Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

After the Mississippi Supreme Court held in "Jones County School District v. Mississippi Department of Revenue," (111 So. 3d 588 (Miss. 2013)), that a school district was not liable for oil and gas severance taxes on royalties derived from oil and gas production on sixteenth-section land, the Chancery Court of Wayne County held that Wayne County School District (WCSD) was owed interest by the Mississippi Department of Revenue (MDOR) on its overpayment of severance taxes at the rate of one percent (1%) per month. The chancellor determined, based on Section 27-65-53 of the Mississippi Code, that the payment should have started on June 5, 2013, ninety days after the Jones County decision. Finding that the chancellor correctly applied the statute, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the chancery court. View "Wayne County School District v. Morgan" on Justia Law

Pro se appellant David Jackson appealed the Circuit Court’s denial of his Motion for Transcripts and Records. The Court of Appeals dismissed Jackson’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction. On certiorari review, the Supreme Court found the Court of Appeals correctly recognized the issue was lack of subject matter jurisdiction, but it was the trial court that lacked jurisdiction, not the appellate court. So the Supreme Court modified the Court of Appeals’ disposition and affirmed. View "Jackson v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Eugene Martin was convicted of shooting into a dwelling and sentenced as a habitual offender under Section 99-19-81. He claimed one of his two prior qualifying felony convictions resulted in a sentence of less than one year. Section 99-19-81 authorizes the State to seek increased punishment for those charged with a felony offense after having twice been convicted of prior felonies. But for this statutory enhancement to apply, the State must prove each of the defendant’s prior felony convictions resulted in a sentence of one or more years in a state or federal prison. If the State sought enhanced sentencing, and the requirements were met, Section 99-19-81 mandated the court sentence the defendant to the maximum term of imprisonment for the subject offense - in this case ten years. Martin argued he was wrongfully subjected to the sentencing enhancement. After review, the Supreme Court agreed, affirmed Martin’s conviction for shooting into a dwelling, but reversed and remanded for resentencing. View "Martin v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Hinds County Assistant Public Defender attorney Greg Spore appealed the order finding him in direct criminal contempt by Judge Jeff Weill Sr. of the Hinds County Circuit Court for displaying willful, contemptuous behavior that interfered with the orderly administration of justice. Spore represented Jeremy Cowards in an adjudication hearing, following the violation of his probation. Cowards had been indicted for house burglary and was ordered to Regimented Inmate Discipline (RID). After the pronouncement of guilt, Judge Weill asked whether the defense had any argument for the court to consider for sentencing. "Simply trying to make [his] record" on behalf of Cowards, Spore kept talking despite the trial court's admonition to stop. Finding that the record supported the trial court’s order beyond a reasonable doubt, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Spore v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

When this case came before the Mississippi Supreme Court on interlocutory appeal, the Court reversed in part. Because it was undisputed that neither sub-subcontractor Ground Control, LLC nor subcontractor Capsco Industries, Inc. (both Alabama companies) had a statutorily required certificate of responsibility to work in Mississippi, the Court agreed that the subcontract was void. But the Court found, despite the void contract, "Ground Control should not be precluded from having the opportunity to proceed in court under a claim for the value of what it expended in labor and supplies on the project." The case was remanded to the trial court so Ground Control could pursue the nonbarred "claims of unjust enrichment and quantum meruit." Despite this holding, Ground Control argued in this appeal that the trial court erred by limiting its claims on remand to unjust enrichment and quantum meruit. The Supreme Court found no error in the trial court so limiting Ground Control's claims. The Supreme Court did, however, find W.G. Yates and Sons Construction Company (Yates) and Capsco raised reversible errors in their cross-appeals. Based on the evidence presented at trial, the Supreme Court found Yates was entitled to a directed verdict because Ground Control failed to prove Yates’s liability for quantum meruit damages. The Court also found the quantum meruit damages award against Capsco was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Consequently, Capsco was entitled to a remittitur. The Court affirmed on Ground Control’s and Ground Control owner Frank Beaton’s direct appeals. On cross-appeal, the Court reversed a $36,644.69 judgment against Yates and rendered a judgment in Yates’s favor. The Court also reversed a $825,583.31 judgment against Capsco. The quantum meruit claim against Capsco was remanded, instructing the trial court to conduct a new trial on damages alone, unless a remittitur of $626,407.31, making the damage award $199,096, was accepted by Ground Control and Capsco. View "Ground Control, LLC v. Capsco Industries, Inc." on Justia Law

Beth Rylee’s husband, Richard Rylee, was injured in a motorcycle accident. After the Rylees received the full "each person" policy limit for damages resulting from Richard’s bodily injury, the Rylees sued their two insurers. They claimed Beth was entitled to her own each-person policy limit for her "separate and distinct" loss-of-consortium claim. But both the language of the relevant policies and the Mississippi Supreme Court’s precedent were clear: if there was only one person who suffered bodily injury in an accident, then all claims based on that person’s bodily injury are included in the each-person policy limit. Only Richard was injured in the accident, so Beth's loss-of-consortium claim fell under the each-person policy limit for damages arising from Richard’s bodily injury, which the two defendant insurance companies already satisfied. The Supreme Court therefore affirmed the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment to the two insurers. View "Rylee v. Progressive Gulf Insurance Co." on Justia Law

In February 2006, BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc., and BellSouth MNS, Inc., filed an ex parte motion for a protective order in the Chancery Court, seeking to protect certain documents. The documents fell into the following four categories: (1) an August 2005 proposal submitted by BellSouth to the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services in response to the Department’s request for telecommunications products and services; (2) the Telecommunications Products and Service Agreement between BellSouth and the Department dated November 2005; (3) correspondence between BellSouth and the Department related to the first two documents; and (4) related BellSouth marketing materials. Following legislative amendments in 2015 to the Mississippi Public Records Act of 1983 and to Mississippi Code Section 25-1-100, CellularSouth sought production of the proposal and the contract between the Department and BellSouth. After review, the Supreme Court found the chancery court erred in its interpretation of the amended Mississippi Code Section 25-61-11 when it entered an order continuing to protect the contract from production. Furthermore, the Court held that, because the rights in question in the case sub judice were created by statute, the Public Records Act, as amended, governed this dispute. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cellular South, Inc. v. BellSouth Telecommunications, LLC" on Justia Law

Frank Hartley Jr. appealed the final judgment of the Chancery Court terminating his parental rights to his two biological children, A.B. and B.H., and granting an adoption to John D. and Lenita S. Watts. Finding that the judgment was supported by clear and convincing evidence, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Hartley v. Watts" on Justia Law

After Enrique Myles’s death, his mother, Vivian Myles. filed this wrongful-death suit. Later, the parties became aware Enrique was survived by a minor child, LJW. Rather than dismissing the case for lack of standing, as requested by the defendant, the circuit judge allowed LJW to be substituted as the plaintiff. This interlocutory appeal of that decision followed, raising two related questions: (1) when a decedent is survived by his child, does the decedent’s mother have standing to file a wrongful-death action; and (2) if not, must the circuit judge dismiss the complaint, or may the circuit judge remedy the lack of standing by substituting the child as plaintiff? The Supreme Court found that Mississippi’s wrongful-death statute specifically granted the decedent’s mother standing to file the wrongful-death suit, even where a surviving child exists. As such, the Court affirmed the trial court. View "TRK, LLC v. Myles" on Justia Law

The Mississippi Secretary of State found that David Watkins and Watkins Development, LLC, committed four securities-fraud violations in connection with revenue bonds sold to finance a renovation project at the Metrocenter mall in Jackson. Watkins appealed and the chancery court vacated one count but affirmed the other three. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Secretary on all four counts. The Mississippi Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the Court of Appeals in part because the Secretary failed to cross-appeal the chancellor’s decision to vacate Count I. That said, the Court affirmed the Secretary’s findings on the other three counts. View "Watkins Development, LLC v. Hosemann" on Justia Law