On Thursday the Mississippi Supreme Court vacated two Jones County jury verdicts rendered in one trial in Gallagher Bassett Services, Inc. v. Malone and remanded the case for further proceedings. Here is the Court’s opinion. Justice Lamar wrote for the Court.

The case stemmed from Gary Malone’s right leg amputation two years after he suffered a work-related injury. Malone sued Gallagher and his employer Nabors Drilling. Malone alleged that defendants committed a bad-faith delay in paying his workers comp. claim, causing a delay in medical treatment that led to the amputation of his leg.

Nabors filed a cross-claim against Gallagher and entered into a Mary Carter agreement with Malone under which Nabors admitted to bad-faith (by Gallagher) and paid Malone $1.5 million in exchange for the first $250,000 of any sums that Malone recovered from Gallagher and half of any additional sums recovered.

Malone’s claim and Nabors’s cross-claim were tried together. The jury rendered a verdict for Malone on his claim and awarded $250,000 in damages with fault apportioned among Gallagher (42.5%), Nabors (42.5%) and Malone (15%). The trial court entered final judgments against Nabors and Gallagher in the amounts of $106,250 each.

In a separate verdict the jury found for Nabors on its cross-claim against Gallagher and awarded damages in the amount of $1.25 million. The trial court did not submit the issue of punitive damages to the jury.

The Court found that the two verdicts were inconsistent and, therefore, the jury had to be confused. One jury instruction stated that in order to find for Nabors on its cross-claim the jury must find that nothing Nabors did contributed to Malone’s damages. But the jury both assessed fault to Nabors (42.5%) and found for Nabors on its cross-claim. The Court could not reconcile these inconsistent verdicts and vacated both verdicts and remanded the case.

The Court “strongly urge[d]” the trial court to sever Nabors’s cross-claim so that Malone’s claim and Nabors’s cross-claim are not tried in the same proceeding. You have to feel for the trial judge on this point [Judge Billy Joe Landrum], since no party asked for separate trials.

Notwithstanding the loss of his leg, you don’t have to feel particularly sorry for the plaintiff and his attorneys, since they get to keep the $1.5 million that Nabors already paid to plaintiff.

All participating justices concurred except for Justice Chandler, who argued in a dissent that the judgment against Gallagher should be reversed and rendered due to a lack of evidence of gross negligence, malice or reckless disregard.