New Orleans Lemon Law

Louisiana lemon-law actions under La. R.S. 51:1941 et seq. are filed in Louisiana state district court in the parish where you are domiciled or where the vehicle was purchased. For New Orleans residents domiciled in Orleans Parish, that is the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans, located at 421 Loyola Avenue downtown. If you bought your vehicle from a dealer in Jefferson Parish (Metairie), St. Tammany Parish (Slidell, Mandeville), or another parish, you may also file in that parish's district court. If the manufacturer runs a Magnuson-Moss-compliant arbitration program, you typically must submit there first.

Louisiana presumes the manufacturer has had a reasonable number of repair attempts when, within the warranty term or one year of original delivery (whichever is earlier), the same nonconformity has been subject to repair four or more times, OR the vehicle has been out of service for warranty repair for 45 or more cumulative days. Motor homes get a longer 90-day out-of-service window. After hitting either threshold, send certified-mail written notice to the manufacturer demanding repurchase or replacement before filing suit. The 45-day out-of-service standard is notably longer than most states' 30 days.

Louisiana is unique in offering two parallel remedies. The Louisiana New Motor Vehicle Warranty Act (La. R.S. 51:1941 et seq.) covers new vehicles with statutory refund or replacement remedies once you hit the 4-attempt or 45-day presumption inside the warranty term or one year. The Civil Code redhibition action (Civ. Code arts. 2520-2548) lets any buyer - new or used - rescind a sale or recover damages for hidden defects that render the thing useless or so inconvenient that you would not have bought it had you known. Redhibition has a one-year-from-discovery prescriptive period and the seller-manufacturer is presumed to know of defects. Many Louisiana cases plead both.

If your manufacturer maintains an informal dispute settlement procedure that substantially complies with the federal Magnuson-Moss regulations at 16 C.F.R. Part 703, La. R.S. 51:1941 et seq. requires you to submit there before invoking the statutory refund or replacement remedy. Most major manufacturers run BBB AUTO LINE or a similar qualifying program. Louisiana does not operate a state-administered arbitration program for lemon-law cases. The arbitrator's decision is not binding on you, so if unfair you can still file in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans.

Lemon-law claims under La. R.S. 51:1941 et seq. cover defects in materials or workmanship attributable to the manufacturer. Damage caused by hurricane-storm-surge flooding is generally not a manufacturing defect, so flood damage itself is usually an insurance claim, not a lemon-law claim. But if your post-flood vehicle continues to suffer from a pre-existing manufacturing defect that the dealer cannot fix, the lemon law may still apply. And if you bought a flood-damaged vehicle that was not disclosed as such, the Louisiana Civil Code redhibition action and the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act offer powerful remedies including possible rescission and treble damages.

La. R.S. 51:1943 sets the statute of limitations as the longer of three years from the date of purchase or one year from the end of the warranty period - one of the more generous lemon-law limitations periods in the country. You can also stack a Civil Code redhibition action under Civ. Code arts. 2520 et seq., which carries its own one-year-from-discovery prescriptive period (or four years from delivery against the seller, longer against the manufacturer who is presumed to know defects). The Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act has its own one-year peremptive period.

No. La. R.S. 51:1941 et seq. covers only new motor vehicles. But Louisiana used-car buyers have one of the strongest fallback remedies in the country: the Civil Code action in redhibition (arts. 2520-2548), which lets you rescind a used-vehicle sale or recover damages for any hidden defect that renders the vehicle useless or so inconvenient that you would not have bought it had you known. Redhibition has a one-year prescriptive period from discovery of the defect against most sellers. Magnuson-Moss also covers any active manufacturer warranty still in effect. The Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act adds treble-damages exposure for knowing seller misconduct.