Opinion ID: 2193210
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Seek Certification

Text: Finally, appellant maintains that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment against her on her claim that Donovan was negligent in failing to seek certification of the decision by the United States District Court to the Supreme Court of Mississippi. When appellant dismissed Donovan as her counsel before it even filed a brief in her Fifth Circuit case, she cut off any opportunity for Donovan to seek certification on any issue. Further, the Mississippi Health Code provision which articulates a duty to inform the State Department of Health of certain test results was never even discussed in the District Court opinion. As the trial judge in this case pointed out in his order granting partial summary judgment, the health code apparently was not brought to the attention of the District Court. Thus it would have been impossible for Donovan to certify any issue involving the health code to the Supreme Court of Mississippi. It has long been settled that a federal court applies the substantive law of the forum in which it sits. Whenever there is any doubt as to its application of state law, a federal court can certify questions to the state supreme court to avoid making unnecessary guesses as to how the applicable law should be interpreted, provided that such certification is available under state law. The state supreme court then has an opportunity to interpret or change existing law in a written opinion. See generally Continental Casualty Co. v. Adamo, 326 F.3d 1181, 1182 (11th Cir. 2003). Rule 20 of the Mississippi Rules of Appellate Procedure deals with matters of certification. [20] Under that rule, a federal appellate court, in this instance the Fifth Circuit, may certify a question of state law to the Mississippi Supreme Court, either sua sponte or, when the federal court approves, on motion of any interested party. See Miss. R.App. P. 20(b). Appellant argues that Donovan was negligent in failing to seek certification of the District Court's decision to the Fifth Circuit. After the District Court issued its opinion in September 1995, however, appellant dismissed Donovan as her counsel on December 20, 1995, and as a consequence Donovan never even filed an appellate brief (although it was allegedly preparing one when its services were terminated). Appellant was represented in the Fifth Circuit by other attorneys. The Fifth Circuit then affirmed the District Court's decision on August 7, 1996. Deramus v. Jackson Nat'l Life Insurance Co., supra . To suggest that Donovan was negligent in failing to seek certification of any issues for a client whom it no longer represented is inherently illogical. As Donovan states in its brief before this court, its dismissal as appellant's counsel prohibited it from acting. We hold, accordingly, that Donovan could not have been negligent in failing to seek certification because, by the time that certification might have been a possibility, Donovan was out of the case. The trial court committed no error in granting summary judgment for Donovan on this point. Appellant's separate argument that Donovan's failure to seek certification of the Mississippi Health Code issue also constituted malpractice is unavailing for yet another reason. As the trial court noted in its order, the issue involving the health code was never argued before the federal court in Mississippi; consequently, there was no possibility that it could be certified. As Mississippi Rule 20 clearly states, the only matters that can be certified are questions or propositions of law . . . which are determinative of all or part of that cause and there are no clear controlling precedents.... Since the health code claim was not considered or decided by the District Court, it could not legally have been certified by the Fifth Circuit, and any failure to seek certification could not have been negligent. Buried within appellant's argument on this issue is a related but separate claim that Donovan was negligent in failing to raise the health code issue before the United States District Court in Mississippi. The premise of this argument is that the Mississippi Health Rules  specifically, Section I of those rules, supra note 14  imposed on Jackson National a duty to report Mr. Deramus' HIV-positive status to the State Department of Health. At the hearing held by the trial court on February 24, 2000, this point was vigorously argued by both parties. Appellant took the position that Section I of the Health Rules applied to Jackson National because it was an institution. After extended discussion, however, the court ruled that the term institution, read in context, was not broad enough to include an insurance company, and therefore that Section I imposed no duty of reporting on Jackson National. The court found support for its ruling in Section VII of the Health Rules, which imposes a duty to report information about communicable diseases on persons in charge of certain businesses or institutions. From this language the court concluded that an institution was different from a business, and that an insurance company such as Jackson National was a business, not an institution. On February 25, the day after the hearing, the court issued an order summarizing its rulings at the hearing on February 24. In pertinent part, that order stated: This Order reduces to writing rulings made at the hearing on February 24, 2000.... It is ORDERED as follows: 1. Defendants are GRANTED partial summary judgment on so much of plaintiff's claim that defendants were negligent in not arguing before the United States District Court that the Mississippi Health Code imposed a duty on Jackson National Life to disclose to Mr. Deramus its knowledge that blood tests were positive for the HIV virus[.] In her motion for reconsideration of this ruling, [21] appellant argued, in part, that the court had misconstrued Section I when it held that Jackson National was not an institution and that it therefore had no duty under the Mississippi Health Rules to report Mr. Deramus' test results to the State Department of Health. The court denied the motion for reconsideration in a brief order issued on May 9, 2000. Appellant filed a motion for reconsideration of the May 9 order, but it focused mainly on the agency issues which we have discussed in part III-A of this opinion; it said nothing about the court's interpretation of Section I of the Mississippi Health Rules. This second motion for reconsideration was denied on October 11; see note 8, supra. Appellant has made several arguments in support of her various claims of error, but, as Donovan points out in its surreply brief, she has not challenged on this appeal the trial court's interpretation of Section I of the Mississippi Health Rules. Construing the language of Section I, the court held that it imposed on Jackson National no duty to report anything, and that Jackson National was therefore, in the words of Donovan's surreply brief, outside the application of the Mississippi Health Code. Appellant vigorously argues that Donovan was negligent in failing to seek certification of the health code issue to the Mississippi Supreme Court, but in making that argument, appellant assumes that Jackson National (and presumably its agents) had a duty under the health code to report Mr. Deramus' test results to the state. Nowhere in her brief does appellant contest the trial court's construction of the Health Rules  specifically, Section I  as excluding Jackson National from their coverage, even though this point was vigorously argued below. The inexorable result of appellant's failure to challenge on appeal the trial court's ruling on the meaning of Section I is that we must deem the point abandoned under Bardoff v. United States, 628 A.2d 86, 90 n. 8 (D.C.1993), and similar cases. [22] It follows that the trial court's interpretation of Section I is conclusive for the purposes of this appeal, and that Section I means exactly what the trial court says it means. Accepting as we must the trial court's ruling that Section I imposed no duty of reporting on Jackson National, we conclude accordingly that Donovan could not have been negligent in failing to raise the health code issue in the United States District Court because, again as Donovan states in its surreply brief, no harm [was] caused by the alleged failure. For all of these reasons, we hold that the trial court committed no error in disposing of the certification claim on summary judgment.