Mine Safety Appliance Co. v. Holmes

171 So. 3d 442, 2015 Miss. LEXIS 189, 2015 WL 1848088
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedApril 23, 2015
DocketNo. 2014-CA-00009-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 171 So. 3d 442 (Mine Safety Appliance Co. v. Holmes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mine Safety Appliance Co. v. Holmes, 171 So. 3d 442, 2015 Miss. LEXIS 189, 2015 WL 1848088 (Mich. 2015).

Opinions

WALLER, Chief Justice,

for the Court:

¶ 1. This is a direct appeal from a judgment awarding Huey P. Holmes, plain-tiffiappellee, $875,000 for silicosis-related injuries allegedly caused by a defective respirator sold by the defendant/appellant, Mine Safety Appliances (MSA). We agree with the trial court’s ruling that the complaint was filed within the statute of limitations, and that Holmes was exposed to a harmful level of silica during the relevant time period. But we further find the trial judge erred in denying MSA’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) regarding Holmes’s warnings claim. We also find that MSA is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law regarding Holmes’s design-defect claim because misuse of the respirator materially changed the product’s condition after it left MSA’s control. We therefore reverse and render on these issues.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2. In 1958, Huey P. Holmes went to work for T.P. Groome breaking up concrete culverts with a jackhammer. Holmes worked for Groome on and off until 1964.1 During the six years Holmes worked for Groome, he was exposed to dusty work conditions. Groome provided Holmes a respirator that Holmes identified as a Dustfoe 66 manufactured by MSA. Holmes testified that, although he wore the mask, he often ingested so much dust while jackhammering that his mouth would fill with dirt and his spit would become black.2

¶ 3. Thirty-eight years later, on December 16, 2002, Holmes was diagnosed with silicosis. Ten days later, on December 26, Holmes filed a products-liability suit against MSA, among others, claiming its product failed to protect him from overexposure to respirable silica. Subsequently, on April 7, 2006, Holmes was dismissed from the suit without prejudice in light of the then-recent changes to Mississippi joinder rules. Holmes refiled his suit against MSA on May 16, 2007. In its answer, MSA asserted that Holmes filed his second suit after the statute of limita-' tions had run.

¶ 4. Later, on December 13, 2007, the parties agreed to a Master Set of Discovery.3 The defendants then propounded discovery requests to Holmes on January 16, 2008, including requests that Holmes list the dates and resolutions of all prior suits he had filed and to produce all documents related to any prior suit involving the same factual background. After Holmes failed to meet the sixty-day deadline to respond to the master discovery requests, MSA joined a codefendant’s motion to compel on June 6, 2008. The trial court took no action on the motion, and more than a year later on June-24, 2009, MSA filed another motion to compel.

¶ 5. Holmes first answered the Master Set of Discovery on August 11, 2009, but the response was unsigned and unverified. It was not until January 15, 2010 — 670 days after the response was due — that Holmes submitted a signed and verified response.

[446]*446¶ 6. On August 9, 2010, MSA filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing Holmes’s second claim was filed after the three-year statute of limitations had run, and that the one-year saving period found in Mississippi Code Section 15-1-69 also had run. Holmes, noting that three years had passed since MSA first raised the limitations issue, argued that MSA had waived the defense.

¶ 7. The trial court denied MSA’s motion for summary judgment, and the case proceeded to trial.4 The jury returned a judgment in favor of Holmes in the amount of $875,000, finding MSA ninety percent liable and T.P. Groome ten percent liable.5 MSA appeals, raising six issues, which we rephrase as:

I. Statute of Limitations
A.Whether Holmes’s claims are time-barred because he failed to commence this action within one year of dismissal of his prior-filed suit.
II. Sufficiency of the Evidence
A. Whether Holmes offered any evidence at trial that he was exposed to a harmful level of respirable silica during the relevant time period.
B. Whether Holmes offered any evidence that he or his employer read or relied on any packaging, labels, or warnings provided by MSA, or if they had, they would have acted differently.
C. Whether product misuse materially changed the condition of the respirator after it left MSA’s control, thus barring Holmes’s design-defect claim.
D.Whether Holmes offered any evidence that established MSA knew or should have known in 1958 through 1964 that jackhammering concrete could result in exposure to respirable silica.

I. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

Standard of Review

¶ 8. MSA asserts the trial court erred in denying summary judgment based on the statute of limitations and also in denying MSA’s motion for JNOV on the same. When reviewing a trial court’s grant of summary judgment, this Court applies a de novo standard of review. MS Comp Choice, SIF v. Clark, Scott & Streetman, 981 So.2d 955, 959 (Miss.2008). Likewise, this Court applies de novo review of a trial court’s denial of a motion for JNOV. Adcock v. Miss. Transp. Comm’n, 981 So.2d 942, 948 (Miss.2008). “A motion for JNOV is a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the evidence, and this Court will affirm the denial of a JNOV if,” viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict, “there is substantial evidence to support the verdict.” Id. (citing Johnson v. St. Dominics-Jackson Mem’l Hosp., 967 So.2d 20, 22 (Miss.2007)).

A. Whether Holmes’s claims are time-barred because he failed to commence this action within one year of dismissal of his prior-filed suit.

¶ 9. It is undisputed that Holmes first filed his claim on December 26, 2002, and [447]*447that Holmes was dismissed from that suit on April 7, 2006. It is also undisputed that Holmes refiled his suit against MSA on May 16, 2007. What is disputed is the impact of the first filing on the statute of limitations and the applicability of the one-year savings statute. That is, did the filing of the initial suit toll the statute of limitations, and if not, was Holmes’s claim saved by the savings statute?

The Parties’ Arguments

¶ 10. MSA argues that, because the trial court dismissed Holmes from his first suit on April 7, 2006, pursuant to Canadian National v. Smith, 926 So.2d 839 (Miss.2006), Holmes had one year from April 7, 2006, to refile his suit against MSA under the one-year saving statute.6 MSA claims the dismissal of a plaintiff from a lawsuit on the ground that the plaintiff had been misjoined does not toll the statute of limitations, and because Holmes’s suit initially was dismissed pursuant to Canadian National without prejudice and as a matter of form, the Mississippi one-year saving statute applied. Therefore, according to MSA, Holmes’s claims were time-barred because he failed to file his second action within one year of being dismissed from the first suit.

¶ 11. Holmes argues MSA, by waiting 1,061 days before pursuing the statute-of-limitations claim, waived that defense, or, alternatively, that the limitations period was tolled while Holmes’s first suit was pending.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
171 So. 3d 442, 2015 Miss. LEXIS 189, 2015 WL 1848088, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mine-safety-appliance-co-v-holmes-miss-2015.