In a recent decision, the Mississippi Court of Appeals cited a law review article written by shareholder Madison Taylor. One issue before the Court of Appeals in Foote v. Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, 2023-CA-00504-COA (Miss. Ct. App. Mar. 25, 2025), was the role of the jury where one defendant was a public entity sued for medical malpractice under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act (MTCA) and two other defendants were private entities. A conflict arises in this scenario under current procedural law because the public-entity defendant is entitled to a bench trial under the MTCA and the private defendants are entitled to a jury trial. There are no rules or cases that directly address the proper procedure for trials when this conflict arises.
Taylor’s article, published by the Mississippi Law Journal in 2011, analyzed this unresolved conflict and proposed a procedure that would respect these competing rights. In the Foote case, the public defendant cited Taylor’s article and urged the trial court to adopt Taylor’s proposed procedure. The plaintiff, on the other hand, argued for a modified approach and that the trial court took. After the trial, the plaintiff appealed and argued that the trial court should have followed Taylor’s proposed procedure, but the Court of Appeals held that the plaintiff could not complain on appeal that the trial court adopted the plaintiff’s own proposal. In the end, the Foote decision discussed the issue but did not make a substantive ruling to address or resolve this conflict so it awaits resolution in a future case.
Madison Taylor is a shareholder at Wilkins Patterson who leads the firm’s growing appellate practice and represents clients in a variety of areas including workers’ compensation defense and general liability defense.
You can read the article here.
You can read the Foote v. Memorial Hospital at Gulfport decision here.