago, the law changed to limit the plaintiff to recovering the amount actually paid by the insurer, plus up to 40% of the difference between the amount billed and the amount paid.
Under the new law, effective January 1, 2026, the collateral source rule has been further amended. Act No. 466 of the 2025 legislative session provides that generally, the plaintiff may only recover amounts actually paid by the insurer (or by Medicare), plus any copayments, deductibles, and the like paid directly to the healthcare provider by the plaintiff. The plaintiff may no longer recover any portion of the higher amounts that may have been billed by the provider to the insurer.
As with all policy decisions made by legislatures, this statutory change has its supporters and detractors. Proponents point to the perceived fairness of preventing a double recovery by plaintiffs. Critics point to the perceived unfairness of allowing tortfeasors to pay less by virtue of the plaintiffs’ prudence in having obtained medical benefits coverage.
Conclusion
The Legislature (and the Governor) have spoken, and therefore, the rules have changed. Only time will reveal the societal impacts. The third branch of government, our judges, will resolve disputes about how to apply these legal revisions. Attorneys—both plaintiff and defendant—will inform judges’ decisions, as attorneys in individual cases vigorously advocate each client’s side of the story.