City of Jackson v. Williamson

• Decision Date: 25 February 1999
• Docket Number: No. 95-CT-01072-SCT.,95-CT-01072-SCT.
• Citation: 740 So.2d 818
• Parties: CITY OF JACKSON, Mississippi v. Charles WILLIAMSON and Beth Williamson.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

740 So.2d 818

CITY OF JACKSON, Mississippi v. Charles WILLIAMSON and Beth Williamson.

No. 95-CT-01072-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

February 25, 1999.

William A. Gowan, Jr., Jackson, Attorney for Appellant.

Lance L. Stevens, Mitchell H. Tyner, Jackson, Attorneys for Appellee.

EN BANC.

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI

McRAE, Justice, for the Court.

¶ 1. Certiorari was granted in this case so that we might consider only the application of post-judgment costs, statutory damages, and interest against the state and it's political subdivisions. We do not decide any other issues.

STATEMENT OF THE FACTS

¶ 2. Charles and Beth Williamson filed a negligence action in Hinds County Circuit Court against the City of Jackson and the Town of Flowood after Charles Williamson struck a cable while riding his motorcycle. Williamson was seriously injured. The cable spanned an access road leading to a sewage metering station on the Town of Flowood's property was owned by the City of Jackson. The cable was invisible to Williamson until he passed a point where he could not avoid it. The City had received permission from the Town to place a gate at the entrance to the access road in an attempt to curb vandalism in the area. The City instead erected two posts with a cable spanning the road. The Town denies granting permission for the cable.

¶ 3. Williamson was awarded $102,500 which included a 55 percent reduction for contributory negligence. The jury failed to award Beth Williamson anything for loss of consortium. The City then moved to have the judgment reduced by $17,500, the amount of a pre-trial settlement between the Williamsons and the Town. This motion was granted, and the Williamsons' Motion for Additur or New Trial as to Beth Williamson's consortium claim was denied.

¶ 4. Both the City and the Williamsons appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's judgment as to the City and reversed and remanded issues raised by the Williamsons on cross-appeal. 704 So.2d 466 (Miss.Ct.App.1997) (table). The Court of Appeals found the formula used to reduce the jury's award of damages was incorrect and found some amount should have been awarded for loss of consortium.

¶ 5. The City filed a motion for rehearing, asserting that it was not liable for interest or statutory damages as a political subdivision. The Court of Appeals granted the motion for rehearing, withdrew the original opinion, and substituted a modified opinion which deleted the statutory damages and interest award. 706 So.2d 264 (Miss.Ct.App.1998) (table).

DISCUSSION

¶ 6. The Williamsons raise only one issue for review: whether a political subdivision may be taxed with post-judgement interest, statutory damages, and costs after the trial court's final judgment is entered and the political subdivision appeals. In its modified opinion, the Court of Appeals held that:

[W]e find that the supreme court has as recently as the 1994 Mound Bayou case stated that interest on a judgment is not assessable against a governmental subdivision. 457 So.2d at 340. We adhere to that pronouncement, but encourage its reconsideration.

The legislature may have intended to permit interest in some circumstances by stating that "no judgment against a governmental entity ... shall include an award for ... interest prior to judgment..." Miss.Code Ann. § 11-46-15(2)(Supp.1997). It is the implication of that statement, not the explicit language as required under the cited case law, that might allow post-judgment interest.

¶ 7. The "specific language" to which the Court of Appeals refers is found in dicta in City of Mound Bayou v. Roy Collins Constr. Co., 457 So.2d 337 (Miss.1984), in which this Court stated:

Neither the state nor any of its political subdivisions has any liability to pay anything to anybody, except as expressly authorized by law. Such laws are ordinarily found in statutory form. Occasionally they undergird and are embodied in the holdings of this Court. See Pruett v. City of Rosedale, 421 So.2d 1046, 1051-52 (Miss.1982)

(partial abolition of sovereign immunity)....

457 So.2d at 339 (emphasis added).

¶ 8. In a plurality decision in Presley v. Mississippi State Highway Commn., 608 So.2d 1288, 1298 (Miss.1992), we stated: "[t]he Legislature, as that branch of our government charged most directly with establishing policy, has a right to prescribe the parameters of the immunity of the sovereign." In response to Presley, the Mississippi Legislature enacted the following language regarding governmental liability:

The Legislature of the State of Mississippi finds and determines as a matter of public policy and does hereby declare, provide, enact and reenact that the "state" and its "political subdivisions",... are not now, have never been and shall not be liable, and are, always have been and shall continue to be immune from suit at law or in equity on account of any wrongful or tortious act or omission or breach of implied term or condition of any warranty or contract ...

Miss.Code Ann. § 11-46-3(1) (Supp.1998). We then held that statute constitutional in Mohundro v. Alcorn County, 675 So.2d 848, 851-52 (Miss.1996). Quoting Grimes v. Pearl River Valley Water Supply Dist., 930 F.2d 441, 443-44 (5th Cir.1991), we wrote:

The basic principle of sovereign immunity is that the "king can do no wrong." Consequently, the state is free from any liabilities unless it carves an exception. These exceptions come in the form of tort claims acts.

Mohundro, 675 So.2d at 852. The Mohundro logic was re-applied in Gressett v. Newton Separate Municipal School Dist., 697 So.2d 444, 446 (Miss.1997), wherein we stated that "... this Court has not held § 11-46-3 to be unconstitutional...."

¶ 9. Clearly, the rule announced repeatedly by this Court in Presley, Mohundro, Gressett, and even more recent decisions, is that the State, and its political subdivisions, are liable unless the legislature declares otherwise. Pruett, Presley and their progeny declare that governments enjoy no immunity except that is specifically established by the Legislature. In Pruett this Court stated as follows:

We agree that the time has arrived when this Court should recognize that the judiciary is no longer the branch of government to supervise and control the extent to which persons with rightful claims against the sovereign may propound those claims. In fact, in a number of cases we already have said the problem is one our system of government places on the legislative branch.

Pruett, 421 So.2d at 1051. Subsequently, in rejecting a statutory mandate which instructed the judiciary to apply the common law doctrine of sovereign immunity as it existed prior to Pruett, this Court stated that "judicial sovereign immunity was abolished also because the common law does not grant courts the authority to make gradations and exceptions which can only be made by statute." Presley, 608 So.2d at 1294 (emphasis in original).

¶ 10. The question to now be addressed is whether the Legislature intended, by silence or otherwise, to allow post-judgment interest, costs, and statutory damages to be assessed against governmental entities.

A. Interest

¶ 11. We turn to the issue of interest. In Pruett we declared that "the absolute sovereign immunity doctrine is out of date in modern society and [under] modern legal concepts." 421 So.2d at 1047. Sovereign immunity is a matter of public policy, and our Legislature determines what is in the public interest. Johnson v. U.S., 163 F. 30, 32 (1st Cir.1908); Mississippi Baptist Hosp. v. Holmes, 214 Miss. 906, 56 So.2d 709 (1952); Albritton v. City of Winona, 181 Miss. 75, 95-96, 178 So. 799, 803 (1938), appeal dismissed, 303 U.S. 627, 58 S.Ct. 766, 82 L.Ed. 1088 (1938). Finally, in Gressett, we recognized that legislatively created governmental immunity has totally replaced judicial sovereign immunity Gressett, 697 So.2d at 445. See also, Wells v. Panola County Board of Education, 645 So.2d 883, 889 (Miss.1994)

. The City failed to point out any exceptions that would show that it was excluded by our Constitution or any rule or statute from being treated just as any other appellant.¹

¶ 12. This Court gives a statute "that meaning which best fits its language, history and spirit recognizing the electromagnetic force of positive principles embedded in other rules." Warren County v. Culkin, 497 So.2d 433, 436 (Miss.1986) (citing Dworkin, Law's Empire 313-54 (1986)). Our responsibility is to ascertain the intention of the Legislature on the date of the statutory enactment. Terry v. Long Creek Watershed Drainage Dist., 380 So.2d 1270, 1272 (Miss.1980). We will also give effect to legislative intent although "the interpretation may go beyond the letter of the law." Aikerson v. State, 274 So.2d 124, 127 (Miss.1973) (citing Sheffield v. Reece, 201 Miss. 133, 143, 28 So.2d 745, 749 (1947). "Our task in the end requires that we give to the work of the legislature the most coherent and principled reading available." Stuart's, Inc. v. Brown, 543 So.2d 649, 651 (Miss.1989) (citing McIntire v. Moore, 512 So.2d 687, 689 (Miss.1987)

); Culkin, 497 So.2d at 436).

¶ 13. This Court in 1987 adopted Mississippi Supreme Court Rule 37 which specifically provided for the award of interest on a money judgement "unless otherwise provided by law". This rule was in effect in 1993, when the Legislature finally implemented the Mississippi Tort Claims Act, Miss.Code Ann. §§ 11-46-1 et seq. (Supp.1998). In 1995, these rules became the Mississippi Rules of Appellate Procedure with the creation of the Mississippi Court of Appeals. Rule 37 of the Mississippi Rules of Appellant Procedure regulates interest on judgments and provides in pertinent part that:

Unless otherwise provided by law, if a judgment for money in a civil case is affirmed, whatever interest is allowed by law shall be payable from the date judgment was entered in the court or commission below....

(emphasis added). By its silence on the issue of...