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$6.5M Verdict Against Miss. Nursing Home Tossed Over Juror's Statements

The Mississippi Supreme Court has reversed a $6.5 million verdict awarded to the family of a deceased nursing home resident against the facility's owner and corporate parents, finding the trial court failed to investigate allegations of juror misconduct.

In a 7-2 opinion the high court said a juror allegedly told fellow jurors during the trial that the same facility neglected her relative, but she did not disclose that information to the court during voir dire.

The trial court's refusal to investigate the allegations, which were raised by another juror after the verdict, jeopardized the fairness of the trial, the state Supreme Court held.

The family of Charles Edwards filed the lawsuit in the Leflore County Circuit Court against Mariner Health Care and its subsidiaries, including National Heritage Realty Inc., which owned the Greenwood Health & Rehabilitation Center.

According to the high court's opinion, Edwards suffered from severe mental retardation, autism, seizures, a swallowing disorder and chronic pneumonia. He entered the Greenwood center in December 1994 at age 40.

In 1997, after Edwards' refusal to eat led to a significant weight loss, Greenwood staff members inserted a feeding tube into his stomach. However, his body eventually stopped processing nutrients from the tube, and he lost 22 pounds. Despite this, Greenwood never ordered intravenous feeding, the opinion said.

Edwards died Feb. 16, 2002, from pneumonia-related cardiac arrest. The high court said the pneumonia resulted from volume depletion, a condition caused by lack of fluid in the body's cells.

Edwards' family alleged in their wrongful-death and negligence lawsuit that Greenwood's failure to start IV feeding caused his death.

In December 2003 a jury awarded the family $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.

According to the opinion, one of the jurors contacted Mariner after the trial about alleged juror misconduct.

The informant said in an affidavit that a fellow juror made numerous prejudicial comments to other jurors during the trial, including stating on the first day that she had already made up her mind in favor of the plaintiffs.

The juror also allegedly said she witnessed her relative and other residents lying in their own waste and receiving poor care at Greenwood.

Further, several unnamed jury members allegedly made race-based comments in favor of the plaintiffs, who are black. They said "white people have been taking black people's money" for years and the "jurors needed to stick together to get money back to black people," according to the informant.

Mariner filed a motion to stay the judgment until the court conducted an inquiry into the jurors' alleged statements. The court denied the motion and entered final judgment.

Mariner and its affiliates appealed, alleging numerous errors by the trial court. Chief among them was the possibility that the juror's alleged statements tainted the deliberations.

The majority of the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the verdict for several reasons, including the trial court's failure to investigate the alleged juror misconduct.

If the juror did make the statements attributed to her in the affidavit, the majority said, it would show that she failed to answer at least two voir dire questions truthfully.

According to the opinion, those questions were whether jurors knew of any reason that "would adversely impact their ability to serve" and whether the mere mention of a nursing home "invoked negative feelings."

If the juror had answered "yes" to those questions, the court could have disqualified her to avoid harm to the defendants, the majority said. Thus, the panel found that the failure to investigate the allegations jeopardized the defendants' right to a fair and impartial trial.

In a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Oliver E. Diaz Jr., Justice James E. Graves Jr. said the trial judge properly refused to investigate juror misconduct because the informant's affidavit was merely an attempt to impeach the verdict without the necessary proof of any external influence on the jury.

Justice Graves further rejected the majority's finding that the affidavit raised the issue of untruthful voir dire responses.

The two questions referred to by the majority were ambiguous, and no question went to the specific claims raised in the affidavit, he said.

To comment, ask questions or contribute articles, contact West.Andrews.Editor@Thomson.com.

William W. McKinley Jr. and Lorraine Boykin of Currie, Johnson, Griffin, Gaines & Myers in Jackson, Miss., represent Mariner and its affiliates.D. Bryant Chaffin, Susan Nichols Estes and Kenneth L. Connor of Wilkes & McHugh in Hattiesburg, Miss., represent Edwards' estate.