Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

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

Ricky Chase filed a motion for post-conviction relief (PCR), arguing that he was intellectually disabled under "Atkins v. Virginia," (536 U.S. 304 (2002)), and exempt from execution. The circuit court denied relief, finding that Chase had failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he is intellectually disabled. Chase appealed, arguing that the circuit court made legal errors and that its fact-findings were clearly erroneous. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Chase v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

After the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors voted to abandon a railroad crossing, the county put up a barricade. Residents affected by the barricade filed two separate motions for reconsideration, and the Board held a second meeting in which it affirmed the abandonment but ordered the barricade removed. The residents filed a bill of exceptions which reversed the Board’s decision to abandon the crossing. The Court of Appeals reversed the circuit court, holding it had no jurisdiction to hear the bill of exceptions. After review, the Supreme Court found that, although the circuit court had appellate jurisdiction to review the Board’s second decision, it lacked jurisdiction to consider the Board’s original decision. So the judgments of the Court of Appeals and the circuit court were reversed, and the case remanded for the circuit court to consider only whether the Board’s second order complied with the statutory procedure for abandoning a road. View "Lowndes County v. McClanahan" 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

In an interlocutory appeal, the City of Magee challenged the Simpson County Circuit Court’s denial of its motion for summary judgment against Connie Jones, arguing that Jones’s claim was barred by the discretionary-function provision of the Mississippi Tort Claims Act (MTCA). In 2007, raw sewage entered Connie Jones’s house through a shower drain and flooded several rooms of the house. In early 2008, Jones filed suit against the City and two unnamed defendants, claiming that Magee had negligently installed and maintained the sewage lines providing service to her home, causing the sewage overflow. Jones asserted that her family had suffered both property damage and physical illnesses as a result of Magee’s negligence. Magee moved for summary judgment, arguing that Jones' suit was barred by the MTCA's discretionary-function exception under Mississippi case law because her claim was based on acts of sewage-system maintenance. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded the trial court erred in denying the City's motion. Accordingly, the Court vacated the trial court’s denial of Magee’s motion for summary judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "City of Magee v. Jones" 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

Joe Cook was convicted on two counts of sexual battery on his girlfriend’s daughter and for one count of directing or causing a felony to be committed by the girlfriend’s son. Cook was sentenced as an habitual offender to a life sentence for each of the two sexual battery counts and to twenty years for the single count of causing a felony to be committed by a minor. The three sentences were made to run concurrently. Cook argued on appeal that the children’s statements to a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) constituted inadmissible hearsay, that the children’s statements to their great-grandmother and to a forensic interviewer constituted inadmissible hearsay, and that the trial court erred by sentencing him as an habitual offender. Finding no merit to Cooks arguments on appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed his convictions and sentences. View "Cook v. Mississippi" 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

In its prosecution of Larry Collier for selling controlled substances, the State called a seasoned felon-turned-confidential-police-informant who provided untruthful testimony about previous criminal convictions, and whom the trial court refused to allow the defendant to fully cross-examine about those prior criminal convictions. Although the trial court erred in limiting the cross-examination, the Supreme Court found that, in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt, the error was harmless. View "Collier v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

The narrow question presented by this case for the Supreme Court's review was whether the expungement of a misdemeanor, fourth-degree, sexual-offense conviction in another state by the court that entered the conviction entitled the petitioner to relief from his duty to register as a sex offender in Mississippi. The Circuit Court denied the requested relief. But, because expungement of a conviction requires the courts to “restore one to the status occupied prior thereto,” the Supreme Court reversed. View "Stallworth v. Mississippi" on Justia Law