Wayne County Sch. Dist. v. Worsham
Annotate this CaseThis Mississippi Tort Claims Act case arose from an accident that occurred in Wayne County, Mississippi, between a school bus and a four-door passenger car. Following the accident, the driver of the car Ernestine Worsham, brought suit alleging negligence and negligence per se on behalf of the driver of the school bus, and negligence, negligence per se, and gross negligence on behalf of Wayne County School District. After a bench trial, the driver of the school bus Natasha Middleton, was dismissed from the suit. And despite evidence that a local county supervisor unilaterally had placed the speed-limit signs on County Farm Road, without a traffic investigation, approval by the Board, or passage of an ordinance, the trial court found Middleton's actions constituted negligence per se, and thus awarded judgment in favor of Worsham. Wayne County timely appealed. Because Mississippi Code 63-3-511 (Rev. 2004) requires that "[w]henever local authorities, including boards of supervisors . . . determine and declare, by ordinance, a reasonable and safe speed limit," that such determinations be made "upon the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation," the Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
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