LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY v. STATE EX REL HOOD (2019)

¶1. This is a sister appeal to Safeco Insurance Company of America v. State, No. 2017-IA-01554-SCT, ––– So.3d ––––, 2019 WL 3955084 (Miss. Aug. 22, 2019) (Safeco).¹ But unlike Safeco, there is no issue of case reassignment from one judge's docket to another. The only issue in this appeal is the trial court's appointment of a special master.

¶2. The order appointing the special master to the case against Liberty Mutual Insurance Company is almost verbatim to the appointment order in Safeco. Thus, this order also falls outside the discretionary bounds of Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 53. For the same reasons articulated in Safeco, we vacate the order appointing the special master and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

¶3. Liberty Mutual also asks this Court to appoint a special judge to preside over this case. But a majority of this Court does not find the record before us sufficient for this Court to invoke Mississippi Code Section 9-1-105(2) (Rev. 2014) in this case. On remand, if Judge Green is convinced additional judicial resources are necessary, Section 9-1-105(2)² authorizes her to request the Chief Justice appoint a special judge to preside in this case or to assist the Hinds County Circuit Court in the prompt administration of justice.

¶4. VACATED AND REMANDED.

¶5. For the reasons stated in the dissenting portion of my opinion in Safeco Insurance Co. of America v. State, No. 2017-IA-01554-SCT, ––– So.3d –––, 2019 WL 3955084 (Miss. Aug. 22, 2019), I respectfully dissent.

FOOTNOTES

1.   This appeal previously had been consolidated with two other appeals—Safeco, No. 2017-IA-01554-SCT, and Vinod Khosla et al. v. State, No. 2017-IA-01637-SCT, ––– So.3d –––, 2019 WL 3955169 (Miss. Aug. 22, 2019) (Cannon). But by separate order, the three appeals have been de-consolidated.

2.   Subsection (2) of Section 9-1-105 reads as follows:Upon the request of the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, the senior judge of a chancery or circuit court district, the senior judge of a county court, or upon his own motion, the Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court, with the advice and consent of a majority of the justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court, shall have the authority to appoint a special judge to serve on a temporary basis in a circuit, chancery or county court in the event of an emergency or overcrowded docket. It shall be the duty of any special judge so appointed to assist the court to which he is assigned in the disposition of causes so pending in such court for whatever period of time is designated by the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice, in his discretion, may appoint the special judge to hear particular cases, a particular type of case, or a particular portion of the court's docket.Miss. Code Ann. § 9-1-105(2).

MAXWELL, JUSTICE, FOR THE COURT:

RANDOLPH, C.J., COLEMAN, BEAM, CHAMBERLIN, ISHEE AND GRIFFIS, JJ., CONCUR. KING, P.J., DISSENTS WITH SEPARATE WRITTEN OPINION JOINED BY KITCHENS, P.J.