Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

After being arrested twice in a two-day span, once in Lauderdale County (Mississippi) and once in Jones County, for being suspected of driving under the influence and public intoxication, Shelley Rose allegedly drove a rental van the wrong way down Interstate 59 in Pearl River County. A motor vehicle collision ensued, killing Jada Bright. Plaintiff Estate of Jada Bright (Bright) filed a wrongful death suit at the Pearl River County Circuit Court against Defendants Estate of Shelley Rose; EAN Holdings, LLC; Enterprise Leasing Company-South Central, LLC; Elco Administrative Services Company; Enterprise Holdings, Inc.; National Car Rental System, Inc.; Lauderdale County; Jones County; City of Ellisville; Beech’s Towing & Recovery LLC; ABC 1-5; and John Does 1-5, and asserted that venue was proper per Mississippi Code Section 11-11-3 (Rev. 2019) because the claim arose out of a motor vehicle accident which occurred in Pearl River County. Defendants Jones County, Lauderdale County, and the City of Ellisville, filed motions to change venue, alleging that they had not been sued in the proper venue, based on the specific venue statute, Mississippi Code Section 11-46-13(2) (Rev. 2019), of the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. The trial court ultimately denied the motions, and the Counties and City petitioned for an interlocutory appeal. After review, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the circuit court’s judgment denying the change of venue motions, and remanded the case with instructions to transfer venue either to Jones County or Lauderdale County. View "Jones County, et al. v. Estate of Jada Bright, et al." on Justia Law

The Mississippi Court of Appeals dismissed Omar Humphrey's appeal relating to a public records request. In 2020, Humphrey filed a singular document titled "Complaint for Violation of the Mississippi Public Records Act of 1983." The defendants to this complaint were Steve Holts, police chief of Senatobia, and John Champion, district attorney for the Seventeenth Circuit Court District. Humphrey’s complaint alleged that neither Holts nor Champion had responded to his letters requesting evidence and documents that related to his conviction. Humphrey’s complaint alleged the same basis for his claims against both Holts and Champion and made very little, if any, distinction between the two other than referencing the individual letters sent to each defendant. The Court of Appeals dismissed Humphrey's direct appeal for want of an appealable judgment. The Mississippi Supreme Court found there was in fact, a final, appealable judgment, and that the Court of Appeals should have decided Humphrey’s appeal on the merits. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ judgment and remanded the case for that court to decide on the merits of the appeal. View "Humphrey v. Holts, et al." on Justia Law

Phillip and Anna Kennedy contracted with DIMA Homes, Inc., to build a house on property they owned in Marion County, Mississippi. The Kennedys failed to pay DIMA, and DIMA obtained a judgment, which it properly enrolled, creating a judgment lien on the property. The Kennedys then failed to pay property taxes, and in 2016, the land was sold at a tax sale to ACC Tax Sales Property, LLC. HL&C Marion, LLC, obtained the property from ACC. DIMA did not receive notice of the tax sale. In 2019, more than two years after the tax sale, HL&C filed suit to quiet title. The chancery court ruled that the failure to give written notice of the sale to DIMA resulted in an extension of the two-year redemption period and set aside the tax sale. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Granting certiorari review, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and the chancellor, holding that no legal authority required notice of the tax sale to have been given to DIMA. Accordingly, judgment was rendered in favor of HL&C Marion. View "HL&C Marion, LLC v. DIMA Homes, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2017, Jeremy Thornhill said that he had injured his back while working. He sought workers’ compensation benefits from his employer, Walker-Hill and its insurance carrier, Zurich American Insurance Company of Illinois, but the Employer/Carrier denied that Thornhill had sustained a compensable injury. Ultimately, the parties agreed to compromise and settled pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 71-3-29 (Rev. 2021). Thornhill submitted the settlement to the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission for approval. After examining the application, the Commission approved the settlement and dismissed Thornhill’s case with prejudice. Pursuant to the settlement, Thornhill signed a general release, which reserved his right to pursue a bad faith claim. Believing he had exhausted his administrative remedies, Thornhill filed a bad faith suit against the Employer/Carrier; the Employer/Carrier moved to dismiss the case, arguing the circuit court lacked jurisdiction because the Commission never made a factual finding that he was entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. The trial court concurred it lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the case. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, finding that Thornhill had exhausted his administrative remedies and that the circuit court had jurisdiction to hear his bad faith claim. The appeals court determined that “Thornhill exhausted his administrative remedies because he fully and finally settled his workers’ compensation claim against the Employer/Carrier, the Commission approved the settlement, and there is nothing left pending before the Commission.” To this, the Mississippi Supreme Court agreed. The circuit court judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Thornhill v. Walker-Hill Environmental, et al." on Justia Law

Tuwanda Williams and John Williams, Jr., filed a “Joint Motion to Dismiss Fault Grounds and Consent to Divorce on Grounds of Irreconcilable Differences” and submitted for review a judgment of divorce based on irreconcilable differences and a divorce agreement. Shortly thereafter, Tuwanda changed her mind. She withdrew her consent to the divorce agreement and also withdrew her consent to the divorce based on irreconcilable differences. John moved to enforce the divorce agreement. The chancellor found that Tuwanda timely withdrew her consent to the irreconcilable-differences divorce but that the divorce agreement was an enforceable contract binding on both Tuwanda and John. The chancellor granted John’s motion to enforce the divorce agreement and entered what he called a “final judgment” incorporating the agreement. Tuwanda appealed. The Mississippi Supreme Court found that because the order entitled “final judgment” was not a final, appealable judgment, it lacked jurisdiction to review. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed. View "Williams v. Williams" on Justia Law

Kimberlyn Seals and her counsels of record, Felecia Perkins, Jessica Ayers, and Derek D. Hopson, Sr., appealed a chancery court's: (1) Contempt Order entered on April 8, 2020; (2) the Temporary Order entered on April 28, 2020; (3) the Jurisdictional Final Judgment entered on June 16, 2020; (4) the Final Judgment on Motion for Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law entered on June 18, 2020; and (5) the Amended Final Judgment entered on June 18, 2020. Seals argued the chancellor lacked jurisdiction and erroneously found them to be in contempt of court. These orders arose out of a paternity suit filed by the father of Seals' child, born 2017. A hearing was set for April 7, 2020, but Seals sought a continuance. The motion was deemed untimely, and that the court expected Seals and her counsel to appear at the April 7 hearing. When Seals and her counsel failed to appear, the court entered the contempt orders at issue before the Mississippi Supreme Court. The Supreme Court: (1) affirmed the chancellor’s finding that Perkins and Ayers were in direct criminal contempt for their failure to appear at a scheduled April 7 hearing; (2) vacated the $3,000 sanction because it exceeded the penalties prescribed by statute; (3) affirmed the award of attorneys’ fees to opposing counsel; (4) found the chancellor erred in finding Hopson to be in direct criminal contempt for failing to appear - "Constructive criminal contempt charges require procedural safeguards of notice and a hearing;" and (5) found the chancellor erroneously found the attorneys to be in direct criminal contempt for violation of the September 2019 Temporary Order. "If proved, such acts are civil contempt." The matter was remanded for a determination of whether an indirect civil contempt proceeding should be commenced. View "Seals, et al. v. Stanton" 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

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