Tag: Insurance

Mississippi Supreme Court Decisions of May 12, 2022

The Mississippi Supreme Court handed down six opinions today with subject matter covering capital murder conviction and death penalty, UM/UMI coverage, election contests, appellate procedure, wills, and judicial estoppel.

Johnson v. Brock, 2020-EC-00982-SCT (Civil – Election Contest/Summary Judgment)
Affirming summary judgment dismissing the plaintiffs’ contest the results of a city counsel election, holding that the plaintiffs failed to satisfy their burden in opposing summary judgment where the plaintiffs’ briefs relied upon affidavits that were not in the record and they otherwise failed to come forward with evidence that there were voting irregularities that led to their election losses.
(Justice King did not participate.)

Bufkin v. Geico Insurance Agency, Inc., 2021-CA-00251-SCT (Civil – Insurance/UM/UIM)
Affirming summary judgment in favor of the UM carrier, declining to overrule precedent holding that an employee is not legally entitled to make a claim under their employers’ underinsured motorist coverage.
(All justices concurred.)

Note – The plaintiff argued Mississippi’s law on this question of statutory interpretation was the minority approach and urged the Supreme Court to adopt the majority view. The Supreme Court declined to do so:

McRae v. Mitchell, 2021-IA-00101-SCT (Civil – Other/Interlocutory Appeal/Appellate Procedure)
Dismissing an appeal from a non-final judgment of the chancery court, explaining that the Mississippi Supreme Court treated the notice of appeal as a petition for interlocutory appeal and granted the petition, but held that it lacked jurisdiction since the notice of appeal was not filed within 21 days of after the entry of the non-final judgment.
(Chief Justice Randolph did not participate.)

Clark v. State, 2019-DP-00689-SCT (Criminal – Death Penalty – Direct Appeal)
Affirming conviction of capital murder and sentence to death by lethal injection for the slaying of a convenience store clerk in Canton, Mississippi. The issues raised on appeal that the Mississippi Supreme Court addressed were:


(Justice Kitchens dissented, joined by Justice King and Justice Ishee. Justice King dissented, joined by Justice Kitchens and Justice Ishee.)

NOTE – The majority opinion is 99 pages long plus 13 pages of appendices. There are 34 pages of dissents. The curt summary above does not do this opinion justice because I simply do not have the bandwidth to tackle the details of this opinion at this moment.

Estate of Bakarich v. Bakarich, 2020-IA-00339-SCT (Civil – Wills, Trusts, and Estates/Interlocutory Appeal)
Affirming the chancellor’s denial of the co-executrices’ request based on a fee-shifting provision in the will seeking to make a challenger pay the estate’s attorney’s fees in defending challenges to the co-executrices’ actions, but reversing the the chancellor’s decision directing the co-executrices to personally pay the estate’s costs and attorney’s fees associated with the underlying motions and petitions.
(Justice King concurred in part and dissented in part, joined by Justice Kitchens. Justice Beam did not participate.)

Jones v. Alcorn State University, 2020-CA-01238-SCT (Civil – Other/Judicial Estoppel)
Affirming the dismissal of the plaintiff’s breach of contract lawsuit, holding that the plaintiff’s lawsuit was barred by the doctrine of judicial estoppel because the plaintiff failed to reveal his lawsuit in two bankruptcy filings.
(Justice Maxwell [1] wrote a special concurrence, joined by Chief Justice Randolph (who wrote the majority opinion)[2], Justice Coleman [3], Justice Beam [4], and Justice Chamberlin [5], and by Justice Griffis in part. Justice Griffis concurred in part and dissented in part, joined by justice Kitchens.)

Question – What is the effect of a five-justice special concurrence from a nine-member court? Anything other than letting future litigants know that a majority of the court agrees whatever propositions are in the special concurrence? I will look into it later, but I do not know the answer off the top of my head.

Other Orders

Augustine v. State, 2019-CT-01467-SCT (denying motion for rehearing)
Johnson v. State, 2019-CT-01801-SCT (dismissing cert petition)
Figueroa v. State, 2020-CT-00114-SCT (denying cert petition)
Piccaluga v. State, 2020-CT-00346-SCT (denying cert petition)

Hand Down List Page

One more thing – At some point early this morning this blog had its 1,000th unique visit and passed 1,800 total hits in the three months since I launched it. Many thanks to those who have visited, subscribed, and shared the blog and to those who have provided encouragement and helpful feedback. I hope that it has been and continues to be a useful resource.

Mississippi Court of Appeals Hand Downs for February 8, 2022

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi v. Brown and Brown of Mississippi, LLC, 2020-CA-1414-COA (Civil – Contract/Garnishment)
Brown obtained two judgments against a BCBS insurance agent, enrolled the judgments, and then filed suit to enforce the judgments and suggestions for writs of garnishment against BCBS and others. BCBS denied it was indebted to the agent. The circuit court ordered BCBS to tender the agent’s commissions to Brown. BCBS appealed, and the court of appeals reversed the circuit court and rendered judgment in favor of BCBS, finding that the agent had assigned her interest in the commissions to a third party long before the writ of garnishment was served. The court of appeals also held that BCBS was entitled to its costs under section 11-35-45 and remanded to the circuit court to address that issue.

Ladner v. State, 2020-KA-299-COA (Criminal – Felony)
Affirming a conviction of possession of a firearm by a felon, holding that it was harmless error for the the circuit court to exclude non-hearsay testimony under the hearsay rule and that the circuit court did not err admitting body cam footage. The opinion lists a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel as one of the issues raised, but there is no discussion of that in the majority opinion, the special concurrence, or the dissent.

Nowell v. Stewart, 2020-CA-728-COA (Civil – Domestic Relations/Child Support)
Affirming the chancellor’s judgment increasing the child support modification based on a material change in circumstances.

Mangum v. State, 2020-CP-1205-COA (Civil – Post-Conviction Relief)
Affirming the circuit court’s dismissal of a motion for PCR based on the statute of limitations and the successive-motions bar.

United Services Automobile Association v. Moffatt, 2020-CA-1391-COA (Civil – Insurance/UM UIM)
The county court granted summary judgment in favor of a UM carrier, finding that the amended complaint naming the UM carrier was time barred because it was filed more than three years after the accident. The plaintiff appealed to the circuit court and the summary judgment was reversed. The UM carrier appealed to the court of appeals and the court of appeals affirmed the circuit court and remanded the case to the county court. The court of appeals held that there was a genuine fact issue for a jury as to when the plaintiff’s UM claim accrued based on when it could be reasonably known that the damages suffered exceed the limits of insurance available to the alleged tortfeasor.

Lowe v. State, 2019-KA-1621 (Criminal – Felony/Confrontation Clause)
Affirming a conviction of the sale of cocaine and sentencing as a habitual offender, holding that an officer’s testimony that a non-testifying confidential informant said she had bought drugs from the defendant in the past violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment but was harmless error.

Other Orders
6 Rehearing Denials

Link to Hand Down List