Mary Frances S. England

MARY FRANCES S. ENGLAND (Frankie) was born in Greenville, Mississippi in 1979. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English, magna cum laude, from Mississippi State University in 2001 and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 2004. During law school, Ms. England served as executive articles editor of the Mississippi Law Journal, a member of the Moot Court Board and a member of Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity. Ms. England is a member of the Mississippi State Bar and the Mississippi Defense Lawyers' Association. Ms. England is admitted to practice law before all Mississippi state courts, the federal district courts in Mississippi, and the Court of Appleals for the Fifth Circuit. Ms. England's practice primarily consists of medical malpractice and workers' compensation defense.

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Summary Judgments:

Jones v. Portner, Bolivar County, Mississippi, Circuit Court (March, 2011)

Mary Frances S. England and L. Carl Hagwood gained dismissal for their client, Dr. Michael Portner, after successfully arguing that plaintiff failed to properly serve pre-suit notice as required by Miss. Code Ann. §15-1-36(15). Actual delivery of the pre-suit notice is accomplished when a copy is handed to the attorney of party or "[left] at his office with his clerk or other person in charge thereof." The court found that under Miss. R. Civ. P. 5, pre-suit notice was not left at Dr. Portner's "office" when it was allegedly left with the office manager at a dialysis center where Dr. Portner made rounds. The court went on to note that if the dialysis center was considered to be Dr. Portner's "office," then every other dialysis center or hospital where he made rounds could be considered his "office."

Appellate Court Decisions:

Patterson v. Tibbs, No. 2009-CA-01037-SCT (Miss. 2011)

The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's ruling that plaintiff's experts' opinions concerning the pre-death level of Demerol in the decent's system should be stricken.  Mary Frances S. England and L. Carl Hagwood showed on appeal that the trial court's opinion properly relied on the recent Hill v. Mills decision and that the plaintiff's experts had no peer-reviewed data to rely on. The plaintiffs experts had given opinions concerning the amount of Demerol in the decedent's blood stream that allegedly led to the baby's death could be determined by back-extrapolation from the level of Demerol from a post-mortem blood sample. A Daubert hearing was conducted, and the trial court excluded the plaintiff's experts' opinions because the Defendants experts presented peer-reviewed literature demonstrating that the half-life calculation used by the plaintiff's experts were unreliable. Dr. Bob Tibbs' experts contradicted the plaintiff's experts' testimony with published, peer-reviewed data, and plaintiff failed to respond with evidence showing acceptance and support in the scientific community of plaintiff's experts' theories.

Berry v. Patten, No. 2009-CA-01441-SCT (Miss. 2010)

The Miss. Supreme Court unanimously  reversed and rendered a Lafayette County jury verdict of $1.15 million in Berry v. Patten in favor of Mary Frances S. England and Carl Hagwood. Mr. Hagwood had previously obtained a defense verdict in a medical malpractice case against an anesthesiologist where negligence was alleged in the administration of anesthesia causing the patient to aspirate, subsequently develop ARDS and die.  However, the jury returned a verdict in favor of one plaintiff, Kevin Berry, Certified Nurse Anaesthetist.  On appeal, Mr. Hagwood and Ms. England argued that the trial court erred in allowing a plaintiff’s jury instruction which attempted to state that six variable standards of care were medically incorrect  in that 1) it confused “induction” with “intubation” and was legally insufficient; 2) it did not state what the jury must find to be the standard of care, who must be found to have been negligent and at what point in time any of the variable standards of care were to be in effect. The Mississippi Supreme Court found that the trial court erroneously denied Kevin Berry’s Motion for Directed Verdict and for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict.  The Court found that the Plaintiffs failed to establish, with expert testimony, the CRNA standard of care or that Mr. Berry had breached the standard of care.  Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the trial court.

Ervin v. Delta Regional Medical Center, No. 2008-CA-01816-COA (Miss. 2010)

Mary Frances S. England and Carl Hagwood represented the Appellee/ Defendant, Delta Regional Medical Center, in a case of alleged medical malpractice where the Plaintiff's decedent died of a pulmonary embolus shortly after a hysterectomy was performed by an employed physician at Delta Regional Medical Center. The deceased's husband filed a wrongful death action, and the trial court found that the Plaintiff's expert offered no peer review literature or studies to support his opinion of the national recognized standard of care. Following a bench trial, the Circuit Court found in favor of Delta Regional Medical Center on these grounds, and the Court of Appeals upheld the action of the trial court specifically finding that without peer review literature to support the Plaintiff's expert's position on breach and causation, the Complaint should be dismissed.