A Louisiana appeals court has removed an insurer from a crash lawsuit, ruling that the state's amended direct-action law applies retroactively.
On July 15, 2026, the Court of Appeal, Second Circuit, affirmed a lower court's decision to dismiss Sentry Select Insurance Company (Sentry) from a suit over a May 12, 2024 traffic collision in Caddo Parish. The reason had nothing to do with fault. It came down to when the case was filed.
The injured parties filed their petition for damages on September 17, 2024, naming 11 defendants. Among them was Sentry, the insurer for a driver and trucking company also named in the suit. The plaintiffs sued the insurer directly under Louisiana's Direct Action Statute (La. R.S. 22:1269) - the law that lets an injured party pursue an insurer instead of only the insured.
That law had just changed. An amendment took effect August 1, 2024, and it no longer allows a direct suit against an insurer except in specific situations the court said did not apply here. The crash came before the amendment. The lawsuit came after.
Sentry filed an exception of no right of action - an argument that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue the insurer at all. It said the statute created a procedural right, not a substantive one, so the amendment applied retroactively. The plaintiffs argued the right to sue an insurer directly was substantive and should apply only going forward.
The trial court sided with Sentry, granting the exception on February 3, 2025 and signing the judgment on February 20, 2025. It dismissed Sentry without prejudice and struck its name from the case caption.
Reviewing the question fresh, the appeals court reached the same result. It relied on its own recent ruling, which held that the pre-amendment statute "confers upon a plaintiff a procedural right to name an insurer as a party where a substantive cause of action against the insured already exists." Because that right is procedural, the court said, the amendment applies retroactively.
The plaintiffs' claim arose on the crash date, but they did not file until after August 1, 2024, and nothing in the record showed they used their procedural right before filing. So, the insurer was dismissed from the case.
For carriers writing Louisiana risk, the filing date now carries real weight.
