Construction Claim Rules in Louisiana

Statutory interest rate

Floating, ~3.25 points above the Fed discount rate, reset every January 1

For a contract/construction claim, damages for late payment are measured by interest from the date each sum became due, at the parties' agreed contract rate if there is one, or otherwise the legal interest rate, which cross-references Louisiana's judicial interest rate, recalculated annually as 3.25 percentage points above the Federal Reserve Board's discount rate, certified each October by the Commissioner of Financial Institutions for the following calendar year. Because it resets yearly, the current-year figure must be pulled fresh rather than hardcoded.

Compounding: Simple

Citation: La. Civ. Code art. 2000; La. R.S. 9:3500; La. R.S. 13:4202

Source: https://www.lsba.org/newintcalc.htm

Last checked: 2026-08-25

For contract claims, interest technically runs from the date payment was due, not necessarily from the date suit was filed, though Louisiana courts commonly award it from judicial demand where the petition asks for that. Confirm which start date applies to your claim. Cross-checked the Fed discount rate + 3.25 points against the Federal Reserve's official H.15 release (federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/), dated August 25, 2026: current computed rate is approximately 7.00 (reset Jan. 1; based on the discount rate at that reset date)%. This confirms the formula and current inputs; it is not a substitute for each state's own officially certified/published figure where one exists.

Accrual: breach of contract claim

From the date each payment became due under the contract

Louisiana Civil Code article 2000 measures damages for delay in paying a sum of money as interest running from the time the sum became due, at the contract rate if agreed, or otherwise the legal interest rate. This is a date-of-breach-style rule, though Louisiana courts commonly award it from judicial demand instead where the petition specifically asks for interest from that date.

Citation: La. Civ. Code art. 2000

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/civil-code/article-2000/

Confirm whether your petition/pleading needs to specifically request interest from the date due, rather than from judicial demand, to preserve the earlier start date.

Accrual: property damage / tort claim

Not date of loss: from the date of judicial demand (when the lawsuit was filed)

For tort ('ex delicto') judgments, including property-damage claims, Louisiana law adds legal interest from the date of judicial demand, meaning when the lawsuit was filed, not from the date of loss itself.

Citation: La. R.S. 13:4203

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/revised-statutes/title-13/rs-13-4203/

Like Michigan, Massachusetts and North Carolina's tort rule, Louisiana ties property-damage interest to the filing date rather than the date of loss, so filing promptly directly affects how much interest accrues.

Actual Cash Value rule

Replacement cost minus depreciation

Louisiana has no statute codifying the ACV valuation method itself; the rule comes from case law applying replacement cost at time of loss, minus depreciation. This is a minority approach compared to neighboring broad-evidence-rule states.

Citation: Hackman v. EMC Ins. Co., 984 So. 2d 139 (La. Ct. App. 2008); Nguyen v. St. Paul Travelers Ins. Co.

Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/la-court-of-appeal/1062043.html

The link above was upgraded in a follow-up pass to the free, full Hackman opinion text on FindLaw; it previously pointed to a law firm's summary article. Nguyen appears to exist only as an unpublished federal district-court docket order (E.D. La., Hurricane Katrina/Rita MDL), not a citable published opinion; treat that second citation as needing correction/a pin cite to the specific order, not a standard reporter citation.

ACV statute or regulation

Louisiana has an insurance-code statute governing ACV depreciation disclosure and barring certain deductions, but it does not prohibit depreciating labor.

La. R.S. 22:1892(A)(7) requires that a property insurance policy provide notice, in a form approved by the commissioner, that depreciation may be deducted or withheld, and requires the insurer to give the policyholder a written explanation of how any depreciation was calculated, based on a combination of objective criteria and subjective assessment. The statute separately prohibits an insurer from deducting prospective contractor overhead, prospective contractor profit and sales tax when determining actual cash value on either a replacement cost or an actual cash value policy. It does not ban depreciation of labor cost itself; Louisiana federal courts applying Louisiana law (Shahan v. Allstate Vehicle and Property Insurance Co., W.D. La. 2022) have held that labor costs may be depreciated when computing ACV.

Citation: La. R.S. 22:1892(A)(7)

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/revised-statutes/title-22/rs-22-1892/

Recoverable depreciation holdback

Louisiana statute regulates the condition an insurer may impose before releasing withheld depreciation, but does not set a deadline for paying it out.

La. R.S. 22:1892(A)(7) allows an insurer that issues a replacement cost policy to refuse to pay a claim for withheld recoverable depreciation or a replacement cost holdback until it receives reasonable proof that the policyholder has paid any applicable deductible. Acceptable proof includes a canceled check, money order receipt, credit card statement or a copy of an executed installment or other financing arrangement for the deductible. The statute does not specify a deadline by which the insurer must pay the holdback once that proof, or proof of completed repairs, is submitted.

Citation: La. R.S. 22:1892(A)(7)

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/revised-statutes/title-22/rs-22-1892/

No payout-deadline provision was found in the statute; this may exist in LDOI regulation or a separate bulletin that was not located during this research and should be verified further before being treated as exhaustive.

“No damages for delay” clause enforceability

Void by statute for public contracts; unclear (no case law found) for private contracts

Louisiana law declares against public policy, and void or unenforceable, any provision in a public contract that purports to waive, release, or extinguish a contractor's right to recover cost or damages, or obtain an equitable adjustment, for delays in performing the contract, where the delay is caused in whole or in part by acts or omissions within the control of the contracting public entity or those acting on its behalf; the offending provision is severed while the rest of the contract remains enforceable. A genuine search this pass did not locate a Louisiana case or statute addressing enforceability for a private (non-public) construction contract.

Citation: La. R.S. 38:2216(H)

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/revised-statutes/title-38/rs-38-2216/

This statutory override is titled and structured around public contracts, works and improvements; it is not confirmed to reach a purely private Louisiana construction contract, and no Louisiana case law fills that gap.

Construction contract filing deadline

10 years for a written contract claim (prescription, in Louisiana's civil-law terminology)

Louisiana's general prescriptive period (its civil-law term for a limitations period) for a personal action arising from a contract, including a written construction contract, is 10 years from the date the cause of action arose, unless a shorter period is otherwise specifically prescribed.

Citation: La. Civ. Code art. 3499

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/civil-code/article-3499/

Louisiana uses civil-law terminology ('prescription' rather than 'limitations,' 'liberative prescription' for this concept); a construction-defect-specific peremptive period may apply instead of this general rule in some circumstances and wasn't independently researched this pass.

State unemployment insurance (SUTA)

New employers pay the average rate for their industry (NAICS classification), floored at 1.00% and capped at 6.20%. Experienced employers fall into two disjoint bands: 0.09% to 1.94% for positive-rated employers, or 2.2% to 6.20% for negative-rated employers (no employer falls between 1.94% and 2.2%). The 2026 taxable wage base is $7,000.

Louisiana sets the new-employer rate at the average rate for employers in the same industrial classification, subject to a statutory floor of 1.00% and ceiling of 6.20%. Experience-rated employers are split into positive-rated (0.09% to 1.94%) and negative-rated (2.20% to 6.20%) categories. The taxable wage base for 2026 is $7,000 per employee, down $700 from the 2025 base of $7,700.

Citation: Louisiana Workforce Commission, 2026 Unemployment Insurance Contribution Rate Table

Source: https://www.laworks.net/Downloads/UI/WTS/2026RateTable.pdf

Last checked: 2026-08-26

The specific 2026 new-employer percentage was not confirmed directly on a Louisiana Workforce Commission page during this research; it was sourced from Bloomberg Tax's reporting on the LWC's 2026 rate release. Because SUTA rates and wage bases reset annually, reconfirm both figures against the live LWC rate table before relying on them for a future filing year. REFINED: confirmed directly against the official LWC 2026 rate table PDF. The experience-rated range is not a smooth continuum; it splits into two disjoint bands like Tennessee's structure, found the same round. Also confirmed $7,000 is the correct wage base; a couple of secondary sources incorrectly cite $7,700 (likely a stale prior-year or unrelated-state figure).

Workers' compensation rating

Louisiana is an NCCI state. NCCI files advisory loss costs, which carriers load with their own expense factors to set final rates.

The National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) is licensed in Louisiana to make recommended loss cost filings on behalf of workers' compensation insurers. Insurers use NCCI's approved loss costs as the base for their own rates, typically applying a company-specific loss cost multiplier for expenses and profit. NCCI's most recent filing (November 2025, effective May 1, 2026) proposed a 5.3% decrease in loss costs based on 2021-2023 policy year experience.

Citation: NCCI, Louisiana State Advisory Forum Report

Source: https://www.ncci.com/Articles/Documents/II_StateAdvisoryForumState_LA-State-Advisory-Report-2025.pdf

Prevailing wage law

Louisiana has no state prevailing wage law. Its former statute was repealed in 1988, and no successor law has been enacted.

Louisiana does not maintain a state-level prevailing wage requirement for public construction contracts. A prior state prevailing wage statute was repealed in 1988. Public construction in Louisiana is governed instead by Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 38 (Public Contracts, Works and Improvements), which addresses bidding and contracting procedures but does not impose prevailing wage rates. Federal Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements still apply separately to any project receiving federal funding.

Citation: Husch Blackwell, Louisiana State-by-State Summary of Prevailing Wage; U.S. Department of Labor, Dollar Threshold Amount for Contract Coverage

Source: https://www.huschblackwell.com/louisiana-state-by-state-summary-of-prevailing-wage

The Husch Blackwell summary is dated August 2021; the U.S. DOL threshold page independently confirms Louisiana has no prevailing wage law and notes the 1988 repeal. No legislative reinstatement was found as of this research date.

OSHA plan

Federal OSHA (no state plan)

Louisiana has no OSHA-approved state plan; both public and private employers fall under federal OSHA jurisdiction.

Citation: 29 U.S.C. § 667 (State Plan roster)

Source: https://www.osha.gov/stateplans

Weight of an OSHA violation in a negligence case

Confirmed evidence, not negligence per se: Louisiana intermediate appellate case directly on point

A Louisiana appellate court permitted a defendant to introduce OSHA standards the plaintiff was required to follow as evidence of the plaintiff's own contributory negligence, treating OSHA standards as relevant evidence of the standard of care rather than a basis for negligence per se. Louisiana's high court has not yet directly addressed the question, but this intermediate appellate holding is consistent with the majority 'some evidence' classification found across most other states in this dataset.

Citation: Gatlin v. Entergy Corp., 2004-0034, 2004-1368 (La. App. 4 Cir. 5/4/05); 904 So. 2d 31, 35

Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/la-court-of-appeal/1642589.html

Third-party contribution against the employer

Louisiana's statutory-employer doctrine is central on multi-tier projects and may protect a principal or GC that meets the statutory requirements.

Whether a principal/GC qualifies as a statutory employer is the threshold question; non-qualifying third parties are reached via premises defects, negligent activity, retained control, products, or professional negligence.

Citation: La. Rev. Stat. §§23:1021 et seq.; Allen v. State ex rel. Ernest N. Morial-New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, 842 So.2d 373 (La. 2003).

Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/la-supreme-court/1161598.html

Source: attorney research manual (Construction Injury Law national volumes), self-marked "Draft; verify current law and citator status." Case citations are representative authorities from that manual, not independently re-verified against a citator by ClaimDuke. Corrected pin citation: the prior entry cited 851 So.2d 1095; the real citation for this same case is 842 So.2d 373 (La. 2003) -- confirmed real and directly on point (the leading Louisiana two-contract-theory statutory employer case).

Injury-severity gate on contribution claims

General exclusivity under §§23:1021 et seq., with the statutory-employer doctrine central to whether a principal/GC is protected: this source doesn't name a piercing exception beyond that determination.

La. Rev. Stat. §§23:1021 et seq. generally makes compensation exclusive against the employer and qualifying statutory employers; the statutory-employer doctrine is central on multi-tier projects. The manual doesn't identify a further piercing exception.

Citation: La. Rev. Stat. §§23:1021 et seq.; Allen v. State ex rel. Ernest N. Morial-New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, 842 So.2d 373 (La. 2003).

Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/la-supreme-court/1161598.html

Source: attorney research manual (Construction Injury Law national volumes), self-marked "Draft; verify current law and citator status." Case citations are representative authorities from that manual, not independently re-verified against a citator by ClaimDuke. Pin citation corrected using the same fix already confirmed for this state's thirdPartyContribution entry.

Distinctive state doctrine

Notably narrow intentional-act exception, confirmed by repeated negative examples in case law

Louisiana's intentional-tort exception (La. R.S. 23:1032) is confirmed narrow by a consistent line of cases: disregarding OSHA safety provisions and deficiently designed machinery has been held insufficient (Cortez v. Hooker Chemical); gross negligence in trying an untested work procedure and disregard for safety regulations or equipment has been held insufficient (Williams v. Gervais F. Favrot Co.; Davis v. Southern Louisiana Insulations); and allowing or requiring employees to operate a dangerous piece of equipment, without more, is not an intentional tort (Dycus v. Martin Marietta Corp.). This pattern is consistent with the strict approach also seen in Colorado and Tennessee.

Citation: La. R.S. 23:1032; Cortez v. Hooker Chemical & Plastics Corp., 402 So.2d 249 (La. App. 4th Cir. 1981); Dycus v. Martin Marietta Corp., 568 So.2d 592 (La. 1990)

Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/la-court-of-appeal/1261329.html