Chief Justice Waller is Retiring
November 12, 2018 § 1 Comment
Chief Justice Waller announces he will retire January 31, 2019.
From the MSSC press release:
Chief Justice William L. (Bill) Waller Jr. announced that he will retire on January 31, 2019.
Chief Justice Waller said, “I have elected to tender my resignation and retire from public service effective January 31, 2019, completing more than 21 years of service on the Mississippi Supreme Court and 10 years as Chief Justice. It has been my highest privilege to be elected as a Justice of the Supreme Court and serve as Chief Justice of Mississippi.”
Chief Justice Waller was elected in November 1996 and took office in January 1998. He was re-elected in 2004 and 2012. He was a presiding justice for five years. He became Chief Justice in January 2009.
At age 66, he enjoys good health. “It’s just time,” he said.
The Governor will appoint a Justice to the District 1, Place 1 position on the court. The next election for the seat is in November 2020, and the next eight-year term will begin in January 2022. The position is one of two seats on the court with a 14-month delay between the election and the beginning of a new term.
Mississippi Code Section 9-3-11 says that the justice who has served longest on the court shall be Chief Justice. Presiding Justice Michael K. Randolph of Hattiesburg, who joined the court in April 2004, is the second longest serving justice on the court after Chief Justice Waller.
Upon retirement from the court, Chief Justice Waller plans to become a senior status judge and remain active in Access to Justice and other administration of justice endeavors. He would like to teach as an adjunct professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law and Mississippi College School of Law. He previously taught pretrial practice at both law schools.
Judicial Election Results
November 7, 2018 § 7 Comments
Please post the results from your districts via comment, like a bulletin board.
Be sure to include the District, names of the contestants, and any numbers you have. If not final due to missing precincts, please note that fact.
The Trap of the Oral “Easement”
November 5, 2018 § Leave a comment
The Stewarts and the Smiths owned adjoining lots on a lake where they and others enjoyed water skiing. They and some other neighbors deepened a drainage ditch for lake access, and built a boat ramp and retaining walls. The retaining walls were on both properties, but the boat ramp was almost entirely on the Smiths’ lot. In exchange for sharing the cost of the project, the Smiths gave permission for all participants to use the ramp freely, which they did. The offer and agreement were oral and never reduced to writing or recorded.
In 1995, Girani acquired the Stewarts’ lots, and he made further improvements and repairs to the boat ramp. He continued to use the ramp at will, and did not make any effort to acquire a written, recorded easement.
In 2006, Lovorn acquired the Smiths’ lots and blocked the boat ramp, insisting that the others get permission before using it.
At that point, Girani filed suit in chancery court. In the absence of a written, recorded easement, he urged the chancellor to find that the parties’ actions had created an “easement by estoppel.” Or, he suggested, the chancellor could find that he has an “irrevocable license” to use the ramp, based on the consideration of his contribution to the boat ramp and channel. The chancellor denied any relief, and Girani appealed.
In Girani v. Lovorn, decided October 9, 2018, the COA affirmed, with Judge Tindell writing the unanimous opinion:
¶9. Although Girani acknowledges Mississippi caselaw generally fails to recognize either easements by estoppel or irrevocable licenses, he asserts equity allows courts to employ such remedies to prevent injustice. Contending the facts of this case support judicial recognition that he has either an easement by estoppel or an irrevocable license to access Lovorn’s boat ramp, Girani asks this Court to modify or extend existing Mississippi caselaw to provide for such remedies.
¶10. “[A]n easement is an interest in land subject to the statute of frauds, and any agreement to convey or transfer an easement must comply with the statute of frauds, and be conveyed by written deed.” 37 C.J.S. Statute of Frauds § 66 (2017). Where recognized, however, an easement by estoppel provides an exception to the statutes imposing the requirement of a writing. Id. at § 67. The Mississippi Supreme Court has defined easement by estoppel to mean:
[A]n easement which is created when a landlord voluntarily imposes an apparent servitude on his property and another person, acting reasonably, believes that the servitude is permanent and in reliance upon that belief does something that he would not have otherwise or refrains from doing something that he would have done otherwise.
Gulf Park Water Co. v. First Ocean Springs Dev. Co., 530 So. 2d 1325, 1332 (Miss. 1988) (quoting United States v. Thompson, 272 F. Supp. 774, 784 (E.D. Ark. 1967)). In contrast to an easement, a license “confers no interest in the land but merely gives one the authority to do a particular act on another’s land . . . and . . . may be created orally.” 37 C.J.S. Statute of Frauds § 66. “However, it . . . has been said that an irrevocable license is . . . an easement rather than a license.” 53 C.J.S. Licenses § 147 (2017).
¶11. In the present case, Girani admits no written instrument ever existed to grant him permission to use the boat ramp on Lovorn’s land. He therefore relies solely on the remedies of easement by estoppel and irrevocable license for his requested relief. Recognizing that our supreme court has previously looked unfavorably on both irrevocable licenses and easements by estoppel, Girani asks this Court to extend or modify existing Mississippi caselaw on this issue. See Gulf Park Water Co., 530 So. 2d at 1335 (providing that Mississippi “does not recognize ‘irrevocable licenses’”); Belzoni Oil Co. v. Yazoo & Miss. Valley R.R. Co., 94 Miss. 58, 58, 47 So. 468, 472-73 (1908) (refusing to change licenses into an irrevocable right on the basis of equitable estoppel); Beck v. New Orleans & Tex. Ry. Co., 65 Miss. 172, 176, 3 So. 252, 252 (1887) (declining to recognize irrevocable licenses). Upon review, we decline to do so. See Cahn v. Copac Inc., 198 So. 3d 347, 358 (¶35) (Miss. Ct. App. 2015) (“[T]his Court does not have the authority to overrule or ignore supreme court precedent.”). We therefore find this assignment of error lacks merit.
It’s not probable that the MSSC will grant cert and change the law of easement by estoppel or irrevocable license in Mississippi, but stranger things have happened, and I give credit to Girani’s lawyers for pursuing what appears to be the only possible avenue to get their client the relief he is seeking.
Any lawyer who has been in practice a while will recognize this kind of scenario. The client and his neighbors fall into a particular way of doing things until property changes hands and the new owner balks at continuing the longstanding custom. This could have been fixed years ago with a written and recorded easement, but everyone was comfortable with their cozy arrangement so why inject a bunch of lawyers into the picture? Only thing is that the lawyers get involved eventually anyway. “Pay me now or pay me later.”
“Quote Unquote”
November 2, 2018 § Leave a comment
“Surely it is much more generous to forgive and remember, than to forgive and forget.” — Maria Edgeworth
“I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.” — Simone Weil
“From forgiveness anew life will spring in the believer, and as a consequence forgiveness cannot be forgotten. No longer is the Law the only disciplinarian [to lead us] to Christ, but forgiveness through Christ is the gentle disciplinarian who does not have the heart to remind us of what has been forgotten but still reminds us of it to the extent of saying: Just remember that it is forgiven. It is not forgotten but is forgotten in forgiveness. Every time you recollect the forgiveness, it is forgotten; but when you forget the forgiveness, it is not forgotten, but then the forgiveness is wasted.” — Søren Kierkegaard
Further on the Tax Treatment of Alimony
October 31, 2018 § Leave a comment
A couple of days ago I posted about the big change in tax treatment of alimony coming after December 31, 2018.
Here are some points brought to my attention that correct and fine-tune that post:
- I said that there must be a judgment pre-dating the demarcation date. Other tax experts believe that a binding agreement for alimony to be treated for taxes as it currently exists will satisfy the law. The key is that the agreement must on its face be binding. To me that means either a PSA or a consent with alimony as an agreed issue presented to the court for approval or some other proceeding to make it binding.
- I also said that modification would result in making the pre-demarcation-date-alimony non-deductible and non-taxable. A more accurate statement is that modification may, in some cases, change the tax treatment. It’s too complicated for me to elaborate on here, but you need to get some competent guidance before jumping into any alimony modification post December 31, 2018.
Those are the tweaks. Here are two of my own observations:
- Don’t expect judges to be familiar with all of the nuances of these changes. Be prepared to offer expert testimony or stipulations that cover these points.
- Get some competent tax advice so that you can properly and accurately advise your clients. That disclaimer in your retainer agreements and PSA’s about tax advice does not relieve you of the obligation to be able to advise your clients about basics such as tax treatment of alimony and the pitfalls of modification because that’s not really tax advice — it’s divorce advice.
Thanks to the lawyer who called this to my attention.
Judicial Election Protocol
October 30, 2018 § Leave a comment
I posted a list of contested judicial elections here and here.
As much as I would like to post results here, however, the resources are lacking in Mississippi to enable me to do that.
So here’s where you come in … I will post a Judicial Elections Results page next Wednesday, and if you feel called to do so, I will ask you to post results in your district via comments. Maybe we can cover most of the state that way.
Thanks to all who participate.
Tax Treatment of Alimony is Changing Soon
October 29, 2018 § 2 Comments
Effective after December 31, 2018, alimony will no longer be deductible by the payor, and will no longer be income to the payee. That’s per the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” passed by Congress earlier this year.
The law refers to “divorce agreements executed” after December 31, 2018, which would seem to indicate that if you have a PSA executed by the parties on December 29, 2018, the payments would maintain their deductible/income character, but at least one tax expert whom I asked said that the law requires a judgment or decree either adjudicating alimony as a contested issue or incorporating an agreement.
Also, any judgment modifying alimony after the cutoff date will cause the alimony to lose its deductible/income character.
So here are some ramifications for Mississippi practitioners:
- If you’ve been dragging out that divorce case and the current alimony treatment is important to your client, you’d better get moving; you’ve only got two months left until the change.
- You need to think twice about modification, especially if you represent the payor. Even a slight modification of alimony after the cutoff date will cause it no longer to be deductible.
- The parties will no longer be able to agree to deductibility or non-deductibility, or taxability or non-taxability. All alimony is non-deductible and non-taxable, no matter what the parties agree.
- It will no longer make any sense to craft hybrid alimony provisions because taxability is no longer a factor.
- The court is required to consider the tax consequences under the Armstrong factors. Keep that in mind as you prepare your witness list. You might want to prepare a stipulation for the court as to taxability of alimony.
- I think this will: (a) make alimony more difficult to negotiate, and (b) have a depressing effect on amounts of alimony awarded and agreed.
- I believe this also applies to separate maintenance, but that’s my opinion.
It’s not too soon to sit down with a tax specialist who can advise you of the consequences of this change. This has drastic strategic consequences for divorce lawyers and their clients.
