Justia Kentucky Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s order rejecting the Board of Trustees of the Kentucky Schools Boards Insurance Trust’s (KSBIT) claim of governmental immunity and thus denying its motion for summary judgment. In this complaint filed by the Deputy Rehabilitator of the Kentucky School Boards Trust Workers’ Compensation Self-Insurance Fund and of the Kentucky School Boards Insurance Trust Property and Liability Self Insurance Fund against the KSBIT Board for, inter alia, negligence, the KSBIT Board asserted a defense of governmental immunity and moved for summary judgment. The circuit court determined that the KSBIT Board was not entitled to governmental immunity because its “parent” entity was not an agency of state government that enjoyed governmental immunity and because it did not perform a function that was integral to state government. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) because the KSBIT Board is not the offspring of local public school boards, it does not have the governmental immunity accorded to those governmental bodies; and (2) the KSBIT Board does not serve a function integral to state government. View "Board of Trustees of Kentucky School Boards Insurance Trust v. Pope" on Justia Law

In these consolidated appeals, the Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of Lonnie Conyers, Roy Tucker, and Joseph Hardy. Defendants were all found guilty of two counts of first-degree burglary following a joint jury trial. Each defendant was sentenced as a first-degree persistent felony offender (PFO) to concurrent, twenty-year terms of imprisonment. In affirming, the Supreme Court held (1) juror and witness misconduct did not necessitate a mistrial; (2) the trial court did not err by refusing to dismiss the first-degree burglary charges and by failing to give a jury instruction on receiving stolen property as a lesser, alternative offense to burglary; (3) Hardy was not entitled to a jury instruction on the defense of voluntary intoxication; and (4) the trial court did not err during the PFO proceedings by refusing to exclude evidence of one of Conyers’s prior felonies. View "Conyers v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Ordinance 14-5, which was adopted by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government and prohibits all beginning and soliciting from public streets or intersections within the urban-county area, is a content-based regulation of expression that unconstitutionally abridges freedom of speech guaranteed under the First Amendment.Appellant entered a conditional guilty plea to violating the ordinance. The circuit court affirmed the judgment of conviction and sentence on appeal. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for dismissal of the charge against Appellant, holding that the ordinance is an unconstitutional regulation of speech. View "Champion v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

This personal injury suit arose from a trip-and-fall at the Speedway SuperAmerica filling station in Manchester, Kentucky. The circuit court found for Plaintiffs and against the Speedway, the store’s owner, and the store’s manager (collectively, Defendants). The court of appeals reversed and remanded for entry of a defense judgment based on the common law’s open and obvious doctrine. Due to recent attempts to modernize the open and obvious doctrine and to harmonize it with tort law’s shift to a regime of comparative negligence, the Supreme Court remanded the case for reconsideration in light of recent precedent. On remand, the court of appeals concluded that Plaintiffs’ claims failed in their entirety. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding that the court of appeals read recent precedent too narrowly. Given the long delays in this litigation, the court departed from its usual practice and addressed additional issues concerning the liability of the store manager, the comparative fault of the injured plaintiff, and the trial judge’s denial of a post-judgment motion to recuse. View "Grubb v. Smith" on Justia Law

The estate of Stephen Patton, an eighth-grader who committed suicide, filed suit against various teachers and administrators, claiming that Defendants should have known of the bullying Stephen was subjected to at school and taken steps to prevent it. The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants, ruling (1) Defendants were protected by qualified immunity, and (2) Stephen’s suicide was a superseding intervening cause interrupting any potential liability of Defendants. The court of appeals upheld the summary judgment solely on the intervening cause issue and ruled that Defendants were not entitled to qualified official immunity. The Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals’ opinion to uphold summary judgment but for different reasons, holding (1) while the Administrators were protected by qualified immunity, the Teachers were not immune from suit on the basis of qualified official immunity; (2) bullying and tormenting behavior, if shown to be the proximate cause of a suicide, may form the basis for a wrongful death claim by the decedent’s estate; but (3) under the facts of this case, the Estate failed to make a prima facie showing that the Teachers’ conduct of failing to prevent the bullying of Stephen was the “but-for” cause or the proximate cause of Stephen’s suicide. View "Patton v. Bickford" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the circuit court’s judgment convicting Appellant of first-degree sexual abuse and sentencing him to six years’ imprisonment. On appeal, Appellant argued that he was denied a fair and impartial jury due to the jury foreman being the brother-in-law of an assistant Commonwealth attorney. At issue before the Supreme Court was the trial court and Court of Appeals’ faulty conclusion that the jury foreman - and other panelists - disclosed a relationship with the assistant Commonwealth attorney. The Supreme Court concluded (1) the actions of the trial judge and defense counsel undermine the conclusion that defense counsel was made aware that the foreman had a relationship with the attorney; and (2) because Appellant never had the opportunity to challenge the assistant Commonwealth attorney’s presence on the jury, he was entitled to a new trial. View "Edmondson v. Kentucky" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought a claim under Ky. Rev. Stat. 337.385 and filed a motion under Ky. R. Civ. P. 23 to certify a class action in circuit court. The circuit court denied the motion on purely legal grounds. The Court of Appeals affirmed, ruling that section 337.385 does not authorize class actions. The Supreme Court reversed, holding, as a matter of law, that Rule 23 remains an available procedural mechanism applicable to Plaintiff’s cause of action brought under section 337.385. The court remanded the case to the trial court to determine whether Plaintiff’s class met the requirements set forth in Rule 23. View "McCann v. Sullivan University System, Inc." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court overruled Shamrock Coal Co. v. Taylor, 697 S.W.2d 952 (Ky. App. 1985), which holds that a complaint that exhibits “a clear attempt at verification” is sufficiently compliant with Ky. Rev. Stat. 341.450(1) to authorize judicial review.At issue in this case was whether Appellee had substantially complied with the verification requirement of section 341.450(1) when he filed a complaint seeking judicial review of an adverse decision of the Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission (KUIC). The circuit court dismissed the complaint based upon the decision of the Supreme Court in Taylor v. Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission, 382 S.W.3d 826 (Ky. 2012). The Court of Appeals reversed, citing Shamrock. The Supreme Court reversed after overruling Shamrock, holding that the complaint in this case failed to satisfy the verification requirement of section 341.450(1). View "Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission v. Wilson" on Justia Law

The failure of Terry Scott and Damon Fleming to appeal the denial of their respective grievances against the Kentucky State Police (KSP) by the Personnel Cabinet precluded their subsequent action filed in the circuit court. The trial court dismissed most of Scott’s and Fleming’s claims but nevertheless permitted the case to go forward. After a trial, the court held that Scott and Fleming had met their burden of showing a prima facie case of an equal protection violation, entitling them to equitable relief. The court of appeals affirmed, thus rejecting KSP’s argument that Scott and Fleming had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Scott’s and Fleming’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies barred their direct action in the circuit court. View "Kentucky State Police v. Scott" on Justia Law

Personal-injury law firm Hughes & Coleman was entitled to quantum meruit compensation after being hired and then fired by Travis Underwood, who was injured in a car crash. Shortly after Underwood discharged Hughes & Coleman and hired another attorney, Underwood agreed to a final settlement of his claims. Hughes & Coleman asserted an attorney’s lien on the new counsel’s contingency attorney fee on the final settlement, claiming it was entitled to a quantum meruit share of the fee as compensation for its services rendered before being terminated. The trial court concluded that Hughes & Coleman was discharged without cause and apportioned seventy-five percent of the contingency fee to the firm. The court of appeals reversed, ruling that Underwood had valid cause for terminating Hughes & Coleman’s services. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) case precedent entitles a discharged lawyer to receive, on a quantum meruit basis, a portion of a contingency fee on a former client’s recovery so long as the termination was not for cause; and (2) because Hughes & Coleman’s firing was not for cause, the firm was entitled to quantum meruit compensation. View "Hughes & Coleman, PLLC v. Chambers" on Justia Law