Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs Jourdan Rivers Estates, LLC (JRE) and Jourdan River Resort and Yacht Club (Yacht Club), filed suit for damages in December 2011 against Defendants Scott Favre, Cindy Favre, Jefferson Parker, and CB Partners, LLC d/b/a Cinque Bambini. CB Partners, LLC d/b/a Cinque Bambini was later dismissed from the action without prejudice. The complaint alleged multiple claims against Defendants, including slander of title; slander and/or defamation; trespass; nuisance; tortious interference with use of property; tortious interference with contractual relationships; harassment and intimidation of plaintiffs' agents and intentional infliction of emotional distress upon plaintiffs' agents; assault upon plaintiffs' agents; willful destruction of plaintiffs' property; negligence; gross, willful, and wanton negligence; malicious prosecution; unjust enrichment; false imprisonment; and any other applicable theory of law giving rise to a cause of action. Defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure. The circuit court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. The circuit court dismissed all of Yacht Club's claims in relation to the claim(s) that Defendants made false representations to the Hancock County Board of Supervisors and/or Hancock County employees, finding that such allegations fell under the "Noerr-Pennington" doctrine, expressly adopted by the Mississippi Supreme Court. The circuit court dismissed JRE's claims of slander of title, slander and/or defamation; harassment; assault; and false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress because each claim constituted an intentional tort and was barred under the statute of limitations. The circuit court denied Defendants' motion to dismiss as to JRE's claims for trespass; nuisance; tortious interference with use of property; tortious interference with contractual relationships; willful destruction of property; negligence; gross, willful, and wanton negligence; malicious prosecution; and unjust enrichment. Plaintiffs thereafter petitioned for an interlocutory appeal. Because the Supreme Court found that Defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion should have been converted into a motion for summary judgment, as provided in Rule 56 of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure, it reversed the circuit court's order granting the Rule 12(b)(6) motion and remanded for further proceedings. View "Jourdan River Estates, LLC v. Favre" on Justia Law

After Nekole Bennett and her children suffered personal injuries during a home-invasion robbery, they filed this premises-liability action against their apartment complex (Highland Park) and the complex's manager (Sharon Sampson). The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants' failure to provide adequate security measures at Highland Park proximately caused the plaintiffs' injuries in the robbery. To support that claim, the plaintiffs designated John Tisdale as an expert in security measures. The circuit court granted summary judgment for the defendants, finding that the plaintiffs' expert testimony failed to establish a triable issue on proximate causation. The Court of Appeals reversed the summary judgment and affirmed the circuit judge's refusal to recuse. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to expand on the Court of Appeals' analysis on the summary-judgment issue, and to explain why the expert testimony created a triable issue. The Court affirmed the Court of Appeals and reversed the trial court judgment and remanded this case to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Bennett v. Highland Park Apartments, LLC" on Justia Law

Kyle and Marla Moore timely filed a medical malpractice suit against St. Dominic Hospital, Jackson Neurosurgery Clinic, and several physicians, claiming that the physicians and hospital had been negligent in treating Kyle in May 2004. Kyle complained of lower back pain. Kyle was diagnosed with an epidural abscess. Kyle went to the emergency room at St. Dominic on the morning of May 23, 2004; within a 24-hour period, Kyle was seen by a series of doctors at the hospital before getting an operation on May 24. The Moores contended that surgery should have been done sooner and that the delay in treatment resulted in neurological injury to Kyle. In March 2011, the Moores added Dr. Howard Holaday as a defendant. Dr. Holaday moved for summary judgment, asserting that the two-year statute of limitations had expired. The trial court denied summary judgment, and Dr. Holaday petitioned the Supreme Court for an interlocutory appeal. The issue this appeal presented for the Court's review was whether the discovery rule tolled the statute of limitations against Dr. Holaday. The Court held that whether the discovery rule tolls the statute of limitations required a determination by the trier of fact (here, the jury) regarding the “date the alleged act, omission or neglect shall or with reasonable diligence might have been first discovered.” The trial court, therefore, properly denied summary judgment to Dr. Holaday. View "Holaday v. Moore" on Justia Law

Thirty-eight years after going to work for T.P. Groome, breaking up concrete culverts with a jackhammer, plaintiff Huey Holmes was diagnosed with silicosis. In six years that Homles worked for Groome, he was exposed to dusty work conditions. Groome provide a respirator that was manufactured by defendant Mine Safety Appliances (MSA). Holmes testified that, although he wore the mask, he often ingested so much dust while jackhammering that his mouth would fill with dirt and his spit would become black. Holmes filed a products-liability suit against MSA, claiming, among other things, that the respirator failed to protect him from overexposure to respirable silica. Holmes was dismissed from the suit without prejudice in light of the then-recent changes to Mississippi joinder rules. Holmes refiled his suit against MSA on May 16, 2007. In its answer, MSA asserted that Holmes filed his second suit after the statute of limitations had run. This case was a direct appeal of the trial court's judgment awarding Holmes, $875,000 for silicosis-related injuries allegedly caused by the respirator. After review, the Supreme Court agreed with the trial court’s ruling that the complaint was filed within the statute of limitations, and that Holmes was exposed to a harmful level of silica during the relevant time period. But the Court found that the trial judge erred in denying MSA’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) regarding Holmes’s warnings claim. Additionally, the Court found MSA was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law regarding Holmes’s design-defect claim because misuse of the respirator materially changed the product’s condition after it left MSA’s control. The Court therefore reversed and remanded on these issues. View "Mine Safety Appliance Company v. Holmes" on Justia Law

The City of Horn Lake contracted with Phillips Construction Company and its owner Michael Phillips (collectively “Phillips”) to work on a sewer project. Two employees of Phillips, Bertram Hill and David Mooneyhan, were working near the bottom of a trench that was seventeen feet deep when the walls of the trench suddenly collapsed. Mooneyhan was killed, and Hill was injured. Mooneyhan’s beneficiaries and Hill sued the City for Phillips’s negligence under respondeat superior and also alleged that the City had negligently hired Phillips. The City moved for summary judgment on grounds: (1) that Plaintiffs contended that Hill and Mooneyhan were employees of the City, thus rendering their claims subject to the exclusive remedy provision found in the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Act; (2) that Phillips was an independent contractor, not an agent, so the City could not be liable to Plaintiffs under respondeat superior; and (3) the discretionary function exemption of the Mississippi Tort Claims Act (“MTCA”) rendered the City immune from liability for maintenance of a sewer system. The circuit court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment on all issues, holding that Plaintiffs had not established the City had more than a supervisory role over the project, that the City’s maintenance of a sewer system is a discretionary function, and that the burden under Mississippi Code Section 31-5-51(7) was placed on the contractor, not the City. Plaintiffs appealed. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Hill v. City of Horn Lake" on Justia Law

Cynthia Woodall filed this wrongful-death action against AAA Ambulance Service, Inc., and Phillip McKey, AAA emergency medical technician-paramedic. In 2010, Cynthia Woodall’s husband suffered a cardiac arrest while working as a heating and cooling contractor at a home in McComb. The homeowner promptly called 911 at 11:54 a.m., and the Pike County Civil Defense/Emergency Management Agency transferred that call to AAA at 11:55 a.m. Woodall alleges that AAA then failed to respond and arrive in a timely manner, and that the ambulance crew, including McKey, failed to follow established protocol for cardiac-arrest response and made minimal attempts to provide Mr. Woodall proper care. The trial court found that, because the defendant was an instrumentality of governmental entities, the suit was controlled by the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. And because the plaintiff failed to file her complaint within the one-year statute of limitations, the circuit judge granted the defendants summary judgment. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Woodall v. AAA Ambulance Service, Inc." on Justia Law

A domestic dispute led a justice court judge to issue an arrest warrant for T.D., and then cancel the warrant after she complied with the judge’s order to attend an anger-management course. However, because the justice court clerk failed to send a cancellation notice to the local sheriff’s office, DeSoto County deputies later arrested T.D. and held her in jail until they discovered the mistake. Plaintiffs sued DeSoto County for the clerk’s negligence. DeSoto County moved for summary judgment, claiming immunity under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. The circuit judge denied that motion, and DeSoto County appealed. After review, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that, for the negligent act complained of in this case, the county has immunity under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. The Court reversed the trial court’s failure to grant summary judgment, and rendered a judgment in DeSoto County’s favor. View "DeSoto County v. Dennis" on Justia Law

Janet Olier was attacked and chased by a domestic goose in Donna Bailey's yard. In attempting to flee, she fell and broke her arm. Olier sued Bailey under a theory of premises liability and, alternatively, under the "dangerous propensity" rule. The trial court granted summary judgment because it found that Olier was a licensee on Bailey's property and that Bailey did not breach her duty of care toward Olier. It also denied relief under the dangerous-propensity rule because there was no evidence that the particular goose that bit Olier ever had exhibited dangerous propensities prior to the incident. Olier appealed to the Circuit Court, which affirmed. Olier then filed this appeal. After review, the Supreme Court held that, while Olier could not, as a matter of law, pursue her claim under her theory of general premises liability, she could proceed under the dangerous propensity theory. The Supreme Court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Olier v. Bailey" on Justia Law

Willie Kinzie sued Belk Department Stores, L.P., Belk, Inc., David Flowers, Shanay Grant, Kathy Coffey, Donald Smith, Nikki Daggins, Ray Faja, Staffmark Investment, LLC, and John Does 1-5 (Belk Defendants) for injuries he sustained while unloading a trailer that had transported merchandise to a Belk retail store. The trial court dismissed Kinzie’s lawsuit with prejudice, finding that Kinzie had misrepresented his injuries during discovery. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court and remanded the case, holding that Kinzie had not misrepresented his injuries and that the ultimate sanction of dismissal with prejudice was not warranted. "Dismissal is appropriate only under the most extreme circumstances and only where lesser sanctions will not suffice." The Supreme Court, after review, concluded that this was not an extreme case, and lesser sanctions could deter misleading responses without dismissing Kinzie’s claims altogether. The Court therefore affirmed that portion of the judgment of the Court of Appeals which held that dismissal with prejudice was not warranted. However, the Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ finding that the trial court abused its discretion when it determined that Kinzie had committed a discovery violation. The Court reversed the circuit court's judgment and remanded the case for trial. View "Kinzie v. Belk Department Stores, L.P." on Justia Law

Ted Boroujerdi’s home and yard were flooded with sewage that backed onto his property in February 2009. Boroujerdi sued the City of Starkville, alleging that he had suffered property damage and personal injuries as a result of the City’s negligent maintenance of its sewage system. The trial court granted summary judgment for the City, finding that the maintenance of the sewage system is a discretionary function and that the City was immune from suit pursuant to statute and Supreme Court precedent, "Fortenberry v. City of Jackson," (71 So. 3d 1196 (Miss. 2011)). Boroujerdi appealed, arguing that the maintenance of the sewage system was ministerial and the City is not immune from suit, that summary judgment was therefore inappropriate, and that this Court should overrule its plurality opinion in Fortenberry. After review, the Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the City. Recently, in "Brantley v. City of Horn Lake," (152 So. 3d 1106 (Miss. 2014)), the Supreme Court overhauled its analysis of discretionary function immunity. Accordingly, the Court revisited the issue of sewage-system maintenance as a discretionary function. The Court held that, while the overall function of maintaining a sewage system may be discretionary, certain narrower functions and duties involved with sewage maintenance may be rendered ministerial through applicable statutes, regulations, and/or ordinances. Accordingly, the Court remanded this case back to the trial court for plaintiff to address whether his premises flooded as a result of the City’s fulfilling or its failing to fulfill a ministerial function or duty. View "Boroujerdi v. City of Starkville" on Justia Law