Do you recall the 40-car accident that happened in New Orleans around Christmastime? It was such a huge event that people everywhere, including in Lake Charles, talked about it for weeks.

To recap, the massive car accident happened early one morning in late December when drivers on Interstate 10 said they were plunged into utter darkness. Several drivers said they could not even see their own headlights, let alone the cars around them. Evidently, smoke from a long-smoldering fire in some nearby marshlands contributed to exceptionally low visibility, as did some faulty streetlights that reportedly had been out of commission for some time. Two people died in the accident and dozens more were injured.

Now, one man who was injured in the giant car accident is suing the state of Louisiana, the city of New Orleans, Allstate Insurance and the owner of the nearby marshland.

The man claims the government agencies should have kept better care of the streetlights and should have warned motorists about the low visibility. He also faults the landowner for allowing the marshland to burn for so long.

It will be interesting to see how far the man gets with his suit. Suing government agencies is actually pretty tricky, since they are normally protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which holds that the entity that creates laws cannot be sued under those laws. We will keep you updated.

Source: WWLT-TV, "Lawsuits filed in 40-vehicle fatal accident," Paul Murphy, Jan. 17, 2012