Justia Kentucky Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

David McCarty, the employee of an independent contractor, was killed during the installation of a garage door on a building at a coal mine site operated by Covol Fuels. McCarty’s estate brought a wrongful death action against Covol, alleging that Covol was negligent per se for violating certain coal mine safety statutes and regulations. A federal district court granted summary judgment for Covol on all claims, concluding that McCarty was not within the class of persons protected by Kentucky’s mine safety laws and that his death did not occur under the circumstances that Kentucky’s mine safety laws were intended to prevent. The Estate appealed. The Supreme Court subsequently granted the request of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to certify the law in regards to whether the statutes and regulations relied upon by the Estate were intended to protect individuals in McCarty's situation and to prevent the type of accident that caused McCarty’s death. The Supreme Court concluded that a subcontractor injured while installing a garage door on an unfinished building at a mine site may not maintain a wrongful death action against the mine operator under a negligence per se theory for alleged violations of Kentucky mining statutes and regulations. View "McCarty v. Covol Fuels No. 2, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Keith Randall Sparkman and In-Depth Sanitary Service, Inc., filed a complaint against Defendants, CONSOL Energy Inc. and CONSOL of Kentucky, Inc. for breach of contract and tortious interference with contract. The contracts at issue in this dispute were entered into by In-Depth Sanitary Service Group, which was not named in the complaint. The jury found in favor of “Keith Randall Sparkman d/b/a In-Depth Service Group." Defendants appealed, and Plaintiffs cross-appealed. The Court of Appeals disposed of the matter sua sponte based on a perceived lack of jurisdiction, concluding that the wrong parties had filed suit, and the trial court’s judgment awarded damages to a “non-party.” The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the judgment of the trial court identified the correct party because the parties mutually consented to the amendment of the complaint to reflect Keith Randall Sparkman d/b/a In-Depth Sanitary Service Group; and (2) the naming of the parties in the notice of cross-appeal was sufficient to transfer jurisdiction to the court of appeals. View "Sparkman v. Consol Energy of Kentucky, Inc." on Justia Law

Amanda Maddox and her then-husband, Dwyane Maddox, where traveling in their 2001 Nissan Pathfinder when their vehicle was hit by a drunk driver. Amanda sustained serious injuries in the accident. Amanda filed suit against the drunk driver’s estate, Nissan Motor Company, Ltd and Nissan North American, Inc. (collectively, Nissan) alleging that her injuries were caused by Nissan’s defectively designed restraint system and failure to warn her about the system’s limitations. A jury ruled in favor of Amanda and assessed thirty percent of the fault to the drunk driver and seventy percent of the fault to Nissan. The jury found Nissan responsible for $2.6 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages. The court of appeals affirmed. At issue before the Supreme Court was whether a punitive damages jury instruction was proper. The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals on that issue and vacated the trial court’s judgment assessing punitive damages against Nissan, holding that an instruction authorizing punitive damages against Nissan was inappropriate. View "Nissan Motor Co. v. Maddox" on Justia Law

Appellant sued Appellee, the operator of a hotel, for injuries he suffered in a fall on ice on the hotel property, alleging negligence in Appellee’s entryway of the hotel during or after a severe snow storm. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Appellee, concluding that the icy patch on which Appellant fell was a naturally occurring open-and-obvious hazard for which there can be no liability under Standard Oil Co. v. Manis. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Manis rule is no longer viable, and instead, all open and obvious hazard cases, including obvious natural outdoor hazard cases, are subject to the comparative fault doctrine. Remanded. View "Carter v. Bullitt Host, LLC" on Justia Law

Each of these three cases originated with actions asserting claims against nursing homes for personal injuries suffered by nursing home residents and for wrongful death of the residents. In each case, an attorney-in-fact for the resident executed a written document upon the resident’s admission to the nursing home providing that claims or disputes would be submitted to arbitration rather than adjudication in the courts. In each case, the defendant nursing home facility filed a motion to dismiss the action and compel the parties to submit the claims to a formal arbitration proceeding. The circuit court denied the motions on the grounds that the arbitration agreements were not validly formed between the respective nursing home facility and the resident whose interests were thereby affected. By way of motions for interlocutory relief, several nursing home entities sought relief from orders refusing to compel arbitration of the disputes. The Supreme Court denied the motions for interlocutory relief, holding that because the power-of-attorney instruments involved in these cases provided no manifestation of the principal’s intent to delegate to his agent the power to waive a trial by jury, the principal’s assent to the waiver was never validly obtained. View "Extendicare Homes, Inc. v. Whisman" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, the administrate of the estate of Lula Belle Gordon, filed suit against several nursing home entities (collectively, “Kindred”), alleging that Kindred violated several provisions of Ky. Rev. Stat. 216.515 in its treatment and care of Gordon, resulting in her injury and death. The trial court entered judgment in favor of Plaintiff. The Court of Appeals reversed and ordered the dismissal of Plaintiff’s claims, concluding that Plaintiff’s claims were incident to a common law personal injury action and therefore subject to the one-year limitations period provided by Ky. Rev. Stat. 413.140. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Plaintiff’s claim under section 216.515(6) did not assert a claim for relief based upon a liability created by the statute because the claim simply represented a codification in the nursing home context of the common law personal injury cause of action and was, therefore, subject to a the one-year limitation period otherwise provided for personal injury actions; and (2) other causes of action based upon provisions of section 216.515, for which Plaintiff sought redress, were subject to the five-year limitations period established by section 413.120, but those causes of action must be brought during the lifetime of the resident by the resident or her guardian. View "Overstreet v. Kindred Nursing Ctrs. Ltd. P’ship" on Justia Law

Keith Justin Conley (Conley) was convicted of murder his girlfriend, Jessica Newsome, whom he fatally shot in the home of his father. At the time of the shooting, Conley’s father’s home was insured through a homeowner’s insurance policy issued by Kentucky Farm Bureau (Kentucky Farm). Jessica’s parents brought a wrongful death cause of action against Conley. Kentucky Farm intervened in the action seeking a declaration that the homeowner’s policy at issue did not provide coverage to Conley for the Newsomes’ claims. The trial court ruled that the homeowner’s insurance policy provided coverage for Conley’s acts. Kentucky Farm then filed a motion under Ky. R. Civ. P. 59.05 asking the court to alter or amend its order. The trial court denied the motion. Kentucky Farm subsequently filed its notice of appeal. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal as untimely, concluding that the Rule 59.05 motion failed to conform with Ky. R. Civ. P. 7.02, and therefore, the Rule 59.05 motion did not toll the thirty-day period in which notice was to be filed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Rule 59.05 motion, while failing to strictly comply with the requirements of Rule 7.02, was nevertheless timely, and therefore, the motion tolled the time for filing the notice of appeal. View "Ky. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Conley" on Justia Law

Employer discharged Plaintiff after coworkers reported that Plaintiff made racist comments in the workplace. Plaintiff sued Employer and the coworkers for defamation. The trial court directed a verdict for Employer and one of the coworkers, citing a qualified privilege to defamation. The jury returned a verdict in the remaining coworkers’ favor, finding that either the statements made about Plaintiff were true or that they were not made with malice. The Court of Appeals affirmed the jury’s verdict but reversed the directed verdict, concluding that Employer was entitled to the protection of a qualified privilege but that a plaintiff is only required to present a prima facie defamation case to overcome the qualified privilege and survive a motion for directed verdict. The Supreme Court reversed in part and affirmed in part, holding (1) a plaintiff in a defamation action opposing a directed-verdict motion made by a defendant claiming a qualified privilege must produce some evidence of the defendant’s actual malice to survive a directed verdict; (2) the directed verdict in favor of Employer was appropriate, as Plaintiff failed to prove any degree of malice; and (3) the jury’s verdict was sound. View "Toler v. Sud-Chemie, Inc." on Justia Law

Coppage Construction Company, Inc. filed a third-party complaint raising a number of contract, tort, and statutory claims against Sanitation District No. 1 (SD1), a public sewer utility serving three Northern Kentucky counties. SD1 moved to dismiss the third-party complaint on the grounds that it was entitled to sovereign immunity. The circuit court converted the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment and granted the motion, concluding that SD1 was entitled to sovereign immunity because SD1’s “parent” entities - the three counties - were immune entities, and SD1 performed a function integral to state government. The Court of Appeals affirmed, describing SD1 as an “arm” of the three counties. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and vacated the summary judgment order of the circuit court, holding that SD1 was not entitled to sovereign immunity because it was not created by the state or a county and does not carry out a function integral to state government. View "Coppage Constr. Co., Inc. v. Sanitation Dist. No. 1" on Justia Law

B. Todd Crutcher and his brother, James Donald Crutcher, owned and possessed thirty-six acres of land bordering a 500-acre tract of land owned by Harrod Concrete and Stone Co. While mining its property for limestone, Harrod trespassed and removed approximately 164,000 tons of limestone from 300 feet below the surface of the Crutchers’ land. A jury awarded the Crutchers $36,000 in compensatory damages and $902,000 in punitive damages. The trial court sustained the compensatory award but reduced the punitive damages to $144,000. The Court of Appeals partially reversed and vacated the circuit court’s decision. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision, vacated the jury verdict and damages, and remanded, holding (1) the jury instructions in this case contained errors that tainted the jury’s finding of recklessness and the amount of damages awarded as a result; (2) the Crutchers may recover damages under either an innocent trespass instruction or a willful trespass instruction, but not both; and (3) punitive damages are not afforded in mineral trespass cases. View "Harrod Concrete & Stone Co. v. Crutcher" on Justia Law