Merlean Marshall, Alphonzo Marshall and Eric Shepard, Individually and on Behalf of All Wrongful Death Beneficiaries of Lucy Shepard, Deceased v. Kansas City Southern Railways Company, Eric W. Robinson, the Estate of Robert Everett and C.L. Duett

Summary

The Mississippi Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs' wrongful-death action was timely under Mississippi's savings statute. Although the original action had been voluntarily dismissed without prejudice in federal court, the Court determined that the dismissal constituted a dismissal for a matter of form because it resulted from the federal court's lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Court reversed the Court of Appeals and the trial court and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Holdings

1. A dismissal entered after the federal district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the train-crew defendants were not fraudulently joined constitutes a dismissal for a matter of form under Mississippi Code section 15-1-69, even though the dismissal was entered without prejudice at the plaintiffs' request.
2. Shepard II was timely because it asserted the same cause of action and was filed within one year after Shepard I was dismissed.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the dismissal of Shepard I was a dismissal for a "matter of form" under Mississippi Code section 15-1-69.
2. Whether the Beneficiaries' timely refiling of Shepard II within one year of Shepard I's dismissal preserved their wrongful-death claims despite expiration of the ordinary three-year statute of limitations.
3. Whether the circuit court and Court of Appeals erred in treating the claims as time-barred.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded