A Practical Guide to Taping Phone Calls and In-Person Conversations in the 50 States and D.C.

• Introduction

• State-by-state guide

• Tape-recording laws
  at a glance

• Consent and its limits

• Interstate phone calls

• Possession and
  publication

• The FCC’s role

• Cellular & cordless calls

• Citations to cases

Louisiana

Unless a criminal or tortious purpose exists, a person can record any conversations transmitted by wire, oral or electronic means to which he is a party, or when one participating party has consented. A violation of the law, whether by recording or disclosing the contents of a communication without proper consent, carries a fine of not more than $10,000 and jail time of not less than two and not more than 10 years at hard labor. La. Rev. Stat. § 15:1303.

Civil damages are expressly authorized as well. Actual damages can be recovered — minimum damages in any case will be the greater of $100 a day for each day of violation or $1,000 — along with punitive damages, litigation costs and attorney fees. La. Rev. Stat. § 15:1312.

The use of any type of hidden camera to observe or record a person where that person has not consented is illegal if the recording “is for a lewd or lascivious purpose.” La. Rev. Stat. § 14:283.

The Court of Appeal of Louisiana for the Second Circuit held that a wife’s secretly-recorded telephone conversations with her husband on her own telephone were not illegally intercepted since the calls were recorded by a party to the conversation. Brown v. Brown, 877 So.2d 1228 (La. Ct. App. 2004).