PRADO, Circuit Judge:
Lecedrick Hurst—husband of Latasha Hurst—was killed on October 30, 2004, when he was thrown from his vehicle after it collided with Darral Bell's vehicle. Minutes before the collision, Hurst and Bell had an altercation at an acquaintance's house during which Hurst slapped and threatened Bell. A jury convicted Bell of manslaughter, without malice aforethought, in the heat of passion. Latasha Hurst brought a wrongful death action against Bell and, inter alia, his employer, Pinewood Logging, Inc. ("Pinewood"), as Bell was driving a Pinewood-owned vehicle when the collision occurred. Capital City Insurance Company ("Capital City") had previously issued Pinewood a commercial automobile insurance policy ("the Policy"), and filed the instant suit seeking a declaratory judgment that the October 30, 2004 collision was excluded from the Policy's coverage under its "expected or intended injury" exclusion. The district court granted Capital City's motion for summary judgment, from which defendants appeal. We affirm the district court.
On October 30, 2004, Lecedrick Hurst and Bell got into an argument at an acquaintance's
Bell was indicted on murder charges on March 9, 2005, and was tried on May 16-18, 2006. The jury was given instructions on murder and manslaughter, and was told it could consider whether Hurst's death was an accidental homicide and find Bell not guilty. The murder instruction read:
The court's "deliberate design" instruction provided that:
The instructions further provided that if the jury found Bell not guilty of murder, then they should continue deliberating and consider whether he is guilty of manslaughter. The manslaughter instruction provided that:
A separate instruction further clarified that if the State failed to meet its burden
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty on the murder instruction and guilty on the manslaughter instruction. Bell's conviction was affirmed by the Mississippi Supreme Court. Bell v. State, 963 So.2d 1124 (Miss.2007).
Latasha Hurst filed a wrongful death suit on April 4, 2005, against Bell and others, including Pinewood. On June 22, 2005, Capital City filed a declaratory judgment action in district court.
The Policy defines "accident" as "includ[ing] continuous or repeated exposure to the same conditions resulting in `bodily injury' or `property damage.'" The Policy has a series of exclusions, including excluding coverage for "`[b]odily injury' or `property damage' expected or intended from the standpoint of the `insured.'"
Capital City filed a motion for summary judgment on September 22, 2008, arguing that the manslaughter conviction collaterally estopped the defendants—the plaintiffs in the wrongful death action—from re-litigating the question of whether Bell intended to cause Lecedrick Hurst's death. The district court granted the motion on February 25, 2010, noting that Bell made a voluntary statement to police that was admitted at trial that he was driving in the middle of the road to prevent Hurst from passing him. While never expressly analyzing the preclusive effect of the prior conviction, the district court concluded Bell's conduct was intentional and therefore excluded from the Policy's coverage. Defendants timely appealed.
Subject-matter jurisdiction in this case is based on diversity of citizenship, and we apply the substantive law of the forum state—in this case Mississippi—to determine the conviction's preclusive effect on litigation over the Policy's coverage for the October 30, 2004 accident. See Ideal Mut. Ins. Co. v. Last Days Evangelical Ass'n, 783 F.2d 1234, 1240 (5th Cir.1986) (stating that a federal court applies the substantive law of the forum state in a diversity action).
We review "`the grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same
The Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, requires federal courts to give the same preclusive effect to state court judgments that those judgments would receive in the courts of the state from which the judgments emerged. Raju v. Rhodes, 7 F.3d 1210, 1214 (5th Cir.1993). In Mississippi, collateral estoppel requires that four elements be satisfied: "(1) A party must be seeking to relitigate a specific issue; (2) that issue already had been litigated in a prior lawsuit; (3) that issue actually was determined in the prior lawsuit; and (4) that determination of the issue was essential to the judgment in the prior lawsuit." Id. at 1215 (citing Dunaway v. W.H. Hopper & Assocs., 422 So.2d 749, 751 (Miss.1982)). While Mississippi requires identity of the parties, "strict identity of parties is not necessary for either res judicata or collateral estoppel to apply, if it can be shown that a nonparty stands in privity with the party in the prior action." EMC Mortg. Corp. v. Carmichael, 17 So.3d 1087, 1090-91 (Miss. 2009).
Appellants frame their appeal as raising two issues: (1) whether Bell's driving in the middle of the road to stop Hurst was, as the district court stated, an "intentional act" which precludes coverage under the Policy; and (2) whether the criminal manslaughter conviction precludes further litigation on the question of whether Bell's conduct was an intentional act under the Policy. Appellants essentially argue in both issues that there is a question of fact remaining as to whether Bell intended to kill Hurst, and that Mississippi insurance law requires specific intent to injure—or, in this case, kill—in order for the Policy's coverage exemption for "expected or intended" bodily injury to apply.
Appellants seriously misunderstand the crime of which Bell was convicted. Under Mississippi law, heat-of-passion manslaughter is a lesser-included offense of murder because it lacks malice, not willfulness. While the jury determined that Bell did not act "[w]ilfully, with a deliberate design to effect [Hurst's] death" or with "premeditation and deliberation," it did find Bell guilty of manslaughter on a theory that he killed Hurst "wilfully . . . without malice aforethought, in the heat of passion," and that he had the "mental capacity to realize and appreciate the nature and quality of his acts." (Emphasis added.) As appellants themselves recognize, "[h]eat-of-passion manslaughter requires a state of violent and uncontrollable rage engendered by a blow or certain other provocation given, which will reduce a homicide from the grade of murder to that of manslaughter." Neal v. State, 15 So.3d 388, 408 (Miss.2009) (quoting Hobson v. State, 730 So.2d 20, 26-27 (Miss.1998)) (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see MISS. CODE ANN. § 97-3-35 (defining "heat-of-passion" manslaughter as: "The killing of a human being, without malice, in the heat of passion, but in a cruel or unusual manner, or by the use of a dangerous weapon, without any authority of law, and not in necessary self-defense").
Section 97-3-47 of the Mississippi Code, cited by appellants, is a general involuntary manslaughter statute. MISS. CODE ANN. § 97-3-47 ("Every other killing of a human being, by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, and without authority of law, not provided for in this title, shall be manslaughter."). This statute applies when the killing is not willful. See Tait v. State, 669 So.2d 85 (Miss.1996) (finding willful act of pointing gun at the decedent's head, resulting in its firing and killing the decedent, even when the firing is accidental, supports conviction under § 97-3-47 due to culpable negligence). That willful acts can cause a negligent, unintentional killing and support a manslaughter conviction under § 97-3-47 does not mean, as the appellants confusingly argue, that the district court's denial of a § 97-3-47 jury instruction shows there was no evidence that Bell committed a willful act or intended to kill Hurst. The district court instructed the jury on murder in addition to heat-of-passion manslaughter, a charge even appellants recognize requires willfulness and an intent to kill.
In short, a jury determined beyond a reasonable doubt that Bell willfully killed Hurst, without malice, in the heat of passion. While appellants obviously seek to relitigate the question of whether the collision was an accident, a jury considered—and rejected—that portrayal of the October 30, 2004 collision. As an element of the crime of heat-of-passion manslaughter, that issue was litigated, determined by, and essential to Bell's conviction.
The final element of collateral estoppel, mutuality of the parties, is also satisfied in this case. Mississippi counsels against a "wooden and artificial reading" of the rule, Jordan v. McKenna, 573 So.2d 1371, 1377 (Miss. 1990), and will bind a nonparty to the first judgment when the nonparty "stands in privity with the party in the prior action." Hogan v. Buckingham ex rel. Buckingham, 730 So.2d 15, 18 (Miss. 1998). "`Privity' is . . . a broad concept, which requires us to look to the surrounding circumstances to determine whether claim preclusion is justified." Little v. V & G Welding Supply, Inc., 704 So.2d 1336, 1338 (Miss. 1997) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Quoting the RESTATEMENT OF JUDGMENTS (1942), the Mississippi Supreme Court has noted that:
Id. at 1339 (quoting RESTATEMENT OF JUDGMENTS § 83 cmt. (1942)).
Capital City filed this suit naming appellants and Bell as defendants, and seeks to prevent them from relitigating the question of whether Bell's conduct was an accident. See Gollott v. State, 646 So.2d 1297, 1301 (Miss.1994) ("[A] conviction of manslaughter will collaterally estop litigation of the same facts in the wrongful death suit."). Bell did not file an Answer and had a default entered against him. Latasha Hurst appeared as a defense witness in Bell's criminal trial, testifying that she had filed a civil suit against Bell so she could get insurance money to support her children, and stating she believed that Bell acted negligently. Referring to her belief that her husband's homicide was an accident, she testified: "I feel that no one in the right mind would do somebody like that." Just as the prosecution's witness and victim in Jordan was entitled to have the facts underlying the criminal defendant's conviction for rape conclusively established in her subsequent civil suit, common sense likewise suggests that there is enough identity between Latasha Hurst and Bell in the criminal case that she is likewise bound in a subsequent civil suit by the criminal jury's judgment that Bell intentionally killed her husband.
Bell was aware of the civil suit during the criminal trial and had every incentive, given the charges against him, to use a defense of "accident" even though that would have been consistent with Capital City's liability under the Policy.
Turning to the terms of the Policy at issue in this case, the Policy provides coverage for bodily injury caused by an "accident" and expressly excludes coverage for bodily injury "expected or intended from the standpoint of the `insured.'" Under any reading of the Policy, Bell's manslaughter conviction negates any finding that Hurst's death was an "accident." Appellants citation to Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Co. v. Allard, 611 So.2d 966 (Miss.1992), is unavailing, because that case involved an intentional act (the firing of a gun) that resulted in an unintentional injury.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court.
AFFIRMED.