Here are the March 2016 summary of published decisions and attorney disciplinary orders from the Supreme Court of Kentucky which have been prepared by the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Tort and insurance cases include:

  • UIM SOL.
    State Farm v. Riggs upholding the statute of limitations provisions in the State Farm policy corresponding to the tort statute of two years after the the MVA or last PIP payment, whichever is later, was reasonable.

    State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Lonnie Dale Riggs 2013-SC-000555-DG March 17, 2016

    Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Minton. All sitting. Minton, C.J.; Cunningham, Hughes, JJ., concur. Noble, J., concurs by separate opinion. Keller, J., dissents by separate opinion in which Venters and Wright, JJ., join. Riggs was injured in an automobile accident and sued the adverse driver for negligence. He settled the claim for the driver’s automobile-liability-insurance policy limits. Before dismissing the suit, Riggs asserted a claim against his own automobile liability insurer, State Farm, for underinsured motorist benefits (UIM). Riggs filed his UIM claim three years to the day after the date of the automobile accident. State Farm denied UIM liability because Riggs’s insurance policy contained a limitation provision that gave Riggs two years from the date of the accident or date of the last basic reparation benefit (BRB) payment, whichever occurred later, within which to make a UIM claim.

    The trial court granted summary judgment for State Farm but the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the State Farm policy provision limiting the time for making the UIM claim was void because it was unreasonable. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the judgment of the trial court, holding that State Farm’s limitation provision was reasonable. The Court noted that the provision tracked nearly verbatim the two-year statute of limitations for tort claims found in Kentucky’s Motor Vehicle Reparations Act (KMVRA) and that two years was not an unreasonable period of time for an insured to discover whether a tortfeasor is underinsured or uninsured.

  • Bullying case and the application of immunity to teachers and administrators.

    Sheila Patton, as Administratrix of the Estate of Stephen Lawrence Patton v. David Bickford, et al.

    2013-SC-000560-DG March 17, 2016

    Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Minton. All sitting. Minton, C.J.; Hughes, Keller, Noble, Venters, and Wright, JJ., concur. Cunningham, J., concurs in result only. Stephen Patton was an eighth-grader at Allen Central Middle School (ACMS) when he committed suicide, allegedly because he was bullied at school. His estate filed suit against various teachers and administrators claiming they knew, or should have known, that Stephen was being bullied. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, ruling that they were entitled to the protection of qualified official immunity and that Patton’s suicide was an intervening cause interrupting any potential liability by the teachers and administrators.

    The Court of Appeals upheld the summary judgment solely on the intervening-cause issue. But the Court of Appeals disagreed with the trial court’s ruling on qualified official immunity, holding that neither the administrators nor the teachers were immune from liability because their duties were ministerial in nature.

    The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals’ result on different grounds. The Court agreed that the trial court erred when it ruled that the teachers were cloaked with qualified immunity but disagreed with the Court of Appeals regarding the administrators, holding that they were protected by qualified immunity and entitled to summary judgment on those grounds. Despite finding that the teachers were not immune from suit, the Court ultimately concluded that the trial court did not err by granting summary judgment because the Estate presented no credible evidence that Patton was bullied because the teachers were negligent either in their duty to supervise their pupils or their duty to handle bullying reports appropriately. As a result, the Court found no reason to address the issue of whether Patton’s act of suicide was an intervening cause.

  • Medical malpractice. Post-occurrence review and peer review records.

    Norton Hospitals, Inc., D/B/A Norton Hospitals v. Honorable Barry L. Willett, Judge, Jefferson Circuit Court, Division 1, et al.

    2015-SC-000606-MR March 17, 2016

    Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Minton. All sitting; all concur. During the course of routine discovery in a medical negligence action, the plaintiff requested production from Norton of various hospital documents relating to patient safety. Norton argued the documents were protected under federal law but the trial court granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel Norton to produce the documents. The trial court then conducted an in-camera review of the documents and determined they were not privileged. Norton filed a petition for a writ of prohibition and a request for emergency relief in the Court of Appeals. The plaintiff then sought and received an emergency hearing with the trial court before the emergency hearing before the Court of Appeals could be scheduled. After hearing arguments, the trial court ruled that the disputed documents should be provided to the Estate and handed the copies of the disputed documents Norton had submitted for in-camera review directly to counsel for the plaintiff, in open court and on the record. The Court of Appeals later dismissed Norton’s writ petition as moot and Norton sought discretionary review before the Supreme Court.

    Noting that it had never dealt with similar conduct by a trial court, the Supreme Court held that the responsibility to produce documents lies with the parties and the parties alone. A trial court cannot itself participate in discovery and produce documents that a party alleges are privileged, especially in the face of a writ challenging the trial court’s determination that they are not privileged. The Court further held that Norton’s writ was not moot because relief could still be afforded, even if the disputed documents had been provided to the plaintiff.

Click here for the AOC’s archived summaries of monthly published decisions for the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Click here for the monthly summaries of published decisions of the Kentucky Supreme Court tagged in the Kentucky Court Report’s posts.

This month’s summary of published decisions:

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