Justia Indiana Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted for receiving stolen property. Appellant appealed, arguing (1) the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction, and (2) the trial court abused its discretion by failing to give one of her proposed jury instructions and by giving a final instruction that improperly instructed the jury on the mental state required to convict her. The court of appeals affirmed, holding, in relevant part, that the final instruction was deficient but that Appellant had failed to preserve the instructional issue for appeal. The Supreme Court disagreed and reversed, holding (1) Appellant did not waive her claim of instructional error; (2) the final instruction given to the jury was an incorrect statement of the law because it did not include a mental state; and (3) the error was not harmless. Remanded for retrial. View "Kane v. State" on Justia Law

A company hired an accounting firm to provide auditing services. During the years covered by the parties' agreement, an employee of the company committed fraud and theft, causing significant losses to the company. The company alleged negligence, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment against the accounting firm and demanded arbitration pursuant to the agreement. An arbitration panel found the accounting firm negligent and the company comparatively negligent. The company then filed the present suit, claiming the accounting firm committed deception because the documents the accounting firm produced during the arbitration were misleading. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the accounting firm. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that issue preclusion barred the company's deception claim because the issue underlying the deception claim was the veracity of the documents produced at arbitration, which was necessarily decided by the arbitration panel. View "Nat'l Wine & Spirits, Inc. v. Ernst & Young, LLP" on Justia Law

Employer allowed Employee to take a college class during his normal work hours but informed him he would have to use his vacation, compensation, or unpaid time rather than take shorter lunches, come in early, or stay later. Employee enrolled in the class but did not follow Employer's instructions and failed properly to account for his time off. Consequently, Employee was fired and denied unemployment benefits. An ALJ overturned that decision and granted Employee unemployment benefits, concluding that the discipline was too severe for only a small amount of misreported time. The review board of the department of workforce development upheld the original denial of unemployment benefits, finding that J.M. was discharged for just cause and thus ineligible for unemployment benefits. The Supreme Court affirmed the review board's denial of benefits, holding that the findings of fact by the review board showed Employee violated his supervisor's instructions and the employee handbook, which were statutory grounds for just-cause discharge. View "J.M. v. Review Bd. of Ind. Dep't of Workforce Dev." on Justia Law

Shannon Barabas had two mortgages on her Madison County home. The second mortgagee foreclosed on the property without notice to the first. The first mortgagee sought to intervene and obtain relief from the foreclosure judgment, but the trial court denied its motion, finding that the first mortgagee was bound by the default judgment because its assignment of the mortgage was never properly recorded. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the first mortgagee had a right to intervene; and (2) the default judgment was void for lack of personal jurisdiction as to the first mortgagee because it had no notice of the foreclosure proceeding. View "Citimortgage, Inc. v. Barabas" on Justia Law