Jackson Office Earns Three Federal Appellate Victories in 30 Days

In the space of 30 days, Phelps recently secured appellate victories in three cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on behalf of two municipalities and the State of Mississippi.  

In the first case, Olivier v. City of Brandon, Phelps successfully defended a constitutional challenge to a municipal ordinance, arguing that injunctive relief was barred because it would imply the invalidity of the claimant’s prior conviction for violating the ordinance. Phelps Attorneys Todd Butler and Mallory Bland litigated the appeal.   

In the second case, Walton v. City of Verona, Phelps successfully defended a civil rights action brought under federal and state law, arguing that the city was entitled to sovereign immunity on claimants’ state claims and that there was no appellate jurisdiction over claimants’ federal claims. Phelps Attorneys Todd Butler, Trey Clark and Mallory Bland litigated the appeal.          

The most recent case, United States v. Mississippi, was the culmination of seven years of intense litigation. In 2016, the United States sued Mississippi, alleging that Mississippi’s mental health system violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because it discriminated against adults with serious mental illness on a system-wide basis by not providing sufficient community-based services to them and by unnecessarily institutionalizing such individuals. After a month-long trial, a federal district court sided with the United States. It found that Mississippi violated the ADA and entered a system-wide injunction that appointed a monitor to assess Mississippi’s mental health system. Mississippi appealed to the Fifth Circuit. Phelps and the Mississippi Attorney General’s office argued that the district court’s rulings should be reversed. The Fifth Circuit agreed. It reversed the district court’s rulings, finding that Mississippi did not violate the ADA because it did not engage in discrimination and further that the district court’s injunction was overly broad. Phelps Attorneys Jim Shelson and Reuben Anderson litigated the case in district court, along with Tommy Siler, Nash Gilmore, Nick Morisani, Mark Halbert, and Trey Clark. Jim Shelson, Nash Gilmore, and Jeremy Grabill litigated the appeal for Phelps.

This trio of rulings highlights Phelps’ strong appellate practice. The firm is ranked in the top 5 law firms with the most appeals handled at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and our appellate attorneys frequently appear in other federal circuits as well as state appellate courts across the Gulf South.