Ocean Springs vs. two sisters, one badly injured in crosswalk wreck. Who won?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Judge ruled Ocean Springs not liable after two-day trial over crosswalk wreck.
- Court found streetlight outage not proven as immediate cause of the 2020 crash.
- MTCA caps damages; Mississippi Power and the driver’s insurer settled pretrial.
The city of Ocean Springs has prevailed in a hard-fought lawsuit that two elderly sisters filed more than five years ago, after a Jeep hit them one evening while they were using a crosswalk on Government Street to reach the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Arts Center.
The wreck broke the neck of Marcella Ellis Upton, then 92, and fractured the ankle of her 80-year-old sister Ellen Ellis Lee. Upton never fully recovered, dying at age 95 in 2022. Her case proceeded in the name of her estate.
The streetlight at the crosswalk was out when the Jeep struck Upton and also sent Lee tumbling, prompting the sisters to sue the city, Mississippi Power and others in January 2020. Mississippi Power, owner of the streetlight, and the driver’s insurance company settled before trial.
But the city of Ocean Springs decided to go to trial on the sister’s allegations that the city was negligent in maintaining and monitoring the streetlight. Under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act, damages against government entities are capped at $500,000.
Wreck unfolds in downtown Ocean Springs
Upton and Lee were artists who lived together in retirement in Ocean Springs, where they flourished in the arts community, Upton as a painter and Lee as a sculptor. During their careers, Upton followed her passion for early childhood education, while Lee worked as a costume designer in New York, even designing costumes for one Broadway play, she said during pretrial testimony.
Her testimony also provided details about the night of the January 2020 wreck. The sisters went to the Mary C. that evening for a friend’s art show opening. They parked across the street from the center and made their way to the crosswalk. Lee said they waited for one car to pass.
She saw another vehicle coming, she said, but thought they had time to cross. She also assumed the vehicle would stop for them.
“We crossed the westbound side of Government and were in the lane of the eastbound and then, wham,” she said. “And the rest is chaos, screaming . . . “
She heard the driver say the sisters “came out of nowhere,” which she found odd. The Jeep hit Upton, who fell into Lee. Both wound up on the pavement. Lee said the Jeep tire was inches from her head. She thought the blood she saw was her sister’s, but it turned out to be from Lee’s scraped and broken ankle.
Lee was treated and released from Ocean Springs Hospital on a crutch, while her sister was rushed to the University of South Alabama’s hospital in Mobile. Upton was so gravely injured that her survival was uncertain. While she pulled through, she continued to experience headaches.
Lee said that she suffered from post-traumatic stress and found it particularly difficult to walk through parking lots, where cars move in different directions. She said the Jeep tire made a lasting impression on her. Her fractured ankle was discovered at the Alabama hospital after swelling up and turning purple.
Judge issues ruling
Judge Jackson held a two-day trial in August and issued her final judgment January 14. Attorneys Will Norman and Robert Wilkinson of Wilkinson, Williams, Bosio & Sessoms in Pascagoula tried the case for the city, while Kenneth Aultman and Robert X. Louys Jr. of Morris Bart in Gulfport represented the sisters.
Jackson ruled that the sisters’ case did not prove the city’s failure to maintain and repair the streetlight was the immediate cause of their injuries. The sisters could clearly see the crosswalk and the approaching vehicle, and a witness clearly saw the sisters from 150 feet away, she noted. The driver did not testify, so any testimony about what he saw or didn’t see was speculative, Jackson said.
The driver was not speeding, testimony showed. His driving, Jackson ruled, “constituted an independent, intervening cause” of the sisters’ injuries.
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 2:32 PM.
