NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) – An employee of New Orleans’ Boomtown Casino Hotel says the personal injury lawyer suing him over a fall off the toilet is pulling some shenanigans to keep the case out of federal court.
Brad Hirsch said in a March 12 motion to dismiss that the only reason he was named as a defendant was so that plaintiff Dominic Varrecchio would have a Louisiana resident involved in the case. Varrecchio did this, Hirsch argues, to defeat the diversity jurisdiction argument defendants can make to have cases removed to federal court.
State courts are often seen as more plaintiff-friendly, especially in jurisdictions like Louisiana that tort reformers have been concerned about for years. Varrecchio, a lawyer representing himself, sued Boomtown and Hirsch earlier this year in Jefferson Parish court over an alleged February 2020 incident in his hotel room.