Mississippi Litigation Lawyer & Attorney : Bradley Arant Law Firm : Serving Jackson, Gulfport, Biloxi, Tupelo, Hinds County, 5th Circuit

On January 4, 2007, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Sobrinio v. Medical Center Visitor’s Lodge, Inc., No. 06-20671 (5th Cir. 2007), examined a claim by an employee of a Texas motel that houses patients of a local Medical Center. The Plaintiff, Mr. Gregorio Sobrinio, acted as a janitor, security guard and a driver for the motel's guests, who were often out of town. Mr. Sobrinio sued his former employer claiming that he was paid below the minimum wage and was not properly compensated for overtime in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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Recently, in Lyndon Property Insurance Co. v. Duke Levy and Assoc., LLC, No. 05-60898 (5th Cir. 2007), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that a project engineer could be held liable to a project owner’s surety for negligently failing to inspect the workmanship of a contractor and improperly recommending payment, despite the absence of a contractual obligation of the engineer to guarantee workmanship on the project.

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On January 4, 2007, the Mississippi Supreme Court, in Paz v. Brush Engineered Materials, Inc., No. 2006-FC-00771-SCT (Miss. 2007) answered a certified question of Mississippi law from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In a case appealed from the Southern District of Mississippi, the Fifth Circuit asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to determine whether the laws of Mississippi allow for a medical monitoring cause of action, whereby a plaintiff can recover medical monitoring costs for exposure to a harmful substance without proving current physical injuries from that exposure. The Plaintiffs were current and previous employees of the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and the Canoga Park facility in California. Boeing Company, represented by Roy Campbell and Melody McAnally of Bradley Arant, is the operator of those facilities. The employees claimed that they had been exposed to beryllium and that Boeing and other defendants should fund a court-supervised medical monitoring program to track any possible development of Chronic Beryllium Disease. However, none of the Plaintiffs had actually suffered physical injury from the alleged exposure.

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By recent order, the Mississippi Supreme Court amended Rule 46(b)(6) of the Mississippi Rules of Appellate Procedure to delete the 21-day waiting period previously required as part of the pro hac vice application procedure for an attorney seeking to practice in the state. Before the amendment, the rule required that the court or administrative agency ruling upon the pro hac vice application wait for 21 days before making such ruling unless the parties agreed otherwise. Effective December 14, 2006, that requirement is no longer in place. A copy of the order amending the rule is attached here.

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