This submit was authored by Amy Lavine, Esq.
A Mississippi case decided in 2021 addressed changes to the statutory requirements for pleading and course of service in circumstances troublesome alternatives made by county boards of supervisors.
Earlier to the legislative amendments, aggrieved occasions have been required to file a bill of exceptions to have the ability to provoke an enchantment, nonetheless the Mississippi Supreme Courtroom reviewed this requirement in 2018 and overruled it based on the historic previous of funds of exceptions and “in an effort ‘ to revive fairness and sensibility to the bill of exceptions course of[.]’” The state legislature then revised the statute in 2019 to remove the bill of exceptions requirement and alter it with a requirement for submitting a uncover of enchantment. Deciphering this requirement was as a result of this reality a matter of first impression for the Mississippi Supreme Courtroom when the issue was raised in American Tower Asset Sub, LLC v. Marshall County.
The exact concern sooner than the court docket docket was whether or not or not American Tower’s uncover of enchantment was nicely timed the place it had filed the uncover contained in the prescribed 10 day interval but it surely certainly didn’t ship a replica to the president of the board of supervisors and in its place served the chancery clerk, who moreover served as a result of the clerk to the board of supervisors. The county claimed that this defect was jurisdictional, nonetheless the court docket docket disagreed. As a result of it outlined, jurisdiction was established upon submitting the uncover of enchantment, not service, and whereas the amended statute required a replica to be “delivered” to the president of the board of supervisors, “the statute does not specify the exact strategy of service or provide that is required.” As a procedural considerably than jurisdictional defect, American Tower’s service after all of could as a result of this reality be cured, and it was reversible error for the circuit court docket docket to have dismissed the enchantment.
American Tower Asset Sub, LLC v. Marshall County, 324 So. 3d 300 (Miss. 9/2/21).