The Mississippi Supreme Court issued a ruling last week that will allow the family of Patrauna Hudson to continue their lawsuit against the city of Yazoo City, who they believe is responsible for the drowning death of the nine-year-old girl in 2014.
Yazoo County Circuit Court Judge Jannie Lewis first dismissed the wrongful death case in 2016. But the state supreme court said “the trial court’s judgement is reversed, and this case is remanded for further proceedings…”
The case stems from the 2014 tragic death of Patrauna Hudson, who drowned in flash-flood waters that swept through a drainage ditch alongside her family’s residence. She, her mother Fannie Hudson and her siblings moved into a house at the corner of Seventh Street and Lamar Avenue six months prior to the severe storm.
“On April 6, 2014, an intense storm system moved through Yazoo City pouring five to six inches of rain on the area in a short amount of time,” a court order states. “According to Fannie, the family’s entire back yard was flooded with water from the ditch that evening, which came up to the back steps of the family home.”
Unable to find Patrauna inside the house, Fannie discovered from a younger sister that Patrauna left the house to “go swimming.”
“When Patrauana got out by the clothes line, the water started to pull her,” the younger sister said. “She tried to come back, but the water pulled her back until it pulled her into the ditch.”
Law enforcement and volunteers searched for hours, but tragically, her lifeless body was found the following evening in a drainage ditch about four blocks from her home.
The family filed suit against Yazoo City in March of 2015, “claiming Yazoo City had failed to warn Patrauna of the dangerous nature of Seventh Street draining ditch; adequately maintain, repair and inspect the drainage ditch; and require construction and improvements be performed to the drainage ditch in accordance with existing engineering standards…”
The order also states the Seventh Street ditch has since been covered since the tragic accident, adding that “Yazoo City has been covering other, similar ditches throughout the city on a step-by-step basis.”
In the 2016 trial, Judge Lewis granted judgement in favor of Yazoo City, “finding that the City is immune from liability because the maintenance of the ditches is a discretionary function, and also because the ditch was an open and obvious danger.”
But after appealing to the state supreme court, that decision “is reversed.”
“The Supreme Court found the trial court’s ruling as to the open-and-obvious exception provided by Section 11-46-9(1)(v) was premature in this case because factual questions remained,” records show. “Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.”
The supreme court ruled last Thursday that the Hudson family be given another opportunity to seek damages.
