Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The husband in this case divorced his wife and entered into a property-settlement agreement that strongly favored his wife and child. The chancellor approved and adopted the agreement and incorporated it as part of the final divorce judgment. After abiding by the judgment’s terms for two years, the husband moved the court to set it aside or modify it. As grounds, he alleged duress and his wife’s supposed coercive misconduct in their negotiating of what he deemed an unconscionable settlement. The chancellor denied the husband’s request, finding he simply had waited too long to challenge the judgment. Finding no error in the chancellor’s decision, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. View "Smith v. Doe" on Justia Law

Twenty years after their divorce, Deveaux Carter filed for contempt against her exhusband, Allen Davis, for failing to pay child support and for their daughters’ medical, college, and other expenses. After a hearing, the chancellor calculated Davis’s total financial obligations under the divorce decree to be significant, $201,187.66. But the chancellor also found Davis and his mother had made substantial contributions directly to the children. His mother also made payments to Carter. The chancellor credited these contributions, totaling $197,911, toward Davis’s obligations. The chancellor then ordered Davis to pay the difference, $3,276.66. Citing these credits, the chancellor did not find Davis in willful contempt. But the chancellor awarded Carter $7,500 in attorney’s fees. He did so because Carter had to file suit to enforce the support order, with which Davis conceded he had not fully complied. The Court of Appeals reversed because the trial court did not find Davis in contempt. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision regarding the attorney’s fees award, finding the chancellor rightly recognized that Carter was entitled to attorney’s fees, even though the chancellor did not find Davis in willful contempt based on the credits. View "Carter v. Davis" on Justia Law

The circuit court dismissed as untimely Larry Christmas’s county court misdemeanor conviction on traffic charges (no proof of liability insurance). Christmas appealed the circuit court’s dismissal to the Mississippi Supreme Court. Because the record showed Christmas’s notice of appeal was filed too late and that Christmas failed to request an extension, the Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal. View "Christmas v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Notwithstanding Garrett Ray’s appointed appellate counsel filing a “Lindsey” brief, certifying she had thoroughly examined the record and found no arguable issues supporting Ray’s appeal, he filed a pro se brief, arguing crack cocaine found in a cigarette pack he tried to discard when approached by officers was unlawfully obtained. He also insisted the State violated his constitutional right to confront an informant who provided information to narcotics officers, leading to his drug arrest. The Mississippi Supreme Court disagreed with both of Ray’s assertions: (1) Ray abandoned the cocaine by throwing it out of his vehicle’s window, thus, the drugs were not seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment; and (2) the informant did not testify and was not an eyewitness to or a participant in Ray’s drug possession, nor were the informant’s statements used against Ray, so the State was not obligated to disclose his or her identity, and there was no Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause violation. Accordingly, the Court affirmed Ray’s conviction. View "Ray v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

In 2005, the State of Mississippi filed suit against more than eighty prescription drug manufacturers alleging, among other things, that each committed common-law fraud and violations of the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act. The allegations primarily focused on whether the prescription-drug manufacturers inflated reported prices, which caused the Mississippi Division of Medicaid to reimburse pharmacies at inflated rates. The cases were eventually severed; this appeal involved only Watson Laboratories, Inc., Watson Pharma Inc., and Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (collectively “Watson”). Following a bench trial, the Chancery Court concluded that Watson had committed common-law fraud and had violated the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act. As a result, the chancery court awarded the State a total of $30,262,052 in civil penalties, compensatory damages, and punitive damages. The chancery court also awarded post-judgment interest of three percent on the compensatory and punitive damages. Watson appealed, challenging the chancery court’s decision; the State also filed a cross-appeals relating to damages. After review, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the chancery court’s judgment in favor of Mississippi Medicaid. Further, the Court affirmed the ruling on the State’s cross-appeal. View "Watson Laboratories, Inc. v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

In 2015, a grand jury indicted Tony Swinney for robbery with an enhancement for a crime committed against a victim of sixty-five years of age or older, and conspiracy to commit robbery. Earlier that year, Audrey Swinney drove her brother Tony and their cousin LaMarvin Swinney to rob “Bullets,” a convenience store in Flora, Mississipppi. Tony and LaMarvin entered the store and robbed Pyare Lal, the seventy-three-year-old proprietor of the store. A jury ultimately found Tony guilty on both counts of the indictment, and Tony was sentenced as a habitual offender under Mississippi Code section 99-19-83 (Rev. 2015) to life without the possibility of parole or early release for each count, with the sentences to run concurrently. The Mississippi Supreme Court found only that the evidence presented at the sentencing hearing would have met only the requirements of Section 99-19-81, vacated Tony’s sentences and remanded for resentencing. The Court found no other reversible error and affirmed in all other respects. View "Swinney v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Patrick Gray and Felecia Hannah Dotch petitioned the Chancery Court to allow Gray to adopt D.D.H. without terminating Dotch’s parental rights. Dotch and Gray have never been married, and only Dotch is listed on D.D.H.’s birth certificate. Near the time of D.D.H.’s conception, however, Dotch and Gray were in a romantic relationship, and both believed that Gray was D.D.H.’s father. Early in her life, D.D.H. lived with Gray and Gray’s mother. When D.D.H. was old enough to attend school, she began to live with Dotch. During this time, Gray exercised visitation with D.D.H. and continued to provide financial support to her. More than a decade after D.D.H’s birth, Gray discovered that he was not her biological father. After this, Gray continued to visit and support D.D.H. The identity of D.D.H.’s biological father was not known. Gray and Dotch now both are married to other people. After consideration, the chancellor denied the petition. Aggrieved, Gray and Dotch appealed, arguing that their due-process and equal-protection rights were infringed. After review, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed: the chancellor erred, as a matter of law, in finding that Mississippi Code Sections 93-17-3(4) and 93-17-13(2) (Supp. 2017) barred the adoption. As D.D.H.’s adoption by Gray was not barred by statute, it was unnecessary for the Supreme Court to perform a constitutional analysis of Sections 93-17-3(4) and 93-17-13(2). View "In the Matter of the Adoption of the Child Described in the Petition: D.D.H." on Justia Law

In 2011, Robert Terrell, through a middleman Archie Nicholson, recruited Ricardo Hawthorne to record forged property deeds purporting to convey John McLendon’s property to Hawthorne. Terrell and his coconspirators then used the forged deeds to fraudulently induce a timber company to buy the timber rights for $20,300 and, unbeknownst to McLendon, harvest his timber. A jury found Terrell guilty of timber theft, conspiracy to commit timber theft, false pretenses, and conspiracy to commit false pretenses. Because the evidence was sufficient to convict Terrell of both timber theft and false pretenses, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed those convictions and sentences. However, the Court agreed with Terrell that the evidence supported only one conspiracy between Terrell, Nicholson, and Hawthorne, not two. The Court therefore vacated his two conspiracy sentences and remanded those conspiracy convictions to the trial court with instructions to dismiss, at the State’s election, one of the conspiracy counts and resentence Terrell on the remaining conspiracy count. View "Terrell v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

After Natchez Regional Medical Center (“NRMC”) filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, H. Kenneth Lefoldt, who had been appointed trustee for the NRMC Liquidation Trust, sued NRMC’s former directors and officers in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, alleging breach of fiduciary duties of care, good faith, and loyalty. The directors and officers sought dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and argued that they were immune under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act (“MTCA”). The district court agreed and granted dismissal to the directors and officers. Lefoldt appealed, and the Fifth Circuit certified questions of Mississippi Law to the Mississippi Supreme Court pertaining to the MTCA as the exclusive remedy for a bankruptcy trustee standing in the shoes of a public hospital corporation against the employees or directors of that public corporation. If indeed the MTCA was the exclusive remedy, then did the MTCA permit the trustee to pursue any claims against the officers and directors in their personal capacity? The Mississippi Supreme Court answered the first question in the negative: the MTCA did not furnish the exclusive remedy for the bankruptcy trustee. View "Lefoldt v. Rentfro" on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from a Chancery Court judgment setting aside inter vivos gifts made by Sheila West. Acting through a durable power of attorney granted by her mother, Dorothy Johnson, Sheila West removed her brother’s, niece’s, and nephew’s names from certificates of deposit originally created by Dorothy Johnson, and replaced them with her own name and the names of her two daughters. Sheila’s brother, Ron Johnson, petitioned the chancery court to set aside these amendments as an improper transfer of an inter vivos gift. Following a trial on the matter, the chancellor found that Sheila did not overcome a presumption of undue influence in making what amounted to inter vivos gifts and thereby reverted ownership of the CDs to their original form. THe Mississippi Supreme Court found that because Dorothy Johnson retained an ownership interest in all of the CDs at issue, neither the original conveyance nor Sheila’s subsequent transfers could be considered inter vivos gifts. Therefore, the chancellor erred in his analysis of the issue. Also at issue in this matter was whether Sheila West engaged in self-dealing under the durable power of attorney granted to her by Dorothy Johnson. Finding that Sheila failed to overcome the burden of undue influence created by the confidential relationship between herself and Dorothy, the Supreme Court affirmed the chancellor’s decision to revert the CDs to their status prior to Sheila’s 2010 amendments. View "In the Matter of the Estate of Dorothy Johnson" on Justia Law