Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Baby Boy Moore appeals his conviction of aggravated assault and argues both that the verdict was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence and that the prosecutor erred by using Moore’s past convictions as impeachment evidence. Moore was indicted by grand jury in 2020 for aggravated assault; he was ultimately convicted by jury as charged in 2021. The trial court sentenced Moore to serve a term of eight years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with six years suspended. Because the Mississippi Supreme Court concluded Moore’s claims lacked merit, it affirmed his conviction and sentence. View "Baby Boy Moore a/k/a Lavell v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

The parties obtained a divorce in 2016. In 2020, Jennifer Bryant filed a motion in which she asked the chancellor, pursuant to Section 17 of the property settlement agreement (which was incorporated into the divorce decree), to determine which school the three minor children should attend: Hernando or Lake Cormorant. The father, Kenneth Bryant, wanted the children to go to school at Lake Cormorant because his wife, Alicia Bryant, was a teacher there. The chancellor decided that it was in the children’s best interest to go to school in the Hernando public school district. Kenneth appealed, but the Court of Appeals affirmed the chancellor's decision. The Court of Appeals determined that the language of the property settlement agreement authorized the chancellor to reevaluate the matter and that “[a] property settlement agreement cannot deprive the court of its authority to modify support and educational needs of a child.” The Mississippi Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals. Therefore, it affirmed. View "Bryant v. Bryant" on Justia Law

In 2016 in the Lee County Justice Court, Julio Gordon obtained an eviction order and a money judgment for back rent against his tenant Christy Dickerson. Dickerson appealed to the County Court in September 2016, providing notice to Gordon under Uniform Civil Rule of Circuit and County Court Practice 5.04. In May 2018, the county clerk sent Dickerson a notice of intent to dismiss the case as stale. In response, Dickerson filed an “Appellant’s Counterclaims” in June 2018, with a certificate of service indicating that a copy of the counterclaims had been sent to Gordon’s mailing address. Gordon filed no response, and Dickerson applied for and received an entry of default in January 2019. Dickerson then moved for default judgment and a determination of compensatory and punitive damages. The county court held a hearing on the motion. Both parties appeared at the hearing; Dickerson was represented by counsel, and Gordon appeared pro se. The county court found that Gordon had been served properly with the counterclaims in accordance with Rule 5 of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure, that Rule 4 of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure was inapplicable, and that Gordon had forfeited his right to challenge liability by failing to answer the counterclaims. The county court held a trial to determine if punitive damages should be awarded, after which the county court awarded Dickerson $10,800 in compensatory damages and $39,200 in punitive damages. Gordon, through counsel, timely moved to set aside the default judgment under Rule 60(b) of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure, or, alternatively, for a new trial, along with a requested stay of judgment pending the post-trial motions. Pertinent here, Gordon argued Dickerson did not comply with Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 13(k)’s requirement that counterclaims be filed within thirty days after the perfection of her appeal from justice court. And she had not been granted leave of the court to file her counterclaims as required by Rule 15. The Mississippi Supreme Court found that the rule was misinterpreted and misapplied to the exclusion of Civil Procedure Rule 15(a), and that the county court erred by not setting aside the default judgment against Gordon. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision, reversed the circuit court, vacated the judgment of default, and remanded this case to the county court for further proceedings on the merits. View "Gordon v. Dickerson" on Justia Law

Broadband Voice, LLC, d/b/a Fuse.Cloud, LLC (Fuse), appealed a Mississippi circuit court's dismissal of its complaint with prejudice. Fuse entered into four contracts with Jefferson County for telephone and internet installation and services. In January 2020, an entirely new board of supervisors took office. The County notified Fuse on November 3, 2020, that it would be terminating the contracts entered into by the 2019 board of supervisors. The termination was to take effect on November 16, 2020. Fuse notified the new board of supervisors that an early-termination fee of $116,984.02 would be imposed if the County terminated the contracts. Fuse disconnected the County’s service before the November 16, 2020 termination date, and sued when the County refused to pay the fee. On August 23, 2021, the circuit court dismissed Fuse’s complaint with prejudice, finding that there were no triable issues. Fuse argued on appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court that it was entitled to $116,984.02 in early-termination fees from the four contracts. Finding that the early-termination-fee provision was negotiated by the prior board, and that prior board could not limit the ability of a subsequent board to terminate that provision or any other provision of the four contracts, the Supreme Court held the early-termination fee was not enforceable. The circuit court's dismissal was affirmed. View "Broadband Voice, LLC d/b/a Fuse.Cloud, LLC v. Jefferson County, Mississippi" on Justia Law

Two cases were consolidated for the purposes of appeal, both from the Circuit Court of Hancock County, Mississippi. In each case, the circuit court found that it lacked jurisdiction due to a defect in the notice of appeal pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 11- 51-75(a)(i) (Rev. 2019). The circuit court dismissed both cases. The Mississippi Supreme Court found the statute did require that a petitioner before a local governing authority be made a party to an appeal of the authority’s decision. "But naming petitioners as appellees in the notice of appeal is procedural. Therefore, a notice of appeal that is filed on time but erroneously omits a petitioner’s name does not defeat the circuit court’s jurisdiction, and the error may be corrected." Finding that a defect in the contents of the notice of appeal was a procedural rather than a jurisdictional error, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded. View "Longo, et al. v. City of Waveland, et al." on Justia Law

In 2008, minor Kelvin Pruitt lost two fingers in a bicycle chain accident shortly after accepting a ride home from school from another student. According to the complaint, Kelvin was a special needs student who had been ordered off the school bus and told to walk home. Plaintiff initially filed suit against the school district and two of the district’s employees in 2009, but the action was dismissed voluntarily in 2018 in light of defects related to service of process. Plaintiff filed a second suit in 2018, which also was dismissed voluntarily. Third, plaintiff filed the present lawsuit on January 16, 2020. Defendants submitted their answer and defenses on February 20, 2020. The parties engaged in discovery for several months, including preliminary interrogatories. In June 2020, defendants moved to dismiss on the ground that the statute of limitations had expired in 2010. They argued that the statute of limitations, while initially tolled by the minors’ saving statute, had run without interruption from the filing of the first complaint on the minor’s behalf in 2009. Plaintiff argued defendants waived the statute of limitations defense by failing to raise it in their initial responsive pleading and, in the alternative, that the minors’ saving statute continued to operate when a case brought on behalf of a minor was dismissed for reasons other than the merits. By plaintiff’s calculation, the statute of limitations did not expire until February 28, 2020, a year after Kelvin’s twenty-first birthday. The circuit court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. Finding no reversible error in dismissal, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. View "Pruitt v. Sargent, et al." on Justia Law

Latoya Lawson brought an interlocutory appeal of a protective order entered by the Hinds County Circuit Court in a negligence case against the City of Jackson. In 2018, Lawson was injured when “she hit an unavoidable pothole” while driving her motorcycle on Woodrow Wilson Drive in Jackson, Mississippi. She alleged, inter alia, that the City was negligent in constructing and maintaining the roadway and that the City’s negligence caused her injuries. The trial court issued the order on review here due to Lawson’s lack of diligence in conducting discovery and her attempts to conduct discovery outside the agreed-upon deadlines. The order protected the City from having to respond to production requests that would be due after the discovery deadlines. Additionally, the order prohibited Lawson from making public records requests and from offering any public records she might obtain as evidence at trial. Lawson argued that the order was an abuse of the trial court’s discretion because it improperly restricted her right to access public records. The City argues that the trial court’s order was wholly within the court’s discretion as a discovery matter. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed a portion of the trial courts order protecting the City from having to respond to Lawson’s request for production of documents. It reversed, however, the portions of the order prohibiting Lawson from requesting public records and from offering those public records at trial. View "Lawson v. City of Jackson" on Justia Law

In 2018, John Webb Pace, Jeannette Pace, and John Gregory Pace (the Paces) filed a complaint against Tiger Production Company, LLC, CCore Energy Management Company, LLC, Robert Marsh Nippes, and Harry Walters (collectively, “Tiger Production”). Each defendant filed a motion to dismiss the Paces’ claims for failure to exhaust their administrative remedies before the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board (MSOGB). After hearing oral arguments, the circuit court denied the motions to dismiss, determining that all of the Paces’ claims were based in common law and could not be remedied by the MSOGB. Tiger Production timely sought interlocutory appeal, which the Mississippi Supreme Court granted. After review, the Supreme Court found the circuit court was correct. The Court therefore affirmed the circuit court’s judgment and remanded the case to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Tiger Production Company, LLC, et al. v. Pace" on Justia Law

Jones County School District (JCSD) alleged Covington County School District (CCSD), the custodial district, failed to share sixteenth-section income as required by statute for a period of eighteen years or more. JCSD requested, among other things, an accounting going back to 1997. The chancellor ultimately ordered what JCSD called a “partial” accounting, lacking some requested details and going back only to 2003, when the two districts began exchanging lists of educable students as required by statute. JCSD then petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court for permission to file an interlocutory appeal, which the Court granted. JCSD contended on appeal that certain statutes prescribing time periods relating to the distribution of sixteenth-section incomes were statutes of limitation, which the Mississippi Constitution prohibited from being enforced against political subdivisions of the State. This appeal also presented questions of statutory interpretation regarding how income from shared townships is to be managed. The Supreme Court concluded that the statute conditioning the annual payment of sixteenth-section funds on the exchanging of lists of educable children was a constitutional exercise of the Legislature’s authority to decide the method and procedure for allocating funds. The statute giving the noncustodial district one year to contest the sufficiency of the payments (in those years in which lists of educable students were exchanged) was likewise not a statute of limitations. The Court recognized there might still be a need for an accounting, as the custodial district is required to pay a pro-rata share of the interest derived from the principal fund associated with each of the sixteenth-section lands to the noncustodial district on an annual basis. "Maintenance of the principal fund is potentially subject to an action in equity for an accounting." The Court vacated the chancery court's accounting order and remanded for that court to consider a new claim for accounting, if JCSD pursues one, in light of the Supreme Court's holding here. View "Jones County School District v. Covington County School District, et al." on Justia Law

Eric Moffett was convicted of a savage sexual assault on a five-year-old girl, culminating in her death. Compelling evidence supported his conviction including, inter alia, conclusive DNA evidence, eyewitness testimony, and a confession. The jury determined that the victim’s murder was: (1) committed while Moffett was engaged in felonious abuse and/or battery of a child and (2) especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. On February 25, 2006, the jury sentenced Moffett to death. Moffett filed a motion for leave to file successive petition for post-conviction relief (PCR) from his capital murder conviction and sentence of death. Not only was the motion untimely, the Mississippi Supreme Court found no merit to Moffett’s motion for leave to file successive petition for PCR: "The first claim does not pass the first prong set forth in Strickland. The second claim is barred by res judicata and, notwithstanding the bar, also fails to pass the first prong of Strickland." Accordingly, Moffett’s motion for leave to file successive petition for PCR was denied. View "Moffett v. Mississippi" on Justia Law