Mississippi Litigation Review & Commentary : Mississippi Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Phillip W. Thomas Law Firm : MS Litigation Review & Commentary

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

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 5^th  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.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Ya'll Politics and the Commercial Appeal have the story of a DeSoto County jury awarding $30 million to a teenager who spent eight months in a coma and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury after his vehicle was hit by an over-weight gravel truck driven by an inexperienced driver. The passenger in the vehicle was killed. The truck driver pleaded guilty to manslaughter and aggravated assault and was sentenced to fifteen years probation. The defendant in the trial was APAC Tennessee, Inc., a road paving company. The jury apportioned APAC 70% of the fault. Paul Scott represented the Plaintiff and Bill Luckett represented the Defendant. Luckett tries a lot of cases and wins his share. Although the article is not clear on this point, APAC may be liable for only $21 million (70% of $30 million).  

I suspect that the defendant's insurance carrier was counting on a conservative DeSoto County jury going easy on the defendant. DeSoto County is 76% white and very conservative. Some insurance companies read too much into statistics like that and try cases that should be settled. While many times the tactic works, when it does not it can result in a big verdict. That is especially true in a case like this where there was surely a staggering amount of economic damages.