Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

This appeal stemmed from the Mississippi Legislature’s passing and the Governor’s signing of House Bill 1020. The catalyst for the Legislature’s passing of House Bill 1020 was described as the “sweltering, undisputed and suffocating” crime problem in Jackson, Mississippi—a problem that has “crippled the criminal justice system.” While political and social controversy surrounded this bill, the bulk of the bill’s provisions, which are aimed at improving public safety and bolstering judicial resources in Jackson, were not at issue. Section 1 of House Bill 1020, directed the Mississippi Supreme Court’s Chief Justice to appoint four additional (and unelected) circuit judges to the existing Seventh Circuit Court District—the district comprised of the City of Jackson and all of Hinds County—for a term ending December 31, 2026. The second challenged provision, Section 4 of House Bill 1020, was a more ambitious endeavor that created a new statutory inferior court, much like a municipal court, to serve the CCID. Petitioners, and Jackson residents, Ann Saunders, Sabreen Sharrief, and Dorothy Triplett (collectively, Saunders) claimed both provisions violated Mississippi’s Constitution. The Hinds County Chancellor J. Dewayne Thomas, who held hearings on Saunders’s challenges, disagreed and dismissed her complaint. Saunders appealed. After review, the Supreme Court agreed with the chancellor that the creation of the CCID inferior court in Section 4 of House Bill 1020 was constitutional. But the Court agreed with Saunders that Section 1’s creation of four new appointed “temporary special circuit judges” in the Seventh Circuit Court District for a specified, almost-four-year term violated the State Constitution’s requirement that circuit judges be elected for a four-year term. View "Saunders, et al. v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Defendant Alex Herrgott, was driving a four-seat Polaris all-terrain vehicle at night down a gravel road when he “overcorrected” trying to avoid a pothole. The ATV overturned, and Joseph MacNabb, a passenger, was severely injured. Since MacNabb was a state employee in the course and scope of his employment, he received workers’ compensation benefits from the Mississippi State Agencies Self-Insured Workers’ Compensation Trust. The Trust later initiated this litigation in an attempt to recover more than $300,000 in benefits paid for MacNabb’s injury. The circuit court ultimately granted summary judgment to Herrgott because the Trust’s Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) representative could not articulate a legal theory entitling it to recover. The Mississippi Supreme Court found there was sufficient evidence of Herrgott’s negligence for the case to go to trial, and the deposition testimony of a lay witness should not have bound the Trust as to which legal theories it could pursue. The Supreme Court therefore reversed the summary judgment and remanded the case for trial. View "Mississippi State Agencies Self-Insured Workers' Compensation Trust v. Herrgott" on Justia Law

While responding to an emergency, City of Oxford Police Officer Matthew Brown collided with Patricia Phillips’s vehicle at an intersection. Phillips filed suit to recover for injuries suffered in the collision. After a bench trial, the circuit court found that Officer Brown did not act with reckless disregard in response to the emergency and determined that the City of Oxford was entitled to police-protection immunity under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. Phillips appealed; the Court of Appeals reversed. The majority of the appellate court held that the trial court’s finding that Officer Brown’s actions did not rise to the level of reckless disregard is against the overwhelming weight of the evidence and that Oxford was not entitled to police-protection immunity. IThe dissent’s opinion said that the circuit court’s judgment was supported by substantial evidence and, therefore, the Court of Appeals lacked the power to disturb the trial judge’s findings. After its review, the Mississippi Supreme Court found the record contained substantial evidence to support the trial court’s decision. Accordingly, the Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstated and affirmed the decision of the trial court. View "Phillips v. City of Oxford" on Justia Law

Gulf South Pipeline Company, LLC owned an underground natural gas storage facility in Rankin County, Mississippi. It owned additional properties that ran through thirty-two Mississippi counties. As a public service corporation with property situated in more than one Mississippi county, property belonging to Gulf South was assessed centrally by the Mississippi Department of Revenue rather than by individual county tax assessors. After conducting the central assessment, MDOR apportions the tax revenues among the several counties in which the property is located. A significant amount of the natural gas stored in Gulf South’s Rankin County facility is owned by Gulf South’s customers and, therefore, it is excluded from MDOR’s central assessment. The Rankin County tax assessor requested that Gulf South disclose the volume of natural gas owned by each of its customers. Following Gulf South’s refusal to provide these data, in September 2021 the Rankin County tax assessor gave notice of its intention to assess Gulf South more than sixteen million dollars for approximately four billion cubic feet of natural gas stored by Gulf South but owned by its customers. Gulf South filed suit at the Chancery Court in Hinds County, seeking to enjoin the assessment and seeking a declaratory judgment that MDOR was the exclusive entity with the authority to assess a public service corporation with property located in more than one Mississippi county. On interlocutory appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court was asked to determine whether venue was proper in Hinds County when Rankin County was named as a defendant and MDOR was joined as a necessary party. The Court held that, under the venue provisions of Mississippi Code Section 11-45-17 and the Court’s consistent construction of these statutory provisions as mandatory and controlling, venue was proper only in Rankin County. Therefore, the chancellor erred by denying Rankin County’s motion to transfer venue. View "Rankin County v. Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, L.P., et al." on Justia Law

The Board of Supervisors for Lowndes County appealed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Lowndes County School District. The Board argued that the trial court erred in its interpretation of Mississippi Code Section 37-57-107(1) (Rev. 2014) and that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to review the Board’s September 15, 2020 decision to exclude $3,352,0751 from the District’s requested ad valorem tax effort. The Mississippi Supreme Court found that the District appealed the decision of a county board of supervisors. As such, the District’s exclusive remedy was Section 11-51-75. Because the District failed to meet these requirements and because Section 11-51-75 was the District’s exclusive remedy, the chancery court was without jurisdiction to hear this matter and issue a declaratory judgment. Therefore, the trial court’s grant of summary judgment was reversed, and the matter remanded to the chancery court for it to enter an order dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction. View "Board of Supervisors for Lowndes County v. Lowndes County School District" on Justia Law

The taxpayer, Saltwater Sportsman Outfitters, LLC (SSO), was a one-man operation that sold clothing online and at trade shows, conventions, and other events. SSO kept few records of what it had sold or where, though its sole member testified that most of its sales occurred out of state. After an audit, the Mississippi Department of Revenue (MDOR) assessed additional sales tax liability, ultimately settling on about $80,000 based on the disparity between SSO’s wholesale purchases and the sales taxes it had paid in Mississippi and other states. MDOR’s assessment was appealed to the circuit court, which granted summary judgment in favor of MDOR. SSO appealed. The Mississippi Supreme Court concluded that SSO’s failure to keep adequate records rendered MDOR’s assessment presumptively correct. The Court found no merit to SSO’s various arguments on appeal, including that the promoters of the events at which SSO sold were the true parties liable for the taxable sales. The Court therefore affirmed the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment. View "Saltwater Sportsman Outfitters, LLC v. Mississippi Dept. of Revenue" on Justia Law

On April 7, 2020, Matthew Wallace was hired by the Centreville Police Department, located in the Town of Centreville, Mississippi. In 2021, Wallace was dispatched with a Town of Centreville certified police officer, to a scene involving multiple juveniles riding all-terrain vehicles in the town limits. An altercation occurred; at some point during the altercation, Wallace went to the patrol unit to retrieve the police-issued pepper spray. Upon returning to the scene, Wallace released the pepper spray. Sometime following the incident, one of the juveniles and his mother filed charges against Wallace for simple assault on a minor. The issue presented for the Mississippi Supreme Court's review centered around a probable cause hearing pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 99-3-28. Before the hearing, the State petitioned the circuit court to determine whether Wallace was entitled to a probable cause hearing, alleging Wallace was not a sworn law enforcement officer. At the hearing, the circuit determined that Wallace was not a sworn law enforcement officer and, therefore, was not entitled to a probable cause hearing. Wallace moved the circuit court for a probable cause hearing for the same underlying incident. The circuit court denied the motion, finding, again, that Wallace was not a sworn law enforcement officer and, therefore, was not entitled to a probable cause hearing under Section 99-3-28. Wallace appealed. The Supreme Court held that a law enforcement officer who is not certified pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 45-6-11(3)(a) is not entitled to a probable cause hearing under Mississippi Code Section 99-3-28(1)(a)(i). Further, the Court held Wallace was not entitled to a probable cause hearing under Section 99-3-28(1)(a)(i) because he was not a law enforcement officer as defined by Mississippi Code Section 45-6-3(c). View "Wallace v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

A group of residents (“the Neighbors”) appealed three separate zoning decisions of the City of Ocean Springs Board of Alderman to the Jackson County Circuit Court. The circuit court, sitting as an appellate court pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 11-51-75 (Rev. 2019), consolidated the appeals and reversed the City’s zoning decisions in two of the appeals and remanded the first appeal to the City board. The City then appealed whether the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to review the decisions when W. Lee Brumfield, who was an applicant before the City, was not included as a party to the Neighbors’ appeal. Due to the Mississippi Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Longo v. City of Waveland, 353 So. 3d 437 (Miss. 2022), and the fact that the circuit court did not address the issue in its ruling, the Supreme Court found that Brumfield’s status as a petitioner could not be determined at this point. The case was remanded to the circuit court for a factual determination as to whether Brumfield is a petitioner under Section 11-51-75. View "City of Ocean Springs v. Illanne, et al." on Justia Law

Former City of Clarksdale Commissioner Charles Moton alleged that his December 2013 and May 2015 arrests at Clarksdale city commissioners meetings were in violation of "a litany" of his state constitutional rights. The trial court dismissed Moton’s claims because he failed to file suit within the statute of limitations. Finding no reversible error, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgment. View "Moton v. City of Clarksdale" on Justia Law

In 2019, after Roosevelt Jones paid his annual rent more than thirty days late, the North Bolivar Consolidated School District, pursuant to a late penalty provision contained in the lease between the parties, assessed Jones a late fee for $11,028.60. Jones filed suit arguing, amongst other things, that the district should be estopped from enforcing the late payment penalty provision because it had a custom of accepting late rent payments without penalty. Jones argued he relied on the custom to his detriment when making his rent payment late. In August 2021, the school district moved for summary judgment, arguing that it could not be estopped by the unauthorized acts of its officials. The chancellor found that the district had failed to show the acts of its officials in accepting the late payments were not authorized. The school district sought interlocutory appeal of the denial of summary judgment, and was granted. The Mississippi Supreme Court concluded the school district was a trustee of sixteenth section school lands and, consequently, bore a statutory duty to collect all funds due from the sixteenth section properties that it leased. Any past failure by it to collect such funds was unauthorized as a matter of law and could not form the basis for estoppel. Therefore, the Supreme Court reversed the chancery court’s judgment and rendered judgment in favor of the school district. View "North Bolivar Consolidated School District v. Jones" on Justia Law