Title: Collins v. Dixie Transport, Inc.
Citation: 543 So. 2d 160
Docket Number: 58420
State: Mississippi
Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court
Date: April 5, 1989

543 So. 2d 160 (1989) Curtis Lee COLLINS v. DIXIE TRANSPORT, INC. and Michael Weldon White. No. 58420. Supreme Court of Mississippi. April 5, 1989. Rehearing Denied May 24, 1989. *161 Edward Blackmon, Jr., Canton, for appellant. Dorrance Aultman, Patricia L. Trantham, Aultman, Tyner, McNeese &amp; Ruffin, Hattiesburg, for appellee. Before HAWKINS, P.J., and ROBERTSON and PITTMAN, JJ. ROBERTSON, Justice, for the Court: This appeal arises from an order enforcing against the plaintiff an oral settlement agreement allegedly reached regarding an automobile accident personal injury claim. The outcome determinative issue is one of fact, whether plaintiff verbally authorized his attorney to accept a settlement offer. Crucial to the just determination of that issue is the credibility of the witnesses plaintiff presented at the hearing on defendant's motion to enforce settlement, a group that includes the plaintiff himself. Here matters run aground as the trial judge assumed the role of a fact witness on the critical credibility issue. When this situation arose, the trial judge had no alternative but to recuse himself from further participation in the case. Because he failed to do so, the order enforcing the settlement must be vacated and the case remanded for a new hearing. Curtis Lee Collins was born on June 12, 1925. He lives in Scooba, Mississippi, and has no more than a first grade education. On September 1, 1982, Collins was involved in an automobile accident near Scooba with a vehicle driven by Michael Weldon White, an employee of Dixie Transport, Inc. Collins employed John W. Capers, Esq., of Meridian, Mississippi, and Dixon Pyles, Esq., of Jackson, Mississippi, to prosecute his personal injury claim against Dixie Transport. On April 9, 1984, Collins, acting through his above-named attorneys, commenced this civil action by filing his complaint in the Circuit Court of Forrest County, Mississippi. Alleging common law negligence and statutory violations, Collins demanded compensatory damages of $435,800.00 and punitive damages of $871,600.00. In their answer, Dixie and White denied the essential allegations of the complaint and pleaded affirmatively Collins' negligence. On the morning of trial, Capers received from the attorneys for Dixie Transport and White a settlement offer of $125,000.00. Capers recommended to Collins that the offer be accepted. Capers, Collins and Collins' two sons, Chris and Timothy, conferred about the matter. Here the facts scatter in as many places as participants there are to tell them. Important today is the hotly disputed testimony that the trial judge was also in the conference room. Collins says the judge was present, the judge insists he was not, Chris Collins says he was, but Timothy Collins says the judge excused himself at the meeting's outset. *162 Capers later described this meeting as a ten to fifteen minute conversation from which "I was authorized to accept by my client, Mr. Collins, the $125,000.00 settlement." No one else in the room now sees it that way. Capers testified he left the room, approached defense counsel, Dorrance Aultman, Esq., in the hallway and said "The case is settled; we accept the $125,000.00." Aultman replied "Okay, good... but it's gonna take me about four weeks to get this money." Capers proceeded to discharge his witnesses. Aultman told the judge and the judge dismissed the jury. Capers says at this point he walked back into the hallway to tell Collins it would take four weeks for the money. The younger son said "Well, we don't take it then" to which Collins himself nodded in agreement. Capers testified he did not know what to do at this point. Collins and his two sons remember everything from the conference room on differently. Collins is the least articulate of the witnesses. While he was on direct examination, the following colloquy occurred: On cross-examination by the attorney for Dixie Transport, the following question was put to Collins: Further in cross-examination, counsel for Dixie Transport asked Collins whether he or any member of his family had contacted the insurance company the liability carrier for Dixie Transport following the breakup of the putative settlement. In that setting, the following exchange took place: Chris Collins, twenty-three-year-old son of Curtis Lee Collins, was then called as a witness. During the course of his direct examination, Chris Collins described the purported settlement conference and said that he and his father rejected the $125,000.00 settlement offer and "we had dismissed the attorneys," whereupon the following colloquy took place: On cross-examination, Chris Collins was discussing the subject of discharging Capers and Pyles from further representation whereupon the following colloquy occurred: At the conclusion of the testimony Capers and Pyles made extensive statements for the record of their recollection of the events. At that point the trial judge reentered the fray. Notwithstanding counsel's acquiescence that the various comments made by the trial judge during the hearing would serve as his version of the facts at issue, the trial judge proceeded: The Court then proceeded to find that a settlement had been effected and ordered it enforced. No man may serve as judge of his own cause. Dr. Bonham's Case, 8 Co.Rep. 114a, 118a, 77 Eng.Rep. 646, 652 (C.P. 1610); In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136, 75 S. Ct. 623, 625, 99 L. Ed. 942, 946 (1955). We doubt a more powerful principle may be found in our law. We have labeled it "the ancient first principle of justice." Bell v. City of Bay St. Louis, 467 So. 2d 657, 662 (Miss. 1985). The principle's power extends beyond the case of the judge-litigant to that of the judge-witness, to the case where the judge judges his own credibility as a player in the events whose truth is sought. Elementary notions of due process afford a corollary principle: that a judge who is otherwise qualified to preside at trial or other proceeding must be sufficiently neutral and free of disposition to be able to render a fair decision. No person should be required to stand trial before a judge with a "bent of mind." Berger v. United States, 255 U.S. 22, 33, 41 S. Ct. 230, 233, 65 L. Ed. 481 (1921); Wolfram, Modern Legal Ethics § 17.5.5 Independence and Neutrality, p. 989 (1986). These principles have been reinforced by our Code of Judicial Conduct. Canon 3C(1)(a) requires that [Emphasis supplied] In the context of our consideration of other subsections of this Canon, we have held repeatedly that it imports an objective standard. Pearson v. Parsons, 541 So. 2d 447, 454 (Miss. 1989); Jenkins v. Forrest General Hospital, 538 So. 2d 1162, 1163 (Miss. 1988); Cantrell v. State, 507 So. 2d 325, 328 (Miss. 1987); Rutland v. Pridgen, 493 So. 2d 952, 954 (Miss. 1986); see also Craig v. Barber, 524 So. 2d 974, 978 (Miss. 1988). Moreover, the Canon enjoys the status of law such that we enforce it rigorously, notwithstanding the lack of a litigant's specific demand. Our concerns have been well expressed by U.S. Circuit Judge Alvin B. Rubin. "Judicial ethics reinforced by statute exact more than virtuous behavior; they command impeccable appearance. Purity of heart is not enough. Judge's robes must be as spotless as their actual conduct." Hall v. Small Business Administration, 695 F.2d 175, 176 (5th Cir.1983). Federal law codifies Canon 3C(1)(a) in the form of 28 U.S.C. § 455 (1976) whereby a judge is "required to disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." The case law requires that a judge disqualify himself "if a reasonable person, knowing all circumstances, would harbor doubts about his impartiality." Hall, 695 F.2d at 179. We have embraced this view in the cases noted above. To the point, in Haralson v. Haralson, 483 So. 2d 378 (Miss. 1986), this Court concluded: Haralson, 483 So. 2d at 380. [Emphasis supplied] In today's case, Curtis Lee Collins testified that the trial judge was in the room during the critical settlement conference. Chris Collins, the plaintiff's son, testified he had a conversation with the trial judge in the court's hallway on how to fire an attorney, a material fact in dispute at the hearing over which the trial judge then presided. Chris testified as well that the judge told him $125,000.00 was a good offer and that he should take it. In this setting, the trial judge felt compelled to testify throughout the hearing. He repeatedly prefaced his remarks by saying that he was not testifying, and then testified. He went so far as to request the court clerk to swear him in so he could be questioned, but the attorneys balked at that. On the record before us, the trial judge was both a witness to and adjudicator of fact issues with respect to which he was obliged to have played but one role.[1] As those matters went to what was central the credibility of Curtis Lee Collins and his sons, we may but reverse the order enforcing settlement. We remand the case to the Circuit Court for a new hearing on the question of whether an enforceable settlement agreement has been reached, whereupon the trial judge shall recuse himself from further participation in this case in the role of judge. REVERSED AND REMANDED. ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., HAWKINS and DAN M. LEE, P.JJ., and PRATHER, SULLIVAN, ANDERSON, PITTMAN and BLASS, JJ., concur. [1] Lest there be misunderstanding, we do not predicate our decision upon the trial judge's examination of the witnesses. That practice has been authorized by our law, Rule 614(b), Miss. R.Ev.; Layne v. State, 542 So. 2d 237, 243 (1989) though not without limits. West v. State, 519 So. 2d 418, 422-24 (Miss. 1988). Our focus is upon the fact that the trial judge possessed knowledge of the (non)occurrence of events critical to the credibility of Collins' witnesses and ultimately to divining the truth of those events.