Miss. S. Ct. Yet to Schedule Oral Arguments in Two Damages Caps Cases
There are at least two cases currently before the Mississippi Supreme Court that challenge the constitutionality of Mississippi's damages caps. Oral argument has not been scheduled in either case.
The first appeal is the APAC v. Bryant case from this 2009 DeSoto County verdict in the amount of $30 million to a teenager who spent eight months in a coma and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury following a collision with a gravel truck. The truck driver pleaded guilty to manslaughter and aggravated assault. A review of the docket suggests that briefing is not complete. The appellees filed their brief on February 25, 2011. The appellant has not filed a reply. The case has not been submitted for a decision and will not be until the case is fully briefed.
The second case is the Learmonth v. Sears case reported here. This is the case where the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals certified the issue of the constitutionality of the caps to the Miss. Supreme Court. Here is the Court's docket in the case, which shows that briefing has not even started.
Procedurally, the APAC case is months ahead of the Sears case. But the APAC case probably involves more issues on appeal that just the caps. The Sears case has one issue before the Court: the constitutionality of the caps.
At this point, the question is when will oral argument be and when will the Court issue decisions? The short answer is no time soon. It's likely that the earliest that the Court will schedule oral argument in the cases is sometime this summer. That would likely mean a decision in the fall.
Here is the Court's docket calendar for March through April. I only see two oral arguments on it. One of those has a record of only two volumes, so that case has not been tried yet. The second argument is on April 19, 2011 in the Sherwin-Williams lead paint trial in Jefferson County. I talked about that verdict here, here and here.
Update, 3-8-11, 1:30 p.m.: A reader alerted me to the fact that in the Learmonth v. Sears case, briefing is actually complete because the briefs came from the 5th Circuit and there will be no further briefing other than the amicus briefs.
Why no further briefing? Did the court order that particularly? MRAP 20 suggests at least one brief is to be submitted.
Very informative Phillip. Thank you for your consistently high quality blog posts. I check back often.