A district judge has rejected a lawsuit alleging a Louisiana nonprofit mishandled donated funds for search-and-rescue operations in the wake of a liftboat disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
Judge Suzanne de Mahy of the 16th Judicial District Court in Iberia Parish concluded Feb. 9 that plaintiff Christifer James Derouen’s lawsuit against the United Cajun Navy (UCN) lacks a cause of action. Derouen alleged wrongdoing in UCN’s collection of more than $400,000 of donated funds in the wake of the capsizing of the Seacor Power in April along the Louisiana coast.
Derouen said in the lawsuit that UCN and other defendants agreed to transfer funds in question to a new nonprofit, GulfCoast Humanitarian Efforts Inc., which was to be formed by Derouen and another volunteer. The funds were earmarked to go to the recovery efforts, the complaint says. Seven Seacor Power crew members remain missing, while six were rescued and another six died.
The parties’ alleged verbal agreement by telephone would not be enforceable, de Mahy concluded.
In addition, some families of the victims of the Seacor disaster have yet to receive any of the donated funds, according to the lawsuit.
An attorney for UCN, Gregory Akers, denied that any contract to donate funds to Derouen or the new nonprofit was ever drawn up. Derouen is not related to any of the Seacor Power crewmen, he said.
“No such contract was ever formed,” Akers told the Louisiana Record in an email, “and Judge de Mahy’s ruling on the exception of no cause of action explains why even if a contract as alleged in the lawsuit was formed, it would be unenforceable.”
UCN remains grateful that it could help in the organization of search-and-rescue efforts after the Seacor Power tragedy, as it would do during any such disaster, he said.
“It is also grateful to be able to contribute to those in need of recovery from such events,” Akers said. “It is regretful that people have cast aspersions about United Cajun Navy based on mistruths and outright falsehoods.”
UCN continues to provide the full transparency required of nonprofit groups while preserving the privacy interests of its donors and beneficiaries, he said.