## Facts

- Pamela Ann Wells worked as a cashier/waitress at a 24-hour convenience store operated by Royal Oil Company.
- The store manager was April Miller; her husband, Curtis Miller, worked at the store and acted on the store’s behalf in pursuing criminal charges.
- Wells testified that after coworkers learned her husband was Black, she was harassed and criticized, and racial hostility appeared in the workplace.
- A customer reported that Wells took payment for coffee without properly ringing the sale, and management suspected she was embezzling.
- Curtis Miller consulted law enforcement and swore out an affidavit initiating embezzlement charges without first asking Wells for an explanation.
- Wells was arrested at the store; a subsequent check indicated the register was not short and the transaction had been recorded.
- The case was bound over to the grand jury, which returned a no bill.
- Wells sued Royal Oil, the store, and Curtis Miller for malicious prosecution; a jury awarded $9,600 compensatory damages.
- The trial court refused to submit Wells’s punitive-damages request to the jury.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence permitted a finding of lack of probable cause and malice sufficient to sustain liability for malicious prosecution.
2. Whether the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Act barred the malicious-prosecution claim against the employer and its agent.
3. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to submit punitive damages to the jury.

## Decision

- The compensatory judgment for malicious prosecution was affirmed.
- The court held the evidence allowed the jury to find want of probable cause and malice, including based on failure to investigate and evidence of improper motive.
- The court rejected the Workers’ Compensation Act defense, concluding the intentional tort claim was not barred and the agent initiating charges was not a statutory “third person” in this posture.
- The court reversed and remanded for further proceedings limited to punitive damages, holding the issue should have been submitted to the jury.

## Legal Principles

- In malicious prosecution, want of probable cause and malice may be inferred from surrounding circumstances, including initiating charges without reasonable investigation and disregarding readily available exculpatory information.
- Evidence of hostility or discriminatory animus, together with lack of probable cause, can support a jury finding of malice.
- The Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Act does not necessarily provide the exclusive remedy for intentional torts such as malicious prosecution arising from an employer’s criminal accusation of an employee.
- When the proof supporting malicious-prosecution malice is close to the showing required for punitive damages, the punitive-damages question should be submitted to the jury.

## Conclusion

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the jury’s compensatory award for malicious prosecution based on evidence that the employer’s agent initiated embezzlement charges without adequate investigation and amid proof supporting an improper motive, held workers’ compensation exclusivity did not bar the intentional-tort claim, and ordered remand because punitive damages should have been presented to the jury.


Royal Oil Co. v. Wells, 500 So. 2d 439 (Miss. 1986)