In Re: Barbara Dunn, Hinds County Circuit Clerk
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The Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) filed a motion to appeal a final order entered by the Circuit Court. PERS supported the motion with an affidavit of an employee of the Attorney General’s office assigned to PERS who was responsible for tracking opinions and orders issued by the circuit court. The affiant stated that she regularly contacted the circuit clerk's office to ascertain the status of the case. The affiant swore that she was not told that a decision had been entered. The general docket itself revealed that the circuit clerk had failed to give notice of the entry of several other orders to the parties or their counsel. Barbara Dunn, Circuit Clerk of Hinds County, Mississippi, was directed to respond and show cause why sanctions should not have been imposed. Dunn and one of her employees admitted that clerical errors were made in this case. They denied that any docket entries were backdated, and further query revealed that Dunn's office erroneously had sent notice regarding the circuit court’s final decision to the address of a deceased lawyer who had never been involved with this case, mistyped attorney bar numbers (and had no mechanism to detect the error). PERS’s counsel of record was never added to the general docket. Finding that Dunn’s office has implemented a personnel training program which was being supervised by the Hinds County circuit judges, the Supreme Court concluded that, while mistakes were made in this case by Dunn’s staff, those oversights did not warrant harsh sanctions. Accordingly, Dunn was ordered to implement procedures for routine verification of the names and contact information of parties and their counsel, and ordered to pay the cost of the record from the evidentiary hearing in the amount of $947.75 from her personal funds, and not from public funds.
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