Justia Kentucky Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The issue in this case was created by a 2016 amendment of the look-back period in Ky. Rev. Stat. 189A.010, Kentucky’s principal driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) statute. The amendment increased the look-back period from five years to ten years. In separate prosecutions, Defendants were charged with DUI, fourth offense, for offenses that occurred after the newly-amended version of section 189A.010 became effective. Both defendants had prior convictions for DUI offenses beyond the five-year look-back period of the former law but within the ten-year look-back period of the current law. The circuit court concluded that the convictions exceeding the former five-year look-back period could not be used to elevate the current DUI charges to DUI, fourth offense because doing so would violate contractual rights established in Defendants’ plea agreements. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trial court erred by excluding Defendants’ 2009 and 2011 offenses from use as enhancing prior DUI convictions because (1) plea agreement contract principles do not bar application of the new rules; and (2) the alternative grounds relied upon by Defendants for affirming the trial court’s decision were unavailing. View "Commonwealth v. Jackson" on Justia Law

The Board of Commissioners of the City of Danville impermissibly went into closed session to discuss its intention to bid on real property offered for sale pursuant to an absolute auction, but the Board’s action was not willful.The Attorney General issued a decision that the Board had violated the Open Meetings Act and that the Board had committed a violation in failing to respond to a written complaint delivered to the mayor by the Danville Advocate-Messenger regarding the Board's closed meeting. The circuit court upheld the Attorney General’s determination but denied the newspaper’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs on grounds that the violations were not willful. The Court of Appeals upheld the finding of an open meeting violation but reversed the trial court’s finding that the violation was not willful. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and vacated in part, holding (1) no exception permitted the Board’s contested action; but (2) the Board’s action was not willful, and therefore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the newspaper’s motion for costs and fees. View "Board of Commissioners of City of Danville v. Advocate Communications, Inc." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the court of appeals reversing the trial court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s claims. Plaintiff sued Defendant, which uses warehouses in Jefferson County to store its barrels of bourbon, seeking damages based on several state tort theories and injunctive relief. Plaintiff claimed that fugitive ethanol emissions that escape from the barrels as the bourbon ages promote the growth of the “whiskey fungus,” which causes a black film-like substance to proliferate on his property. The trial court determined that the federal Clean Air Act preempted Plaintiff’s claims. The court of appeals reversed, ruling that the Act did not preempt Plaintiff’s claims. The Supreme Court held (1) Plaintiff’s state tort claims for damages were not preempted by the Act; but (2) Plaintiff’s requested injunction was inappropriate. View "Brown-Forman Corp. v. Miller" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s order denying Appellant’s Ky. R. Civ. P. 60.02 motion filed after Appellant was found guilty of three counts of murder, first-degree burglary, and first-degree robbery. In his Rule 60.02 motion, Appellant argued that several of the Commonwealth’s witnesses gave perjured testimony and that the prosecutor committed fraud upon the court. The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s denial of the motion, holding (1) Appellant’s claims of witnesses’ perjury did not entitle him to Rule 60.02 relief because the named witnesses did not commit perjury, and even they had committed perjury, there was no reasonable certainty that the result would have been different; and (2) the prosecutor did not commit fraud, and even if he had, Appellant’s defense was not impeded. View "Meece v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the conclusion of an administrative law judge (ALJ), the Workers’ Compensation Board, and the Court of Appeals that Luis Lopez, an uninsured employer, was properly notified of Isaias Silva-Lamas’s resolution of injury claim. The ALJ found that Silva-Lamas became permanently and totally disabled as a result of an injury he suffered while employed by Lopez. Because it appeared that Lopez never received notice of the claim, the Uninsured Employers Fund (UEF) contested the Department of Workers’ Claims’s jurisdiction to proceed against him and, by extension, against the UEF. The ALJ, Board, and Court of Appeals concluded that Silva-Lamas had acted appropriately in filing his claim. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that service was appropriate under the relevant statute and civil rules. View "Uninsured Employers Fund v. Acahua" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment convicting and sentencing Defendant to twenty years’ imprisonment for first-degree robbery, receiving stolen property, first-degree possession of a controlled substance, and possession of marijuana. The court held (1) the trial court did not err by permitting the victim to make an in-court identification of Defendant and by refusing to give an instruction for the lesser-included offense of facilitation to first-degree robbery; (2) there was sufficient evidence to convict Defendant of receiving stolen property based on a stolen handgun; and (3) the Commonwealth’s questioning of Defendant regarding his violent past did not constitute palpable error. View "Fairley v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

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