Jimmy Kuhn

American lawyer

James Edward Kuhn (born October 31, 1946) is a former member of the Louisiana Circuit Courts of Appeal First Circuit. Kuhn lives in Ponchatoula, Louisiana . He began his second term in 2005. He retired when his 10-year term ended on December 31, 2014.

Education

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Kuhn was graduated from Ponchatoula High School in 1964 and from Southeastern Louisiana University in 1968 and then Loyola Law School . He served in the Army National Guard and attended the Army War College National Security Seminar at Carlisle Barracks , Pennsylvania.

Legal career

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Kuhn began his career in private practice and was a State Prosecutor for 17 years. He was elected to Louisiana's 21st Judicial District Court in 1990 and was there until his term on the First Circuit Appeals Court of Louisiana, to which he was elected in 1994. Kuhn has been part of the faculty at Southeastern Louisiana University since 1991. He has lectured before the Association of Defense Counsel and the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.

2008 election

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Kuhn ran for the first district seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court made vacant by the retirement of Pascal Calogero. On Saturday, October 4, Kuhn won 30 percent of the vote in a 3-way primary, coming in second in a race against Greg Guidry and Roland Belsome; the race was then between Kuhn and Guidry, both Republicans, and was decided on November 4.

On November 4, 2008 Greg G. Guidry won a seat on the Supreme Court with 160,893 votes (60%) to Jimmy Kuhn's 108,541 (40%) with all precincts reporting.

Judicial philosophy

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In explaining his views to Louisiana's voters, Kuhn has said:

• He advocates a philosophy of judicial restraint.

• He hopes to protect the court from political influence: "The court is under attack from groups who want to make it strictly a political contest rather than what's best for the court system in this state. Whether they are from the right or the left, they are on a mission for this, and it's no-holds-barred."

• He does not support public financing for judicial races.

• The state's judicial systems needs to increase the qualifications of candidates for judicial office in the state, and improve the way judicial elections are run.

• The Louisiana Supreme Court needs to "more vigorously supervise" the state's intermediate appellate courts in the wake of recent revelations that between February 1994 and May 2007, appeals filed in the 5th Circuit by prisoners without attorneys were not reviewed by three-judge panels as the law requires.

Case summaries

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Published opinions

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• Carter v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Co., 2007-0583 (La. App. 1st Cir. --/--/--), 2008 WL --------- Majority upholds trial court's denial of summary judgment, finding that a waiver of uninsured/underinsured motorists (UM) coverage was invalid and, therefore, that Imperial Fire and Casualty Co. (Imperial) provided coverage. Judge Kuhn dissented, stating "[Imperial] has carried its evidentiary burden of proof to establish the absence of genuine issues of material fact and is entitled to judgment as matter of law that the [UM] Rejection Form was properly completed and UM coverage was waived. The evidence establishes that no policy number was available at the time of execution of the form at issue. LIRC 98-03 specifically provides '[I]n the case where a policy number is not available, the space for the policy number may be left blank or a binder number may be inserted." On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the majority "for the reasons assigned by the dissenting judge." See Carter v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Co., 2007-1974 (La. 10/5/07), 964 So.2d 375.
• Crummey v. Morgan, 2007-0087 (La. App. 1st Cir. 8/8/07), 965 So.2d 497, writ denied, 2007-1806 (La. 11/9/07), 967 So.2d 509 - A Louisiana resident learned of the availability of a recreational vehicle (RV) from the Texas defendants through the eBay website. The Texas defendants urged that the Louisiana court lacked jurisdiction to hear the Louisiana resident's claims that the RV he had purchased from them was defective. Held: The Texas defendants entered into the contract to sell the allegedly-defective RV to a Louisiana resident utilizing eBay, which greatly expanded their market. The Texas defendants secured the sale with a credit card sent from Louisiana. The Louisiana resident spoke to the Texas defendants on the phone while he was in his residence in Louisiana. Therefore, the Louisiana district court had sufficient minimum contacts to maintain personal jurisdiction. "To hold to the contrary would have a chilling effect on e-commerce in that buyers, wary of being haled into the home courts of out-of-state sellers, will refrain from purchasing goods on eBay and other similar websites should the merchandise they considered purchasing be defective.
• Fernandez v. Hebert, 2006-1558 (La. App. 1st Cir. 5/4/07), 961 So.2d 404, writ denied, 2007-1123 (La. 9/21/07), 964 So.2d 333 - Decedent was an elderly widow who left no children. Her will, which mirrored that of her late husband, left numerous legacies to her nephew and his siblings. Her nephew had worked alongside her late husband at a wholesale malt beverage distributorship for nearly 40 years and had become a partial owner of the distributorship at the time of decedent's death. Nephew's cousin, who had an interest in the decedent's estate as a residuary legatee, challenged, among other things, the nephew's authority to make donations of stock to himself and his siblings, on behalf of decedent prior to her death. The cousin claimed that the nephew needed the decedent's written authority to make the donations. The First Circuit applied the Civil Code and the Louisiana Stock Transfer Law to hold that the express authority granted to the nephew by the decedent to make the stock donations to himself and his siblings did not have to be written. Therefore, in light of the evidence admitted at the hearing, there was no legal error in the conclusion that the donations were valid despite the lack of written authorization.
• Hogan v. Morgan, 2006-0808 (La. App. 1st Cir. 4/26/07), 960 So.2d 1024, writ denied, 2007-1122 (La. 9/14/07), 963 So.2d 1000 - Plaintiff had sustained injuries to his upper back, shoulders, and cervical spine in a 2001 car crash. He sued, among others, his uninsured/underinsured motorists (UM) provider to recover damages from the crash. The UM provider sent plaintiff to defendant, a doctor, to conduct an independent medical evaluation (IME) of plaintiff. The trial court's order permitting the IME expressly limited defendant's examination to plaintiff's upper body. Neither the doctor nor his staff reviewed the court order prior to the IME, in which he conducted a routine orthopedic and neurological examination of plaintiff's entire body. Although plaintiff commented once or twice that defendant was not supposed to go below his shoulders, he allowed the doctor to complete the full examination. Plaintiff then filed this lawsuit against the doctor, seeking damages for mental and physical injuries. Held: The record provided no support for a finding that the doctor committed a battery upon plaintiff. Further,

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