Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Richard Pierce had silicosis. Having worked for many years as a sandblaster, preparing surfaces for painting, Pierce sued, among multiple defendants, sellers of sand including Dependable Abrasives, alleging that Dependable's failure to provide adequate warnings of the dangers of the inhalation of respirable silica caused his silicosis and rendered Dependable strictly liable. The jury returned a verdict for Dependable Abrasives and the trial court granted Pierce a new trial. Dependable Abrasives filed an interlocutory appeal with the Supreme Court. But, although the injury to Pierce was substantial, no causal link was established between the Dependable Abrasives product, Diamond Blast sand, and Pierce's injuries. As such, the Supreme Court concluded the jury's verdict was not against the overwhelming weight of the evidence. View "Dependable Abrasives, Inc. v. Pierce" on Justia Law

Yvonne Lovett was employed as a security guard for Delta Regional Medical Center. While on duty, Lovett slipped and fell. As a result of her fall, Lovett experienced injuries to her back and to her right knee. Months after returning to work at Delta, Lovett experienced dizziness and weakness and sought treatment. Subsequently, Lovett was diagnosed as having suffered a mini-stroke. Delta covered the costs of Lovett's related medical treatments and paid her disability benefits during the time in which she could not work. Lovett filed two workers' compensation claims based on the two events, which were consolidated. The administrative judge found certain subsequent medical expenses were not related to her employment and would not be covered. Both parties sought review by the Mississippi Workers' Compensation Commission. After review, the Supreme Court found that substantial evidence supported the Commission's finding that Lovett did not receive a thirty percent loss of wage-earning capacity. However, when the Commission reversed the administrative judge's finding, it failed to then consider Lovett's functional loss. The case was remanded for the Commission to conduct findings on Lovett's functional loss; the Supreme Court affirmed the Commission in all other respects. View "Lovett v. Delta Regional Medical Center" on Justia Law

Early one morning in 2010, Chantel Jobes’ vehicle left the southbound lane of Highway 11, crossed the northbound lane and crashed into a concrete railroad trestle. Jobes was seriously injured in the accident, and she filed a complaint against Norfolk Southern Railway Company, the Mississippi Transportation Commission, and the Mississippi Department of Transportation. The trial judge denied the defendants’ motions for summary judgment. Although stated in a variety of ways, defendants argued simply that the trial judge erred when he did not grant summary judgment in their favor. After review, the Supreme Court agreed, reversed and remanded the case for entry of judgment in favor of defendants. View "The Alabama Great Southern Railroad Co. v. Jobes" on Justia Law

Katherine Robertson pled guilty to aggravated assault in 2006. In 2012, Governor Haley Barbour granted Robertson a pardon, and she filed a motion to have her record expunged. The circuit judge denied the motion, and Robertson appealed. The issue presented was novel when Robertson filed her appeal, but it has since been decided. The Mississippi Supreme Court held that statutory authority did not provide for expungement of a pardoned conviction. Therefore, the Court affirmed the trial court’s denial of Robertson’s motion to expunge. View "Robertson v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

In 2006, Tellus Operating Group, LLC, sought to integrate the interests of various owners for the purpose of drilling a well unit in Jefferson Davis County. In accordance with its statutory duty to make a good-faith effort to negotiate the voluntary integration of the owners’ interests on reasonable terms, Tellus mailed option forms to the owners in June and July of 2006. In this case, the issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was a challenge to a Mississippi Oil and Gas Board pooling order force-integrating various owners’ interests in a proposed drilling unit. After review, the Court held that the Board’s order was supported by substantial evidence. The Court also found that one owner’s attempt to voluntarily integrate his interest within twenty days of the Board’s pooling order did not satisfy Section 53-3-7(2)(g)(iii). View "Tellus Operating Group, LLC v. Maxwell Energy, Inc." on Justia Law

Craig Sallie was convicted of aggravated assault for shooting Gregory Johnson in the back with a firearm, as well as of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was sentenced to twenty years for the aggravated assault conviction and ten years for the possession of a firearm conviction, to run concurrently. The trial court also sentenced Sallie to an additional ten years pursuant to the firearm sentence enhancement statute, with that sentence to run consecutively to the other sentences. The Court of Appeals affirmed Sallie’s convictions and sentence. Sallie moved for rehearing, which the Court of Appeals denied. The Supreme Court granted Sallie’s petition to address the issue of whether Sallie was entitled to notice of the firearm enhancement to his sentence. The Court found that Sallie did not receive timely or sufficient notice that the State intended to enhance his sentence using the firearm enhancement. Using the firearm enhancement to increase Sallie’s sentence resulted in unfair surprise. Accordingly, the Court reversed in part the judgments of the Court of Appeals and the trial court, vacated Sallie’s sentence, and remanded the case to the Circuit Court for resentencing. View "Sallie v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

In 2011, the New Albany Police Department received a report that shots had been fired in the vicinity of Madison Street, Garfield Street, or Hayes Street. The Union County prosecuting attorney filed a petition alleging that S.S. should be adjudicated a delinquent child for resisting arrest following his detention at the scene of the shooting by the responding police officers. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Union County Youth Court’s adjudication of thirteen-year-old S.S. as a delinquent for resisting arrest, and the Supreme Court granted S.S.’s petition for certiorari. After review, the Court found no error in the Court of Appeals’ conclusion, and affirmed. View "In the Interest of S.M.K.S. v. Youth Court of Union County" on Justia Law

Over thirty years ago, Richard Chunn pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana. That conviction did not prevent him from pursuing his twenty-plus-year career as a licensed bail-bond agent. Then, in 2011, the Legislature amended Section 83-39-3 of the Mississippi Code by adding a provision that prohibits all felons (regardless of the nature and dates of the offenses) from obtaining or renewing a bail-agent license. When the Mississippi Department of Insurance refused to renew his license, Chunn challenged the constitutionality of the statute by appealing to the Circuit Court, which affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded, finding the statute violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. View "Chunn v. Mississippi, Ex Rel. Mississippi Department of Insurance" on Justia Law

The City of Horn Lake contracted with Phillips Construction Company and its owner Michael 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 (collectively "Plaintiffs") sued the City for Phillips' negligence under respondeat superior and also alleged that the City had negligently hired Phillips. The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of the City. Plaintiffs appealed. Finding that the City only acted in a supervisory role over the project, the Supreme Court concluded that was not enough to trigger a master-servant relationship for the elements of respondeat superior. The Court found that the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City was proper, and therefore affirmed the judgment. View "Hill v. City of Horn Lake" on Justia Law

Richard Bowlin's daughter Ashley Matthews offered to act as an undercover informant for police to purchase drugs from her father. When Matthews arrived at Bowlin's home, she went into his house, where he sold her four bags of pills for the two hundred dollars she had been provided. Matthews left and returned to the location where she had been fitted with the recording equipment. Bowlin left his house after the transaction was complete, and agents arrested him at a nearby store. The twenty-dollar bills that MBN agents had provided Matthews were found by the arresting officers in Bowlin's billfold. Bowlin was convicted of three counts of sale or transfer of a controlled substance. He was sentenced as an habitual offender to three concurrent thirty-year sentences without the possibility of parole and fined $1 million for each count. Bowlin's appellate counsel filed a brief pursuant to "Lindsey v. Mississippi" certifying that he has reviewed the record and found no arguments to raise on appeal. Bowlin filed his own pro se brief, raising several issues related to the alleged ineffectiveness of his trial and appellate counsel. The Supreme Court, after its review of the record, found no merit to Bowlin's claims of error, and affirmed his convictions and sentences. View "Bowlin v. Mississippi" on Justia Law