Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Alesa Dawn Crum’s home in Corinth, Mississippi, was flooded with backflowed sewage, twice. Crum filed suit against the City of Corinth, alleging damages as a result of the City’s negligent maintenance of its sewage system. The Circuit Court granted the City’s motion to dismiss Crum’s complaint, finding that the City was immune under the discretionary-function exemption of the Mississippi Tort Claims Act (MTCA). Crum appealed, arguing that the City was not entitled to discretionary-function immunity. Because the Supreme Court found that the trial court erred in dismissing Crum’s complaint, it reversed the judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Crum v. City of Corinth" on Justia Law

The McMullans filed a complaint against U.S. Bancorp, U.S. Bank N.A. (collectively the Bank), and the Johnson Group. In answering the complaint, all defendants pled improper venue. The McMullans filed an amended complaint. The Johnson Group answered, again pleading improper venue, and filed a cross claim against the Bank. The Bank answered the McMullans’ amended complaint and the Johnson Group’s cross-claim, pleading improper venue in both. The Johnson Group filed a motion to change venue, joined by the Bank. The trial court denied the motion, holding that the defendants had waived venue because they had unduly delayed pursuit of the defense and had substantially participated in the litigation. The Bank sought and was granted permission to file this interlocutory appeal, which was joined by the Johnson Group. Upon review, the Mississippi Supreme Court found the trial court erred in denying the motion to transfer venue because the Bank consistently pled improper venue, joined the Johnson Group’s motion to transfer, and did not otherwise substantially participate in the litigation. View "U.S. Bancorp v. McMullan" on Justia Law

In 2004, Quality Diesel Service, Inc. obtained a judgment against Gulf South Drilling Company, LLC. Then, after learning that Tiger Drilling Company, LLC was indebted to Gulf South, Quality Diesel had multiple writs of garnishment issued and served on Tiger Drilling from 2004 to 2006. All of Tiger Drilling’s answers to the writs were almost identical, stating that Tiger Drilling was indebted to Gulf South but that the debt was not yet due. On November 29, 2006, Quality Diesel contested Tiger Drilling’s responses by filing a Petition to Controvert Answers to Garnishments, specifically contesting Tiger Drilling’s answer to a writ issued on January 18, 2006. On March 14, 2014, Tiger Drilling filed a motion to dismiss the garnishment proceeding. On October 3, 2014, the Circuit Court granted dismissal on the ground that the underlying judgment had expired while the case was pending. On appeal, Quality Diesel contended that, because the underlying judgment was valid when the writs of garnishment were issued and served (and when it filed its Petition to Controvert) it could maintain a garnishment proceeding against Tiger Drilling, despite the fact that the underlying judgment has since lapsed. This case presented an issue of first impression concerning Mississippi’s garnishment law: when a party gets a judgment, timely executes a writ of garnishment, and timely initiates a garnishment proceeding, is that party required to renew the underlying judgment to collect the “property in the hands of the garnishee belonging to the defendant” at the time the garnishment proceeding was filed, to defeat the running of the statute of limitations? The Supreme Court held that a party was not required to renew the underlying judgment to collect such property under these circumstances. In this case, the Court reversed and remanded. View "Quality Diesel Service, Inc. v. Tiger Drilling Company, LLC" on Justia Law

Devin Jones worked for T&L Specialty Company as a product technician from 2012 to 2013. On February 4, 2013, Jones timely reported to work at 7:00 p.m. and performed his assigned duties until his first break at 9:00 p.m. While on his break, Jones learned that his fiancé was having complications related to her pregnancy, so he left work early. He did not notify his supervisor, Mitch Monts, that he was leaving, but he did ask his coworker, Demetrius Tatum, to tell Monts that he was leaving and why. Tatum, however, failed to relay this message, and so Monts did not learn of the emergency. Pursuant to a policy in T&L’s employee handbook, Monts concluded that by leaving work early without informing him within eight hours, Jones had “voluntarily quit” his job. He immediately hired a replacement for Jones. Unaware that Monts deemed him to have quit voluntarily, Jones returned to work the following day. Jones pleaded with Monts, and then with Karen Hodum from T&L’s Human Resources department, insisting that he had not intended to quit his job and maintaining that he believed that, by leaving work early, he would only receive a half-point on his record. Jones’s pleas with T&L representatives proved unsuccessful and so he filed a claim for unemployment benefits. After determining that Jones voluntarily quit his job without good cause, the Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES) denied his application for unemployment benefits. Because the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) relied solely on an inapplicable provision from the employee handbook in concluding that Jones had voluntarily quit his job, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Jones v. Mississippi Employment Security Commission" on Justia Law

Cherri Porter’s beachfront vacation home was completely destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. Porter claimed the destruction was the result of a barge, owned by Grand Casino of Mississippi, Inc.–Biloxi, breaking free from its moorings and alliding with her home. Because Porter’s all-risk insurance policy excluded from coverage damage caused by water or windstorm, State Farm Fire and Casualty Company denied Porter’s claim. Porter filed suit against the insurance agent who maintained the policy, Max Mullins, against State Farm, and against Grand Casino. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of each defendant, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Porter filed a petition for writ of certiorari claiming genuine issues of fact existed as to each defendant, and the Mississippi Supreme Court granted her petition. Because Porter’s all-risk insurance policy unambiguously excluded from coverage loss that would not have occurred absent water damage, no genuine issue of material fact existed as to Porter’s bad-faith denial of coverage claim against State Farm. Additionally, Porter failed to produce sufficient evidence showing a genuine issue of fact as to whether Grand Casino breached its duty to take reasonable measures to prevent foreseeable injury. The Court therefore affirmed the decisions of the trial court and of the Court of Appeals as to all issues. View "Porter v. Grand Casino of Mississippi, Inc.- Biloxi" on Justia Law

This action began as a paternity and custody dispute between Concetter and James Wilson. James was adjudged to be Sha’Nyla Wilson's natural father. Concetter was awarded custody, and James was awarded visitation. Concetter died in 2011. When Concetter’s relatives would not return "Sha" to James, he filed a petition for modification and sought sole legal and physical custody of Sha. The chancellor entered an order that awarded the primary physical custody of Sha to Pearlean Davis, Sha’s maternal grandmother. The chancellor also awarded James liberal visitation. In the decision, the chancellor did not treat the issue as an initial custody dispute between a natural parent and grandparent. Instead, the chancellor considered the motion as a modification of child custody based on the prior custody determination between Concetter and James. The chancery court found that the natural parent presumption was rebutted, and, further, that the best interests of the child were served by remaining in the physical custody of the grandmother, while allowing the father liberal visitation. Because the evidence was insufficient to rebut the natural parent presumption, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Wilson v. Davis" on Justia Law

Defendant Markeith Fleming was convicted of murder and aggravated assault. He claimed he was in another county at his girlfriend's house at the time the shooting occurred. Approximately two weeks before trial, the State disclosed its intent to have an AT&T engineer testify about Fleming’s whereabouts, using Fleming’s cell-phone records. Fleming requested a continuance to obtain his own expert on the subject, but the circuit judge denied that motion, finding that the engineer would testify only about information that was contained in the records and that had been disclosed to defense counsel much earlier. Because the engineer (without being tendered or accepted as an expert) was allowed to provide expert testimony beyond the information contained in the records, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded. View "Fleming v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

After all defendants to the original complaint filed responsive pleadings in Mary Meeks’s medical malpractice suit, Meeks obtained leave of court and filed a first amended complaint, adding as a defendant the manufacturer of a medical device, Hologic, Inc. A doctor performed an outpatient diagnostic hysteroscopy and an endometrial ablation on Meeks at the Northwest Regional Medical Center in Clarksdale using a Novasure medical device manufactured and sold by Hologic to treat Meeks’s menorrhagia. Meeks did not serve the first amended complaint on Hologic but instead filed a second amended complaint without leave of court or permission from all defendants. Hologic filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that Meeks’s claims against Hologic were federally preempted and that Meeks’s claims additionally were barred by the statute of limitations. Because Meeks failed to obtain leave of court or permission from the defendants to file the second complaint, and because the first was never served on Hologic, the Supreme Court found that the statute of limitations had expired against Hologic and that the trial court properly granted Hologic’s motion to dismiss. View "Mary Meeks v. Hologic, Inc." on Justia Law

Sand Specialties & Aggregates, LLC, and Lampkin Construction Company entered into a contract under which Sand Specialties was to sell certain sand mining equipment to Lampkin Construction. The equipment was delivered, but the full contract price was never paid. Sand Specialities filed suit against Lampkin Construction for replevin and damages. After a trial, the judge entered a directed verdict in favor of Sand Specialities as to ownership of the equipment, and the jury awarded Sand Specialities damages. Lampkin Construction appealed, arguing that the trial court misinterpreted the terms of the sales contract, and that the trial court made several prejudicial errors, including allowing the jury to consider evidence of damages for missing equipment. Finding no reversible errors, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment against Lampkin. View "Lampkin Construction Co., Inc. v. Sand Specialties & Aggregates, LLC" on Justia Law

On March 24, 2006, the Circuit Court granted Dr. Charles Brock and Dr. Steven Clark summary judgment based on the expiration of the one-year statute of limitations in the Mississippi Tort Claims Act (“MTCA”). In 2010, Bolivar Medical Center (“BMC”), the final remaining defendant, was dismissed with prejudice. Improperly relying on an order certifying the March 24, 2006, order as final, which was later corrected by two separate orders by the trial court, Ginger Pope, administrarix of the Estate of Nancy Springer, requested an additional fourteen days in which to file her appeal. The trial court granted Pope additional time, and she filed her notice of appeal on October 9, 2013. The doctors appealed, and after review, the Mississippi Supreme Court found that the trial court erroneously granted Pope additional time to file her appeal. The Court dismissed Pope’s appeal as out of time. View "Pope v. Brock" on Justia Law