TYLER BOWMAN v. DEVIN WILLIAMS ET AL (2026)

There is an interesting epilogue to this matter as we received it from the Second Circuit Court of Appeal. Judge Hunter's writing, found at 56,589, pp. 1-10 (La. App. 2 Cir. 12/03/25), 425 So. 3d 471, 473-78, is not actually the “majority opinion” of the court. It does not reflect a result reached by a majority of that court.

If anything could be called a majority opinion it would be Judge Ellender's brief, one paragraph concurrence in which he concurred in the result only. Judge Ellender found genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether the actions of the National Guardsmen blocking the roadway rose to the level of potential harm to others that would constitute willful misconduct. However, as to whether the National Guardsmen's emergency preparation and recovery activities fell within the scope of the Louisiana Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act, he found no genuine issues of material fact and concluded the troops’ work fell within the immunity protection provided by the Act. Judge Cox concurred for the reasons assigned by Judge Ellender. In the “opinion,” Judge Hunter agreed with Judge Ellender on the former issue but not the latter.

Therefore, the three judges were unanimous only on the finding of genuine issues of material fact as to whether the actions of the National Guard troops in blocking the roadway rose to the level of potential harm to others that would constitute willful misconduct. Two of the three judges agreed to this finding by concurring in the result only. Those two judges–neither of whom authored the opinion–also found no genuine issue of material fact that the National Guardsmen were engaged in activities that fell within the scope of the Louisiana Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act and were therefore afforded immunity protection under the Act.

Nothing else, no other results and no other dicta, obtained a majority of the panel of three.¹

FOOTNOTES

1.   As observed in a Columbia Law Review article discussing the precedential value of ever-increasing plurality opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States:Plurality decisions, also called no-clear-majority decisions, are those in which a majority of the Court agrees upon the judgment but not upon a single rationale to support the result. Thus, there is no “opinion of the Court” in the ordinary sense. Plurality decisions are to be distinguished from affirmances by an equally divided Court, when there is no majority agreement even on the result, and from per curiam opinions, in which a majority of Justices expresses at least summary agreement on the reasoning. This. (sic) Note uses the term “plurality opinion” or “the plurality” to refer to the opinion designated as the lead opinion of the Court, which is not always the opinion subscribed to by the largest number of Justices. Other opinions that join the judgment are designated as “concurrences,” even if they receive more votes than the lead opinion.Linda Novak, The Precedential Value of Supreme Court Plurality Decisions, 80 Colum. L. Rev. 756, 781 n.1 (1980).

McCALLUM, J., concurs and assigns additional reasons.