Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

Helen Schroeder appealed a circuit court's grant of summary judgment to the Estate of Harry Schroeder, arguing that the trial court erred in finding that the Estate was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the grounds of release, res judicata, and accord and satisfaction. A log truck driven by Royce Sullivan collided with the rear of an automobile being driven by Harry Schroeder, who had just pulled his car onto a highway. Harry died as a result of the accident; his wife, Helen (a passenger in her husband’s car) suffered severe injuries, permanent disability, and diminished mental capacity. Helen, both individually, and as one of Harry’s wrongful-death beneficiaries, sued Sullivan in federal court, alleging that Sullivan’s negligence had caused Harry’s death and her permanent disability. Sullivan moved for summary judgment at the close of discovery, arguing that the uncontradicted evidence established Harry’s negligence as the sole cause of the accident. In denying summary judgment, the federal judge stated that the evidence created a jury question as to Sullivan’s fault, and that “plaintiffs do not appear to dispute Harry Schroeder’s potential contributory negligence.” The parties settled and agreed to a release of claims, and the district court dismissed the case. Following the settlement agreement, release, and subsequent dismissal of the action against Sullivan, Helen filed suit against Harry in Mississippi circuit court, alleging Harry negligently had failed to yield the right of way and pulled in front of Sullivan’s log truck at an extremely slow rate of speed, causing the accident which resulted in Helen’s permanent disability. Harry moved for summary judgment, arguing Helen pleaded facts in her complaint that were materially different from the facts she alleged in the federal court case, and that the state trial court should grant summary judgment based on the doctrines of judicial and equitable estoppel. Harry also argued the settlement and release of claims against Sullivan in federal court barred the circuit-court action under the doctrines of contractual release, accord and satisfaction, and res judicata. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Harry and found that Helen was judicially estopped from bringing a claim against Harry. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed and remanded. Harry again moved for summary judgment, and the trial court granted it based on res judicata, accord and satisfaction and contractual release. Finding the trial court erred a second time in granting Harry's motion as to all three issues, the Supreme Court again reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Clark v. Neese" on Justia Law

The estate and beneficiaries of Charles Norman, Sr., appeal the trial court’s exclusion of Norman’s medical experts and grant of summary judgment in favor of Anderson Regional Medical Center. In 2011, Charles Norman, Sr., was admitted to Anderson Regional and underwent a cardiac catheterization with stent placement, which was performed by his cardiologist, Dr. Michael Purvis. Dr. Purvis performed the procedure without significant complication, and he expected to discharge Norman two days later. At some point during the overnight hours of December 13 to 14, 2011, Norman suffered an ischemic stroke. Norman’s wife complained to nursing staff that she observed symptoms of a stroke as early as 7:00 a.m. the next morning, which the nurses documented in Norman’s chart at 8:00 a.m. Neither Dr. Purvis nor any other medical doctor was notified of the stroke until much later in the day. By the time the doctors became aware of the stroke, the time frame within which a “clot-buster” drug used to restore blood flow to a stroke victim’s brain was to be effectively administered had passed. Norman remained at Anderson Regional two to three days after he had his stroke. He was then transferred to a step-down unit for rehabilitation before finally being transferred to Bedford Nursing Home at Marion, Mississippi, where he remained for the rest of his life. Norman sued Anderson Regional a little more than a year before his death. Because the trial court properly found that Norman’s experts’ testimony lacked sufficient foundation in the medical literature and because no genuine issue of material fact remained, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed exclusion of the experts' testimony. View "Norman v. Anderson Regional Medical Center" on Justia Law

This appeal was one of many civil and criminal cases arising out of the attempted murder of Lee Abraham, allegedly orchestrated by Dr. Arnold Smith. The trial court sanctioned Smith’s attorney, William Bell, for violating its order sealing a portion of a document. Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion in sanctioning Bell, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. View "Smith v. Hickman" on Justia Law

Mary Mac Atkinson alleged she was injured after slipping on a liquid substance at Clinton Healthcare. After the parties conducted significant amounts of discovery, Atkinson moved for a spoliation determination, requesting a spoliation jury instruction regarding a missing video, and moved for partial summary judgment as to liability. Clinton Healthcare moved for summary judgment. The trial court granted the motion for spoliation, granted Atkinson’s motion for partial summary judgment, and denied Clinton Healthcare’s motion for summary judgment. The Mississippi Supreme Court determined genuine issues of material fact remained, and the trial court erred by granting Atkinson’s motion for partial summary judgment, but correctly denied Clinton Healthcare’s motion for summary judgment. Additionally, the Supreme Court found the trial court’s order regarding spoliation and the entitlement to a spoliation jury instruction was premature. Therefore, the trial court was affirmed in part, reversed in part, the spoliation order was vacated, and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Clinton Healthcare, LLC v. Atkinson" on Justia Law

Sallie Amerson sued Inland Family Clinic LLC and Dr. Ikechukwu Okorie over an allegedly defamatory statement Dr. Okorie made to another physician concerning Amerson’s apparent use of illegal drugs. The Defendants moved for summary judgment, contending the statements were privileged, but the Circuit Court denied the motion. Inland and Dr. Okorie petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court for interlocutory review, which was granted. After consideration, the Supreme Court reversed the circuit court and rendered judgment in favor of Inland and Dr. Okorie. The Court found there was no genuine issue of material fact as to the substance of Dr. Okorie’s communication to the other physician regarding Amerson’s drug-test results. “By all accounts, the communication concerned Amerson’s continuing medical treatment and satisfied all of the elements of the qualified privilege. Since Amerson failed to produce any evidence of malice, her defamation claims fail as a matter of law.” View "Inland Family Practice Center, LLC v. Amerson" on Justia Law

James Owens had been experiencing drug-withdrawal symptoms when he wandered off his work shift onto a dark Louisiana highway. At that time, Will Gates was driving his employer’s truck when he struck Owens. Gates did not see Owens, and the truck never left its lane of travel. Owens filed a negligence suit against Gates and his employer. The case proceeded to trial, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of Gates and his employer. After review, the Mississippi Supreme Court found the evidence supported the jury’s verdict that Gates had not been negligent. Furthermore, the Court found no merit to Owens’s claim that the judge wrongly denied his request for a mistrial based on Gates’s cousin Abraham Gates, a justice court judge, acting as a jury consultant in his case. View "Fairley v. Total Transportation of Mississippi, LLC" on Justia Law

Patsy Wood, administratix of Patricia Peoples’s estate and a wrongful death beneficiary, as well as Sandra Kay Madison and Samuel Peoples, Peoples’s other children and wrongful death beneficiaries, sued Lakeland Nursing and its employees, primarily the nurses involved in caring for Peoples, for negligence. Lakeland Nursing and Nurses Brittany Spann, Mary McGowan, Patricia Rhodes, and Barbara Scott (collectively “the Nurses”) filed motions to dismiss, arguing that Wood did not comply with the presuit notice requirements provided in Mississippi Code Section 15-1-36(15) (Rev. 2012). Peoples, a resident at Lakeland Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, LLC, fell on September 12, 2011, and died from her injuries. Her children sued Lakeland Nursing and the Nurses for negligence. The issue this interlocutory appeal presented for the Mississippi Supreme Court's review centered on whether Patsy Wood gave proper presuit notice to the Nurses pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 15-1-36(15), such that the circuit court correctly denied the Nurses’ motions to dismiss. Finding that Wood failed to do so, the Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s denial of the Nurses’ motion to dismiss, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Spann v. Wood" on Justia Law

While recovering from surgery at Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, eighty-nine-year-old Lautain Scruggs fell after getting out of her hospital bed. Scruggs suffered a serious head injury that required almost immediate surgery. Several years later, Scruggs died; her death was unrelated to the head injury. Scruggs’s daughters Julia Cavalier and Jannette Scruggs McDonald and her estate (collectively Cavalier) filed a complaint against Memorial Hospital for medical negligence. Pursuant to the Mississippi Tort Claims Act, the trial court conducted a bench trial, with the evidence essentially being a battle-of -the-experts on the appropriate standard of care as it related to Memorial Hospital’s fall-risk assessment tool. Ultimately, the trial court found in favor of Memorial Hospital, and Cavalier filed a motion for a new trial. The trial court denied Cavalier’s motion for a new trial, so Cavalier filed this appeal. Finding no reversible error, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. View "Cavalier v. Memorial Hospital at Gulfport" on Justia Law

Curtis Brown petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court for certiorari review of a Court of Appeals decision affirming a circuit court judgment in favor of Professional Building Services (PBS). Brown was the former clubhouse manager at Colonial Country Club in Jackson, Mississippi, which closed its doors in 2014. On September 28, 2012, Brown arrived at the clubhouse around 5 p.m. to do a monthly inventory of the “19th Hole Lounge” and “the grill”—a restaurant inside the clubhouse. That night, PBS employees also were at the clubhouse, cleaning and vacuuming the grill area. Around 8:00 p.m., the PBS staff left, leaving Brown alone in the clubhouse. Walking the grounds in relative darkness, he stumbled over a chair positioned in a doorway. He was taken to the hospital. Accounts differed as to how Brown said he was injured: he told a doctor he hit the chair; a bartender from the clubhouse says Brown told her he was chasing a mouse. Brown claimed the trial court had abused its discretion by admitting certain evidence and by instructing the jury with instructions to which Brown had objected at trial. Finding that the jury was instructed properly on this evidence and that the testimony was provided by an expert qualified under Mississippi Rule of Evidence 702, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts' judgments. View "Brown v. Professional Building Services, Inc." on Justia Law

Officer Michael Kelly was responding to a call that an intoxicated person was lying unconscious on the sidewalk outside the Days Inn in Clinton, Mississippi. While en route, his police vehicle collided with Patrice Tornes’s car. Tornes sued Officer Kelly and his employer, the City of Clinton, claiming Officer Kelly’s “reckless and negligent actions directly caused the subject accident.” Specifically, she alleged Officer Kelly “caused his vehicle to be driven in a careless, negligent, and reckless manner and without due regard for the safety and convenience of Patrice Tornes, and without giving any warning sign or proper signal of the approach of said vehicle.” And she asserted the City of Clinton was “vicariously liable for its employee’s careless, negligent, and reckless operation of his vehicle while acting in the course and scope of his employment as an officer for the City of Clinton Police Department.” She also claimed the City was liable for its own actions—specifically, “its negligent training of its employee in how to properly operate his motor vehicle in accordance for the safety of others” and its negligent entrustment of the subject vehicle to Officer Kelly on the day the wreck occurred. Both Officer Kelly and the City moved for summary judgment, claiming immunity from suit. This case came before the Mississippi Supreme Court on interlocutory appeal, because the trial court ruled in Tornes' favor. The Supreme Court held the municipality and the officer could not be liable for plaintiff's claims under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act, reversed the denial of summary judgment and rendered judgment in defendants' favor. View "City of Clinton v. Tornes" on Justia Law