Back in 2009, Salvador Parra filed suit in the trial court of Jones County, Mississippi against 19 companies for asbestos exposure. He amended to clarify he was a Louisiana citizen but was employed in Mississippi in 1968-69 in multiple towns including Sandersville (Jones County).
Parra died in 2011, at which point his wife, Peggy Parra, was substituted into the lawsuit as representative of his estate. She filed a motion for leave to amend the complaint to add wrongful death claims, but the motion was never pursued and never ruled upon.
Since then, the underlying case has remained on the Jones County docket without any forward progress. The plaintiff propounded discovery in 2009, and some discovery was exchanged in 2011, at which time it went completely cold in the trial court.
PARALLEL LITIGATION
One company Parra sued was Marsh USA Inc. Marsh was not a manufacturer or user of asbestos; rather, Marsh was the “primary insurance broker” for the Johns Manville Corp., which “[f]rom the 1920s to the 1970s … was, by most accounts, the largest supplier of raw asbestos and manufacturer of asbestos-containing products in the United States[.]” Travelers Indem. Co. v. Bailey, 557 U.S. 137, 140 (2009). In 1982, due to the volume of asbestos claims against Johns Manville, it filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York. Consequently, its insurers contributed $770 million into a bankruptcy trust to pay off all asbestos claims against Johns Manville. Marsh, as insurance broker, contributed $29.75 million, and in 1986, it “received a release of, and injunction against,” relevant claims related to its service to Johns Manville. Id. at 108-09. The bankruptcy court of the Southern District of New York ruled that these “1986 Orders,” as they subsequently became known, generally enjoined state court lawsuits against Marsh and other insurers, and enforcement of such enjoinment became routine over the following decades.
In 2016, Marsh filed a motion in the bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York to enforce the 1986 orders. Notably, Marsh argued beyond enjoinment of the case, but wanted Parra’s claims against Marsh in state court to be completely barred. Parra argued that she was not enjoined by the 1986 orders because she was suing Marsh based on its own conduct, not Marsh’s actions on behalf of Johns Manville.
The bankruptcy court ruled in favor of Marsh, and Parra, sought review to the district court, which agreed in part and remanded in part on the question of whether Parra had received due process stemming from the bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court ruled in favor of Marsh again. Parra again sought review from the district court, which ruled in favor of Parra. Marsh appealed to the Second Circuit, which reversed, ruling that a party could only sue Marsh in the bankruptcy court, not in a state court, and that the bankruptcy court had jurisdiction over whether certain claims arise from Marsh’s own conduct, as a matter of res judicata.
Marsh requested the bankruptcy court find Parra and her counsel in civil contempt for violating the 1986 orders and subsequent case-specific enforcement orders. The bankruptcy court sanctioned Parra and her counsel for $65,481.60 in Marsh’s attorney’s fees.
LACK OF PROSECUTION
In January 2021, defendants Shell Oil and Bechtel filed separate motions to dismiss for lack of prosecution under Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), based on Parra’s failure to take action for over nine years. On February 12, 2021, Parra responded in opposition that she had been enjoined in the parallel litigation in the federal courts of New York. The trial court of Jones County ruled against Parra, stating that Parra had not taken any substantive action for nine years, and that although Parra was enjoined against Marsh, there were many other defendants in the state court suit to proceed against. The lengthy delay in the case, the trial court ruled, indeed did prejudice the defendants in the state court case, and the appropriate sanction is to dismiss the case with prejudice against all defendants, whether they had joined the motions to dismiss (as Marsh did not). Parra then filed a motion to reconsider the ruling, and over the following 26 months, scheduled and cancelled a hearing on said motion to reconsider eight times. In 2023, the trial court denied the request to reconsider, and Parra appealed.
APPELLATE RULING
On August 12, 2025, the Mississippi appellate court upheld the dismissal. Marsh and several other defendants were voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff pursuant to settlement on August 7, 2025. As such, in ruling, the Mississippi appellate court found it unnecessary to address the plaintiff’s contentions with regard to Marsh.
The relevant standard it applied was abuse of discretion. Pursuant to Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), “For failure of the plaintiff to prosecute or to comply with these rules or any order of court, a defendant may move for dismissal of an action or of any claim against him.” Rule 41 allows courts to dismiss actions involuntarily for want of prosecution as a penalty for dilatoriness. The test is whether there is a clear record of delay or contumacious conduct by the plaintiff. Delay alone may suffice. Here, given the clear record of extreme and egregious delay by the plaintiff, there was no abuse of discretion for the trial court to dismiss the suit with prejudice.
Rather than explore potential abuse of discretion issues, Parra argued the enjoinment against Marsh in federal court should be construed as “good cause” for the years of inactivity. However, Parra never filed a motion to stay the action with the trial court or take any other relevant action. Furthermore, Parra was never enjoined against the other defendants in the case, nor did the parallel federal action actually delay Parra from maintaining the instant action in state court. Rather, the Second Circuit comprehensively held Parra could not maintain the state court action, and Parra was held in civil contempt for continuing to maintain it.
Given the circumstances, the harshness of the dismissal with prejudice sanction was appropriate.
A copy of the ruling can be found here.
