I wrote in 2011 about the $23 million verdict in Hinds County in the Archey v. Marriott case. The case involved a Jackson police officer working as a security guard at the downtown Marriott shooting the plaintiff. Both Marriott and the City of Jackson were defendants.

Prior posts on the verdict are here, here and here.

The jury awarded $23 million to the plaintiff and apportioned 70% of the fault to Marriott and 30% to the City. But the apportionment of fault to City was not binding as to the City because the claim against the City was subject to the Tort Claims Act.

Yesterday Hinds County Circuit Judge Winston Kidd dismissed the plaintiff’s claim against the City. The key language of Judge Kidd’s order was:

The jury in this cause of action, with respect to the claims against defendant CP Jackson, found that the wrongful acts of Officer DeWayne West occurred within the course and scope of his employment with Marriott Hotel. The Court, therefore, finds that Officer West was not working for the City of Jackson at the time of the incident herein and, pursuant to § 17–25–11(3), the plaintiffs’ claims against the City of Jackson should be dismissed.

Judge Kidd also entered a separate order reducing the jury’s award of non-economic damages from $3 million to $1 million due to the cap and reducing the judgment against CP Jackson (Marriott) to $14,700,000 (70% of the reduced verdict amount).

Here are Judge Kidd’s orders.

This case had an interesting intersection between the jury’s decision making role and the judge’s decision under the Tort Claims Act. The verdict was reduced due to the apportionment to the City even though the City was immune. I guess that’s okay since fault and immunity are separate concepts. Although I’m not sure how it could have been the City’s fault if the guard was working for the hotel when he shot the plaintiff.

Here is an earlier post on Jackson lawyer Madison Taylor’s law journal article on the jury vs. bench trial conflict in multi-party litigation. The article concludes that there does not have to be consistency between the jury’s and judge’s rulings.