Patrick v. Iberia Bank

Aisha Patrick (plaintiff) sued Iberia Bank (defendant) for malicious prosecution, alleging that bank employees misinformed law-enforcement officers that Patrick was trying to steal money from her deceased mother’s bank account. The bank moved for summary judgment and submitted Patrick’s mother’s death certificate, an affidavit from teller Kathey Simmons, and the transcript of Patrick’s deposition. These materials indicated that (1) Patrick’s mother opened checking and savings accounts on September 8, 2001, (2) Patrick’s mother was the only authorized person on the accounts, (3) Patrick’s mother died on January 8, 2002, and (4) a $1,885 check, payable to Patrick and dated January 9, 2002, was drawn on the checking account and signed with Patrick’s mother’s name. Simmons’s affidavit stated that the bank received telephone requests to transfer money from the savings account to the checking account on January 2, 8, and 9, 2002. Simmons stated that after the third request, a bank employee informed Simmons that the person making the requests sounded younger than a 63-year-old woman. Simmons then called the hospital and learned from a medical-records representative that Patrick’s mother had died on January 8. Patrick testified in her deposition that her mother signed the check and filled out everything but the date prior to her death. Patrick further testified that when she went to the bank on January 9 to cash the check, bank employees notified law enforcement, leading to Patrick’s arrest and charges of attempted theft. The trial court granted the bank’s summary-judgment motion after finding that Patrick could not establish a lack of probable cause for the commencement of the criminal proceeding against her, which was an essential element of her malicious-prosecution claim. Patrick appealed, arguing that the trial court improperly considered Simmons’s affidavit because the affidavit contained statements that were not based on Simmons’s personal knowledge. Specifically, Patrick contended that Simmons’s statements about what the bank employee and medical-records representative told her were hearsay and were based on what Simmons had learned from third parties.