City of Jackson v. Presley


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Docket Number: 2004-CA-02284-SCT

Supreme Court: Opinion Link
Opinion Date: 11-16-2006
Opinion Author: CARLSON, J.
Holding: REVERSED AND REMANDED

Additional Case Information: Topic: Personal injury - Tort Claims Act - Sua sponte entry of default judgment - M.R.C.P. 55
Judge(s) Concurring: SMITH, C.J., WALLER AND COBB, P.JJ., EASLEY, DICKINSON AND RANDOLPH, JJ.
Non Participating Judge(s): GRAVES, J.
Dissenting Author : DIAZ, J., Without Separate Written Opinion
Procedural History: Bench Trial
Nature of the Case: CIVIL - PERSONAL INJURY

Trial Court: Date of Trial Judgment: 11-03-2004
Appealed from: Hinds County Circuit Court
Judge: Tomie Green
Disposition: Entered judgment against the Appellant after one day bench trial
Case Number: 251-99-465CIV

  Party Name: Attorney Name:  
Appellant: CITY OF JACKSON




MICHELLE LYNN McKENZIE DONNA BROWN JACOBS LEANN W. NEALEY PIETER JOHN TEEUWISSEN



 

Appellee: LYNDA KEY PRESLEY ROBERT P. MYERS, JR. JOE SAM OWEN  

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Topic: Personal injury - Tort Claims Act - Sua sponte entry of default judgment - M.R.C.P. 55

Summary of the Facts: On May 8, 1998, Lynda Presley, of Saucier, Harrison County, was involved in an automobile accident on Highway 15 south of New Albany, in Union County. Presley’s personal and property injuries were relatively minor. Presley was involved in another vehicular accident only twelve days later while traveling on the city streets of Jackson. A City of Jackson police car driven by officer Miranda Morton collided with Presley’s vehicle, causing her vehicle to roll over several times. Presley filed a complaint against the City of Jackson and officer Miranda Morton in the Circuit Court for the First Judicial District of Hinds County. The City timely responded to Presley’s complaint. The trial court entered an agreed order granting Presley leave to file an amended complaint, and a few days later, the amended complaint was filed. The only difference between the complaint and the amended complaint was an additional sentence asserting a claim for property damage. Although the City failed to timely respond to this properly filed amended complaint, all parties continued on the course of discovery for over four years after the filing of the amended complaint. The trial court sua sponte entered an order referring this case to mediation. With mediation proving unsuccessful, the parties continued discovery and worked toward an eventual trial date of August 25, 2004. The City, on August 5, 2004, suddenly filed an answer and affirmative defenses to the amended complaint. The trial court entered a pretrial order which had been jointly submitted by Presley and the City. One of the outstanding motions was Presley’s motion to strike, as untimely filed, the City’s answer and affirmative defenses to the amended complaint. After hearing arguments on this motion, the trial judge granted Presley’s motion to strike this untimely filed answer and, without any request from Presley, the trial court likewise, sua sponte, entered a default judgment as to liability and announced to the parties that it would conduct a bench trial only on the issue of damages. On November 4, 2004, the trial judge entered a final judgment consistent with the memorandum opinion awarding Presley the sum of $219,763.63 against the City of Jackson, as well as legal interest and costs. The City appeals.

Summary of Opinion Analysis: As of the filing of the City’s answer and affirmative defenses on June 28, 1999, the issues were joined in this litigation, as confirmed by the actions taken by the parties, through counsel, from 1999 all the way up to the day of trial – August 25, 2004. The amended complaint was filed on June 27, 2000. A meticulous review of the amended complaint, when laid side-by-side with the original complaint and compared, line-by-line, reveals that the original complaint and the amended complaint are identical, except for one sentence which was added to the amended complaint – “Additionally, Presley has incurred property damage as a proximate result of Morton’s negligence and the resulting accident.” In its untimely filed answer and affirmative defenses to the amended complaint, the City virtually mirrored its timely filed responsive pleading to the original complaint, but the City did add three additional affirmative defenses. The City added affirmative defenses of res judicata based on the Union County Circuit Court lawsuit; accord and satisfaction based on the execution of the general release in settlement of the first lawsuit; and, setoff or credit for sums Presley received in the settlement of the first lawsuit. based on the factual and procedural history of this case, as the parties and counsel appeared in court for the trial of this case on August 25, 2004, it is apparent that the City and the plaintiff walked into the courtroom prepared to, and expecting to, try this case, both as to liability and damages. As of the trial date, although the City’s answer (and affirmative defenses) to the amended complaint was unquestionably filed over four years late, Presley, nor her counsel, had requested the clerk to enter a clerk’s default pursuant to M.R.C.P. 55(a), nor had they requested that the court enter a default judgment as to liability. The only motion attacking the City’s late filing of the answer and affirmative defenses to the amended complaint was a motion to strike. Presley’s motion to strike the City’s untimely filed answer and affirmative defenses to the amended complaint indisputably did not mention the words “default” or “default judgment.” At the hearing on the motion to strike, after Presley’s counsel gave a very brief three-sentence explanation in support of the motion to strike, all Presley’s counsel had to do was sit down and let the trial judge take over from there. The next ten pages of the transcript are consumed with the trial judge’s “dressing down” of the City’s attorney for the admittedly four-year late answer to the amended complaint. The trial court either refused to accept, or failed to grasp, the fact that the only difference between the complaint and the amended complaint was the addition in the amended complaint of this one sentence “Additionally, Presley has incurred property damage as a proximate result of Morton’s negligence and the resulting accident.” Without ever uttering another word to the trial judge, Presley received not only a favorable ruling on her motion to strike the City’s answer to the amended complaint, she received that which to this day she has yet to ask the trial court for – a default judgment as to liability. It is critical to remember that there existed on the day of trial a jointly submitted pretrial order signed by the attorneys and the trial judge, and that this order provided, inter alia, that “[t]he pleadings are amended to conform to this pretrial order.” By this time, the City had filed its answer to the amended complaint. Based on the existing pretrial order, the trial court abused its discretion by striking the City’s answer to the amended complaint. The trial judge wholly failed to acknowledge at any time that all the parties, including the plaintiff, spent considerable time preparing for trial on all issues; and, that the plaintiff, notwithstanding the obvious non-filing of the City’s answer and affirmative defenses to the amended complaint for our four years, never sought a clerk’s entry of default or a default judgment from the trial court. M.R.C.P. 55(b) and the comments to the Rule provide that while the trial court has authority, under certain circumstances, to enter a default judgment on the day of trial, the appearing defaulting party at least has a right to attempt to defend against a potential entry of a default judgment. Based on Presley’s filing of her motion to strike the City’s late filing of its answer and affirmative defenses to the amended complaint, the City no doubt knew that it would be called upon in open court to argue against the trial court’s striking of this pleading, but until the defendants walked into the courtroom on the trial date, not only the defendants, but also the plaintiff, were totally unaware of the fact that the trial judge was ultimately going to sua sponte enter default judgment as to liability. There was no consideration by the trial judge of the Comments’ suggested factors to aid the trial courts in determining whether entry of a default judgment is appropriate. When the propriety of the entry of a default judgment is in question, and when there appears a desire on the part of a defaulting litigant to defend, the entry of a default judgment is not the preferred way of disposing of litigation. This case is wholly lacking in merit as to any justifiable reason for the trial court’s sua sponte entry of a default judgment as to liability against the defendants.


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