I am circling back to pick up the rest of the hand downs that I missed last week. The Mississippi Supreme Court handed down six opinions last Thursday with a couple of reversals. There were two skirmishes in med mal cases, one involved an arbitration agreement and the other the substitution of the administrator of an estate. There is a UM case about the right to UM benefits after cutting off the carrier’s subrogation rights. There is also a sixteenth section land case and what should have been an MTCA case. The Supreme Court also denied a petition for reinstatement to the practice of law.
Mississippi Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co. v. Peteet, 2021-IA-01420-SCT (Civil – Insurance)
Reversing the denial of a motion to dismiss by a UM carrier, holding that the insured’s execution of a settlement agreement with the at-fault driver unlawfully cut off the UM carrier’s right of subrogation and the UM carrier therefore had no duty to pay the UM claim.
(9-0)
Sill v. State, 2021-KA-00317-SCT (Criminal – Felony)
Affirming conviction of possession of meth, holding that the trial court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence found in his car because the defendant did not prove that he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in a stolen vehicle, that the State met its burden to prove construction possession, and that the jury could reasonable infer that the untested substance was of the same substance as what was tested.
(9-0)
Belhaven Senior Care, LLC v. Smith, 2022-CA-00050-SCT (Civil – Contract)
Affirming denial of a motion to compel arbitration, holding that the facility failed to prove that the signatory of the arbitration agreement was the resident’s healthcare surrogate, that the plaintiff was not barred by direct-benefit estoppel from contesting the validity of the arbitration agreement, and that the decdent was not a third-party beneficiary of the agreement.
(9-0)
North Bolivar Consolidated Sch. Dist. v. Jones, 2021-IA-01235-SCT (Civil – Real Property)
Reversing the denial of the school district’s motion for summary judgment, holding that the school district’s past acceptance of late rent payments for sixteenth section land were not authorized and could not form the basis of estoppel that would prevent the school district from assessing statutory late-payment penalties.
(9-0)
Morton v. City of Clarksdale, 2022-CA-00216-SCT (Civil – Torts)
Affirming the dismissal of claims that an arrest violated constitutional rights, holding that most of the plaintiff’s claims fell under the MTCA and were barred by the MTCA’s one-year statute of limitations, that the constitutional claims were barred by the three-year statute of limitations, and that the malicious prosecution claim was barred by the one-year statute of limitations for such claims.
(9-0)
Otuseso v. Estate of Mason, 2021-IA-01099-SCT (Civil – Wills, Trusts and Estates)
Affirming the chancellor’s decision removing the administratrix of an estate who had filed a wrongful death suit against a doctor on behalf of the estate and substituting two heirs-at-law as coadminstrators, holding that the doctor’s motion to intervene in the chancery court proceedings was moot since the chancellor had properly removed the unqualified administrator and appointed successor administrators.
(9-0)
Other Orders
Stewart v. The Mississippi Bar, 2022-BR-00382-SCT (denying fourth petition for reinstatement to the practice of law)
Virden v. Campbell Delong, LLC, 2021-CT-00478-SCT (granting cert)
I put this on the “cert watch” list when the COA opinion was handed down. It is a lawyer fight over money with a 5-5 COA decision that left the trial court’s ruling in place. (My summary of the COA decision is here.)
Mississippi Appeals Blog 