Conley Byrd

This case involved an Arkansas state trooper, Jimmy Grimmett, who was sued for damages after causing a car accident while on duty; he sought to dismiss the suit by arguing it was effectively an action against the state barred by Article 5, Section 20 of the Arkansas Constitution, which would place exclusive jurisdiction with the Claims Commission. The Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of prohibition, holding that a negligence action against a state employee for violating duties shared with the general public does not constitute a suit against the state. The court's reasoning relied on its prior decision in Kelly v. Wood and on constitutional provisions in Article 2, Sections 7 and 13, which guarantee the right to a jury trial and a remedy for injuries, preventing the legislature from assigning exclusive jurisdiction over such claims to the Claims Commission without a constitutional amendment. The decision allowed the underlying tort suit to proceed in court rather than before the Commission.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case involved a challenge to a trial judge's orders excluding the public and press from a suppression hearing and a proffer of inadmissible testimony during a criminal conspiracy-to-murder trial, and conditioning a reporter's attendance on prior censorship of any resulting story. Petitioner sought a writ of mandamus after the fact to address the exclusions. The court granted the writ, holding that the orders violated Arkansas statute requiring that all court sittings be public and open to every person. The decision rested on state statutory and common-law principles emphasizing public observation of judicial proceedings funded by taxpayers, without reaching federal constitutional claims under the First or Fourteenth Amendments.

criminal lawfree speechprocedure

The case involved appellant Edward Leon Teas, charged in two separate felony informations with selling morphine and marijuana to the same informant on different dates in December 1977. The trial court joined the offenses for a single trial, admitted evidence of Teas's prior drug sales, and denied his motion to suppress a confession, resulting in maximum sentences on both counts to run consecutively. The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed and remanded, ruling that the offenses were not part of a single scheme or plan and thus required severance under Criminal Procedure Rule 22.2, that the prior sales evidence was inadmissible, and that the confession was involuntary because it was induced by implied promises of leniency or reward in exchange for cooperation with police. The court found the trial court's voluntariness determination contrary to the totality of the evidence on that issue.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a personal injury lawsuit by Felix Allen Clark, who was injured when his pickup truck collided with the rear of a stalled log truck owned and operated by Moses Newton on a highway bridge during a thunderstorm; Clark sued both Newton and contractor Bill Fitzgerald, alleging negligence by Newton in operating the truck without tail lights and by Fitzgerald in negligently selecting an incompetent independent contractor. A jury awarded Clark $155,000 in damages against both defendants. The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding that Fitzgerald was entitled to a directed verdict because Newton was not Fitzgerald's independent contractor but merely a supplier of logs who chose Fitzgerald for credit after delivery, and there was no evidence that Fitzgerald knew or should have known Newton was incompetent. The court also held that the trial court erred in admitting a blood alcohol test of Clark because it did not comply with statutory requirements for physician supervision and approved testing methods.

torts & liabilitybusiness & regulatory

The case concerned whether an illegitimate child could inherit from her father under Arkansas law after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1977 decision in Trimble v. Gordon struck down a similar statute on equal protection grounds. Linn Hunt died intestate in 1972, and Marie Frakes sued in 1977 claiming to be his sole heir to over 400 acres of land, arguing that the Arkansas statute barring such inheritance was unconstitutional. The trial court found the statute invalid but ruled against Frakes on the facts of her claim. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the outcome, holding that Trimble does not apply retroactively to deaths or title distributions occurring before April 26, 1977, to avoid disrupting settled property titles and expectations of reliance on prior law. The court cited similar prospective-only rulings from Kentucky and Tennessee and noted potential conflicts with statutes of limitations and pretermitted child rules.

family lawpropertycivil rights

This case involved a dispute between neighboring landowners in Arkansas where Mary Lou Stoner, whose property was surrounded by the Houstons' land, hired a bulldozer to clear old logging roads without permission, damaging trees and disturbing the soil. The Houstons sued for trespass and timber damage under state statute, and a jury awarded $1,000 for timber damage, $1 in actual trespass damages, and $10,000 in punitive damages, which the trial judge then trebled to $3,000 for the timber under Ark. Stat. Ann. § 50-105. On appeal, the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed the judgment, holding that the judge improperly trebled the damages because the jury had already been instructed to consider malice and award treble damages if warranted, and that the separate awards constituted an impermissible double recovery for the same incident. The court also addressed supporting evidence of malice based on prior disputes but found the trebling and double-recovery issues required reversal, while noting that nominal damages alone could not support punitive damages.

propertytorts & liabilityprocedure