AMANDA FRANCES v. DEFENDANT DEFENDANT DEFENDANT DEFENDANT (2026)

In this suit by plaintiff/appellant, Amanda Frances, against the defendants/appellees, the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice (“OJJ”), Kenneth Loftin in his official capacity as Deputy Secretary of OJJ, and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (“LDPSC”), the Nineteenth Judicial District Court rendered judgment sustaining a declinatory exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction filed by the defendants and dismissing Ms. Frances's claims against them with prejudice. For the following reasons, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and amend the judgment accordingly.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On June 12, 2024, Ms. Frances filed a petition for damages against OJJ, Mr. Loftin, LDPSC, and an individual identified as “Mr. Carson” in the petition, alleging that in 2005, while she was housed at Ware Youth Center (“Ware”) in Coushatta, Louisiana, for being adjudicated a delinquent juvenile, she was sexually abused by Mr. Carson.¹ Ms. Frances claimed that at the time the abuse occurred, OJJ, Mr. Loftin, and LDPSC owned and operated Ware, and had direct authority over Mr. Carson, who was employed as a guard at Ware when the abuse allegedly occurred.

Specifically, Ms. Frances alleged that she was fifteen years old when housed at Ware, and during that time Mr. Carson befriended her and gave her money for commissary items. She claimed that after a few weeks of interaction Mr. Carson invited her into the staff break room. She alleged that Mr. Carson, while in the course and scope of his employment, sexually assaulted her in the break room. She alleged on subsequent occasions Mr. Carson would isolate Ms. Frances from the other girls at the facility and sexually abuse her. She claimed these incidents of abuse spanned approximately six months until she was released from Ware in late 2005.

Ms. Frances alleged that her injuries resulted from the defendants’ hiring of Mr. Carson and their failure to protect her from sexual abuse. She claimed the defendants had a duty to prevent Mr. Carson from abusing her, and that Mr. Carson presented an unreasonable risk of harm to her and other Ware residents, as they knew or should have known of prior acts of abuse he committed. Ms. Frances further alleged that the defendants were vicariously liable for the emotional distress and damages inflicted upon her. She claimed that her causes of action were not prescribed due to contra non valentem, continuing tort, and other reasons.

On May 8, 2025, OJJ, LDPSC, and Mr. Loftin jointly filed a declinatory exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction and a peremptory exception raising the objection of prescription, claiming that Ms. Frances failed to exhaust her administrative remedies under La. R.S. 15:1171 and La. R.S. 15:1184, and that her claims were otherwise prescribed under La. C.C.P. arts. 3492 and 3496.1. On August 25, 2025, the district court signed a judgment that sustained the declinatory exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction and declared the peremptory exception raising the objection of prescription moot. Based on the sustaining of the declinatory exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the district court dismissed Ms. Frances's claims with prejudice.

Ms. Frances has appealed the aforementioned judgment, seeking to reverse the sustaining of the exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction and to remand the matter for further proceedings.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR

Ms. Frances submits two assignments of error:

1. The district court erred in finding Ms. Frances's claims must first be submitted for administrative review before filing suit in the 19th JDC, given that any administrative remedy is irreparably inadequate.

2. The district court erred in dismissing Ms. Frances's claims with prejudice based on a finding that her claim was time-barred, given that the “lookback window” in La. R.S. 9:2800.9 revived her claim, and thus, even if her claims must first be submitted for administrative review, her case should have been dismissed without prejudice, preserving her right to refile this suit after administrative review.

DISCUSSION

Jurisdiction is the legal power and authority of a court to hear and determine an action of the parties and to grant the relief to which they are entitled. La. C.C.P. art. 1. Jurisdiction over the subject matter is the legal power and authority of a court to hear and determine a particular class of actions or proceedings, based upon the object of the demand, the amount in dispute, or the value of the right asserted. See La. C.C.P. art. 2. The determination of whether a district court has subject matter jurisdiction over a case is subject to de novo review. Dyson v. Louisiana State Police Commission, 2017-1357 (La. App. 1 Cir. 4/13/18), 250 So.3d 292, 294.

Louisiana Revised Statutes 15:1171 et seq. provide for the LDPSC to adopt an administrative remedy procedure for each of its adult and juvenile institutions, in order to receive, hear, and dispose of any and all complaints and grievances by adult and juvenile offenders against the state. See La. R.S. 15:1171(A) and (B). No inmate shall assert a claim under state law until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted, and no inmate suit may assert a claim under state law for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury. La. R.S. 15:1184(A)(2) and (E).

In her first assignment of error, Ms. Frances argued that any administrative remedy that would have been available to her would have been irreparably inadequate, thus, it was erroneous for the district court to rule that the administrative remedy procedure had to be exhausted prior to her filing suit. In their memorandum in support of the exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the defendants assert that Ms. Frances had administrative remedies available to her when she was housed at Ware, but did not avail herself of them, and now those remedies are long since abandoned. Once the existence of an administrative remedy is established, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to prove that she has exhausted her administrative remedies available to her or that the present situation is one of the exceptional situations where the plaintiff is entitled to judicial relief because any administrative remedy is irreparably inadequate. Morales v. Wilder, 2023-0067 (La. App. 1 Cir. 9/15/23), 3 75 So.3d 1019, 1024, writ denied, 2023-013 83 (La. 12/19/23), 3 75 So.3d 409.

In Morales, the plaintiff filed a petition for damages for what she claimed was inadequate medical treatment while incarcerated at Livingston Parish Detention Center (“LPDC”). The plaintiff claimed that when she was arrested, she was en route to the hospital for treatment for a sty developing on her eye. Id. at 1021-22. The plaintiff alleged that despite her serious and obvious symptoms, LPDC refused to provide adequate treatment and transport to the hospital. The plaintiff subsequently bonded out of jail and sought treatment for her eye, but claimed that because of LPDC's failure to adequately treat her eye while she was incarcerated there, she suffered permanent damage to her eye. Id. at 1022.

The defendants in Morales joined in a declinatory exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction, maintaining that the plaintiff failed to exhaust her available administrative remedies as required by La. R.S. 15:1181 et seq. prior to filing her petition for damages. Id. Because the plaintiff alleged in her petition that she had exhausted all her administrative remedies prior to filing suit, the lack of subject matter jurisdiction was not apparent on the face of the petition, and the Morales defendants had the burden of proving she had not exhausted her administrative remedies. Id. at 1023-24; see also Asmore v. Chaisson, 2013-1734 (La. App. 1 Cir. 6/9/14), 2014 WL 3611834, *2 (unpublished), writ denied, 2014-1440 (La. 10/24/14), 151 So.3d 603.

The Morales defendants offered into evidence memoranda and exhibits that detailed the literature, policies, and procedures that were available to the LPDC inmates concerning the administrative remedy procedure and the grievance process. This evidence directly contradicted an admission by the plaintiff that the administrative remedy process was not made available to her while incarcerated. The burden then shifted to the plaintiff to prove that she did exhaust her administrative remedies, or that any such remedy would have been irreparably inadequate. Morales, 375 So.3d at 1025; see also Asmore, 2014 WL 3611834 at *2.

This court found that the plaintiff's cause of action arose while she was incarcerated at LPDC; the matter was subject to La. R.S. 15:1181 et seq.; and her subsequent release from prison did not affect this requirement. Morales, 375 So.3d at 1026. We therefore held that the Morales defendants had established that the administrative remedy procedure was made available to the plaintiff while she was incarcerated, and that the plaintiff did not provide any evidence that she exhausted those remedies or that the remedies were irreparably inadequate. We concluded that the district court had properly sustained the exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Morales, 375 So.3d at 1027.

The instant case factually differs from Morales in a few ways, but the legal precepts still apply. Ms. Frances did not state in her petition that she had exhausted her administrative remedies while housed at Ware. In her responses to the defendants’ request for admissions and opposition memorandum, Ms. Frances stated that she informed a “Ms. Tonja” that she was being abused by Mr. Carson, but did not allege that she sought administrative remedies. Independently seeking aid outside of the administrative remedy procedure did not exempt Ms. Frances from applying for administrative remedies. See Asmore, 2014 WL 3611834 at *4. There is no evidence in the record that Ms. Frances exhausted her administrative remedy procedures. Therefore, on the face of the pleadings, there is an apparent lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and the burden of proof never shifted to the defendants to show that those remedies were made available to Ms. Frances. See Morales, 375 So.3d 1023-24; see also Asmore. 2014 WL 3611834, *2.

In proving that the administrative remedies would have been irreparably inadequate, Ms. Frances argued in her memorandum that the administrative remedies would be of no use to her because she is no longer housed at Ware. We disagree. We understand that whatever money damages the defendants could have paid, or specific actions the defendants could have taken to redress the sexual abuse Ms. Frances allegedly suffered may not have healed Ms. Frances's mental or emotional scars; however, had Ms. Frances availed herself of the administrative remedy procedure, there would have been documentation of the alleged abuse when it occurred in 2005, with which Ms. Frances could have demonstrated to the district court what remedy, if any, the defendants had given to her and how it inadequately addressed her injury. Because administrative remedies were not applied for by Ms. Frances, it cannot be determined if the remedies would have been irreparably inadequate. See Wallace v. GEO Group, Inc., 2011-0863 (La. App. 3 Cir. 2/1/12), 84 So.3d 750, 756 (administrative remedies available to inmate were irreparably inadequate, and because inmate pursued his administrative remedies to the fullest extent possible, such remedies were exhausted, allowing him to proceed in district court).

Other than the arguments she made in her opposition memorandum and appellate brief, Ms. Frances attached to her original petition a letter from a licensed professional counselor named Angel Vaccaro, MA, LPC. Ms. Vaccaro stated that “there is a reasonable basis to believe that [Ms. Frances] was subjected to criminal sex abuse ․ at Ware Youth Center.” Ms. Frances also attached to her original petition a certificate of merit by her counsel at the time, who stated that “there is a reasonable and meritorious cause for filing this petition. It is my professional opinion that there is a reasonable basis to believe [Ms. Frances] was subjected to criminal sexual abuse and molestation while a minor in [Ware].” While these two documents are required to be filed along with the petition pursuant to La. R.S. 9:2800.9(B), we do not find that this evidence met Ms. Frances's burden of proving the administrative remedies were irreparably inadequate.

After examining the entire record, we find that Ms. Frances has failed in her burden of proving that she either exhausted her administrative remedy procedures or that such remedies would have been irreparably inadequate for her injury. We therefore must find that the district court was correct in sustaining the defendants’ exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

In her second assignment of error, Ms. Frances argues the district court should have dismissed her claims without prejudice, since La. R.S. 9:2800.9 provides a “lookback window” that revives her claim and gives her the opportunity to refile her claims for administrative review. Initially, we note that Ms. Frances's claims were dismissed on a basis of lack of jurisdiction, not prescription. According to La. R.S. 9:2800.9(A)(1), “[a]n action against a person for sexual abuse of a minor ․ does not prescribed (Emphasis added). It is instead La. C.C.P. art. 932 that determines the effect of sustaining a declinatory exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. That article states, in pertinent part:

When the grounds of the objections pleaded in the declinatory exception may be removed by amendment of the petition or other action of plaintiff, the judgment sustaining the exception shall order the plaintiff to remove them within the delay allowed by the court ․ If the grounds of the objection cannot be so removed, or if the plaintiff fails to comply with an order requiring such removal, the action, claim, demand, issue, or theory subject to the exception shall be dismissed.

There is scant jurisprudence for the situation we have in the present case, where an individual, who was a minor at the time of the sexual abuse and housed in a facility for juvenile delinquents, also failed to exhaust her administrative remedy procedure before filing a petition for damages. The question of whether a failure to exhaust administrative remedies would bar an action otherwise “revived” by La. R.S. 9:2800.9 has not been fully answered. We are aware, however, that the statute's unique revival provisions have the effect of displacing earlier prescriptive periods, as it was the legislature's intent for the statute to apply retroactively. See Bienvenu v. Defendant 1, 2023-01194 (La. 6/12/24), 386 So.3d 280, 285.

Since an action against a person for sexual abuse of a minor does not prescribe, Ms. Frances may still have a cause of action once her administrative remedy procedure has been exhausted. Therefore, should Ms. Frances be given the opportunity to address the issue of the administrative remedy procedure and amend her petition, she may be able to remove the basis for the lack of subject matter jurisdiction. For these reasons, we reverse the district court's dismissal of Ms. Frances's claim with prejudice so that her claim is now dismissed without prejudice.

DECREE

The judgment of the Nineteenth Judicial District Court, which sustained the declinatory exception raising the objection of lack of subject matter jurisdiction filed by the defendants/appellees, the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice, Kenneth Loftin in his official capacity as Deputy Secretary of OJJ, and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, is affirmed in the finding of a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court's dismissal with prejudice is reversed, and the judgment amended to dismissal without prejudice. All costs of this appeal are assessed equally among the parties.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, JUDGMENT AMENDED.

FOOTNOTES

1.   In her original petition, the defendants were named “Defendant 1,” “Defendant 2,” “Defendant 3,” and “Defendant 4.” See La. R.S. 9:2800.9(D).

LANIER, J.