The Supreme Court of Kentucky released its summary of published decisions for February 2014.  Yes, I know it’s late, but better late than never.  Besides, I will be catching up the Supremes from February thru July in short order to provide a compendium of research materials and to make up for the fact that I was AWOL from the blog, but not my real job at an injury and trial attorney.  Speaking of injury law, some of you may find the following decisions from February’s published summaries of interest. Kentucky personal injury lawyers have only three tort, insurance and civil decisions to digest from this month and might find the following of interest dealing with attorney fees; claims of mutual mistake in obtaining underinsured motorist benefits as part of fleet insurance policy; and experts for standard of care in medical malpractice claim.

Springtime Walk on the Big Four Bridge Looking over the Great Lawn and the Downtown Louisville Skyline. Photo by Michael Stevens 4/21/2013.

Springtime Walk on the Big Four Bridge with a view looking over the Ohio River and Downtown Louisville Skyline. Photo by Michael Stevens 4/21/2013.

For an archived list of all monthly summaries prepared by SCOKY at the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) web site, then click here.  The list is organized by year and month at AOC.

Tort, Insurance and Civil Decisions for this month:

* Attorney Fees
Mary Bell vs. Cabinet for Health and Family Services
SC Published 2/20/2014; J. Noble, Affirming

Held that the trial court could not order the payment of attorney’s fees solely for egregious conduct without statutory authorization or a contract providing for such fees and the trial court could not order the disclosure of records of all persons participating in a federally funded community-based services program after having decided the claim of one person without the other persons having filed claims and no class action being certified.

* Insurance
James Nichols vs. Zurich American Ins. Co.
SC,Published 2/20/2014; J. Venters
Addressed issues of unilateral mistake vs. mutual mistake which the SC held was not available for contract reformation. Remanded  to trial court to reevaluate whether Nichols can amend his complaint.

* Medical Malpractice
C. Lance Love, MD vs. Lisa and Larry Walker
SC Published 2/20/2014; Justice Keller, Reversing and Remanding

Held that the Walkers were required to produce an expert as to the standard of care regarding Dr. Love’s surgery and post-surgery care. Because the Walkers had more than three years to produce such an expert and failed to do so, the trial court did not prematurely grant summary judgment. However, the Walkers had produced sufficient expert evidence to support their claim that Dr. Love should not have performed the surgery. Therefore, the Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s summary judgment on that issue.

[gview file=”http://apps.courts.ky.gov/supreme/casesummaries/February2014.pdf”]