R. Jonathan Franco

EDUCATION

Mississippi College School of Law, J.D., 2013

University of Alabama, B.A. Political Science with English minor, 2007

BAR ADMISSIONS

Mississippi, 2013

COURT ADMISSIONS

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

LEGAL, PROFESSIONAL, AND CIVIC AFFILIATIONS:

Southern Trial Lawyers Association, 2014-present

• Board of Directors, 2023-present

American Association for Justice, 2013-present

• Member, Motor Vehicle and Premises Liability Section
• Member, Medical Malpractice Section

Mississippi Association for Justice, 2013-present

• Vice President, 2025–present
• Treasurer, 2024
• Secretary and parliamentarian, Executive Committee
• Board of Governors, 2015-present
• Editor, annual Voir Dire publication, 2020-21
• Treasurer, New Lawyers Division, 2019-20

Ocean Springs Rotary Club, 2013-present

• Board of Directors: 2015-19
• President, 2018

PRESENTATIONS & LECTURES

Caught on Tape

• Using Video of the Event Combined with Focus Groups and Before and After Witnesses to Win Your Case, Southern Trial Lawyers Association Annual Conference, February 2025

PUBLISHED WORKS

“Prepping Your Life Care Planner for Cross-Examination,” Mississippi Association for Justice Voir Dire magazine, Summer 2016

“Medical Malpractice in Conscience Sedation,” Mississippi Association for Justice Voir Dire magazine, 2017

REPRESENTATIVE CASES

Mahli, LLC v. Admiral Ins. Co., CIVIL ACTION No. 1:14cv175-KS-MTP (S.D. Miss. Aug. 25, 2015)

• In this federal verdict, Jonathan represented the plaintiff, whose hotel burned down. The insurance company claimed the plaintiff had committed arson and refused to pay the full value of his losses. A federal jury determined that the plaintiff had not committed arson and that the hotel was a total loss.

Petterson v. Petterson, 2018 WL 5262603, 2018, Miss Ct. App.

• This is a landmark Mississippi Court of Appeals decision. In this divorce case, Jonathan successfully argued that his client’s husband actively invested his seven-figure IRA, which was accumulated prior to the marriage. The husband contested this allegation and stated his investment was passive and should not be considered marital property. The trial court ruled in the plaintiff’s favor, determining that she had provided sufficient evidence that her husband had actively invested his IRA. Further, the significant appreciation that occurred during the course of the marriage was marital property. The Court of Appeals affirmed (cert denied by the Mississippi Supreme Court).

Stonestreet v. United States, 1:20cv65-LG-RPM (S.D. Miss. Oct. 6, 2021)

• In this federal opinion in a premises liability/Federal Tort Claims Act case, the court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss and motion for summary judgment. The subject incident occurred at a grocery store when the plaintiff was getting eggs out of a cooler. The eggs are kept on a rolling egg cart in the cooler section. The cart suddenly rolled backward, causing the plaintiff to fall forward into the cooler. In its Motion to Dismiss, the U.S. Attorney’s Office claimed that the independent contractor exception applied because Eggland’s Best, an independent contractor, stocked the egg racks. Defendant also claimed discretionary function immunity in its choice of vendor. In the Motion for Summary Judgment, the defense argued that (1) no one else has ever been injured interacting with the egg carts and that the plaintiff was the sole proximate cause of her own injuries; (2) the egg carts weren’t a dangerous condition; (3) engineering and retail experts testified that the standard of care for egg cart safety was met; and (4) the store had no notice of a dangerous condition and such a condition was not foreseeable. Jonathan argued that (1) there are wheel locks on the egg carts that should have been used but were not; (2) the sole safety measure the store had in place is a very thin “L-bracket” that sits behind one of the cart’s four wheels and is not sufficient to stop an egg cart from moving backward; (3) the egg cart was very low on eggs at the time of the incident, which was right before close of business when inventory is low and thus was light and moveable; (4) plaintiff’s retail expert said that locking mechanisms are the standard of care and plaintiff’s engineer/human factors expert performed testing on an exemplar cart and found that the plaintiff could have easily rolled the cart over the thin L-bracket by using only a small fraction of her weight and thus the L-bracket was an inadequate safety measure; and (5) the incident was foreseeable as the plaintiff had testimony from employees of the commissary that children and other adults previously pressed upon the egg coolers when trying to get the freshest eggs, sometimes putting their whole torso into the egg rack.

Notable Settlements Over the Last Few Years

Wrongful Death Motor Vehicle Collision

• $1,150,000: Settlement involving a commercial defendant driving a Ford F250 that struck our client’s vehicle resulting in various internal organ injuries and fractures eventually leading to death around twenty days later. This case was filed in federal court and HFF used accident reconstructionists to preserve the crash data from the electronic control modules, retained medical experts to prove causation (disputed due to preexisting conditions), and forensic economic experts to value the economic damages.

Premises Liability Settlement

• $750,000: We represented a teacher who was staying with her family at a time share in Jackson County, MS. The property was poorly lit resulting in our client falling into a concrete culvert head first at night. Our client sustained a fractured cervical vertebrae and herniated lumbar disc. During our investigation we brought an architect to the property who used a device to measure the lighting at night. We proved that the light was inadequate. We also proved through depositions of our client’s treating physicians that our client would continue to have a difficult recovery and would need significant medical treatment in the future. This claim was resolved at mediation.

Motor Vehicle Collision Uninsured Motorist

• $750,000: Our client, a sheriff deputy, came to us for help with a workers’ compensation claim when he was hit while on the job by an uninsured motorist. We quickly realized that he would have a substantial uninsured motorist policy through his county employer. We advised that the workers’ compensation carrier would not be able to subrogate from the uninsured motorist claim under Mississippi law. We were able to get a tender of the policy limits from the UM carrier without any lien from the workers’ compensation carrier.
  
  Our client sustained significant injuries to his bilateral knees, hips, back, neck, head and nose and underwent numerous surgeries including: arthroscopy and debridement with plica resection of the right knee; left knee arthroscopy with posterior cruciate ligament reconstruction and partial synovectomy; left sacroiliac joint fusion with SI bone implants, left SI joint injection with exparel; right knee arthroscopy with partial lateral meniscectomy and plica excision; left knee arthroscopy, plica resection, and partial synovectomy; and a closed reduction nasal fracture. In addition to numerous surgeries, our client had to undergo extensive and numerous sessions of Physical Therapy. Our client also received numerous injections in his bilateral knees and bilateral SI joints.

Landscaping Negligence

• $650,000: Our client suffered serious spine and lower extremity injuries when her landscapers left large holes in her property.

Insurance Bad Faith Verdict

• $460,000: In Mahli LLC v. Admiral Insurance Company, we represented the owner of a hotel that burned down in Ocean Springs, MS. The insurance company alleged that the owner had committed arson. We filed suit in the Southern District of Mississippi federal court. This case was tried in federal court over 4 days. In Mississippi, to establish a claim for civil arson, the Defendant must prove motive, opportunity, and incendiary fire. Our client’s finances were in dire condition following the BP oil spill’s financial impact on the Gulf Coast. Our client was at the hotel at the time that the fire erupted. There was eye witness testimony that our client had the keys to the room where the fire began shortly before the fire erupted. Finally, there was expert testimony that gas was poured all over the top floor of the hotel. However we were able to disprove each element of the arson defense and the jury’s verdict was for the Plaintiff.

Medical Malpractice and Wrongful Death Settlement

• $500,000: Our client was overly sedated during a routine nerve block procedure. She was also given inadequate care in the post anesthesia care unit (“PACU”). We were able to establish that the anesthesiologist gave 10 mg versed and 200 micro grams of phentanyl prior to the procedure. This is far beyond the standard of care for conscience sedation. Further, the nurses in the PACU knew the patient had a low heart rate, was turning blue, and was non responsive. The PACU nurse was very slow to respond to the patient and the treating anesthesiologist was performing other procedures and thus could not respond to the patient. The patient suffered an anoxic brain injury and eventually died. We sued both the hospital and the anesthesiologist and obtained justice on behalf of our client.

Workers' Compensation Settlement

• $437,696: Our client, a registered nurse, suffered a neck injury while moving a patient. We obtained a settlement on his behalf that included $331,696 for future medical treatment.

Workers’ Compensation Settlement

• $425,000: Our client was working for a local grocery store chain when she suffered a ruptured aneurism. We were able to prove through testimony of coworkers that she was under unusual and tremendous stress on the job , being asked to manage multiple departments with not enough help. We then also proved through the neurosurgeon that removed a clot from her brain that there is a correlation between work stress, hypertension, and ruptured aneurisms.

Car Accident/Legal Malpractice/Underinsured Motorist Settlement

• $345,000: Our client suffered multiple herniated discs in their thoracic and lumbar spine after a multi-vehicle high-speed collision on the interstate in Tennessee. Our client was originally represented by a lawyer in South Mississippi that allowed the Tennessee statute of limitations to expire. Therefore, we filed two lawsuits. The first was a legal malpractice lawsuit in Mississippi against the lawyer who allowed the statute of limitations to expire. We also acquired pro hac vice admission to the Georgia Bar and filed a lawsuit against the at fault driver who was a Georgia resident. We also brought claims against the underinsured motorist insurance carrier in the Georgia case. After lengthy litigation this claim was resolved via global settlement of all parties.

Bus Accident Settlement

• $345,000: Our client was driving a school bus when she was hit by a dump truck that ran a red light. The collision resulted in a knee injury necessitating an ACL reconstruction and a neck injury. The defendant’s lawyer and their insurance company viewed this as a routine “accident” with no serious injuries. We were able to prove that the dump truck driver had an extensive criminal background that precluded him from driving a commercial vehicle under state law. Further, the dump truck was unable to stop properly because of bald tires. We took the deposition of the police officer that responded to the wreck who confirmed the defects with the vehicle. We hired a trucking expert who laid out the various violations of state and federal law. We took the depositions of our client’s doctors who established her damages. The defendant sought to limit discovery by admitting vicarious liability and admitting liability. However, we were able to successfully defend their motions and leave discovery open regarding the trucking company’s history and background. The claim settled at mediation for far more than the insurance company had originally foresaw.

Medical Malpractice Settlement

• $300,000: Our client had elevated PSA levels. A biopsy was ordered. The biopsy showed that he had cancer. However, our client was told that if he was not called after the biopsy, he should assume the biopsy was negative for cancer. He was never called. Years later he had stage 4 prostate cancer. We gave notice of claim to both the urologist who performed the biopsy, the hospital he worked for, and the clinic that ordered the biopsy originally. This claim was settled pre suit. The recovery was limited by the Mississippi Tort Claim Act’s caps on damages.

Truck Accident Settlement

• $300,000: Our client was driving on I-10 near Gulfport when he was side swiped by a commercial vehicle transporting multiple new vehicles that were to be sold. The impact forced our client into the median. After recovering from the shock of the incident, our client was able to catch up with the commercial vehicle and take a picture of his DOT # and phone number. He then called the number on the side of the vehicle. The driver that hit him hung up on him. Using the DOT # we found the identity of the trucking company and sued them in Mississippi. We were forced to hire a private investigator to serve the driver in Miami Florida. We flew to Miami and took the driver’s deposition. During the deposition the driver lied about hitting our client and we proved that he did not understand the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. We also used his log books to prove he exceeded his hours of operations. We then subpoenaed the phone records from the driver and his dispatch company and proved our client did call him. Shortly after our client called the at fault driver, the driver called dispatch for his company and reported the incident. Once we proved the driver had lied , the claim settled at mediation.

Wrongful Death Car Wreck

• $300,000: HFF represented the spouse and two children of a man who was hit as a pedestrian by a careless driver and killed. The driver had a $300,000 policy limit and no other insurance. Therefore, this was a max recovery.

Commercial Vehicle Crash

• $300,000: HFF represented a passenger in a vehicle that was struck by a box truck that negligently attempted to pass an 18 wheeler in a non passing zone. The box truck collided head on with the vehicle that our client was occupying. HFF immediately hired a accident reconstruction expert to download the box truck’s black box. The black box revealed that the box truck accelerated up to 61 mph twelve seconds prior to the crash. The defendant was driving in a 55mph zone which changed to a 50mph zone as he approached the intersection. The defendant held 60 mph. The defendant was traveling 57 mph seven seconds prior to the crash. The defendant applied his brakes traveling 58 mph. There was then a sudden deceleration. HFF’s client’s vehicle’s driver saw the box truck approaching her head on at a high rate of speed in her lane and swerved right off the roadway to avoid the defendant from hitting her head on. The defendant swerved left, off the roadway and still hit our client’s vehicle head on. Our client suffered a displaced fracture of the right proximal femur requiring open reduction and internal fixation surgery. Thankfully our client made a relatively quick and full recovery and was able to return to work without restrictions.