TBA president addresses lawyer complaints in column TBA President Bill Haltom addresses recent reports on the rise in complaints against lawyers and explains in a Tennessean opinion piece how vigorous efforts by the Tennessee Supreme Court and the Tennessee Bar Association to improve the lawyer disciplinary system may be behind the statistics. http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051216/OPINION03/512160403/1054    TODAY'S OPINIONS: Friday, December 16, 2005 Following this index are summaries of each case, including its name, first paragraph, author's name, and the names of attorneys for the parties of each opinion. 00 - TN Supreme Court 00 - TN Worker's Comp Appeals 00 - TN Supreme Court - Rules 02 - TN Court of Appeals 01 - TN Court of Criminal Appeals 00 - TN Attorney General Opinions 00 - Judicial Ethics Opinions 00 - Formal Ethics Opinions - BPR TBA members can get the full-text versions of these opinions three ways detailed below. All methods require a TBA username and password. If you have forgotten your password or need to obtain a password, you can look it up on-line at http://www.tba.org/getpassword.mgi Here's how you can obtain full-text version. We recommend you download the Opinions to your computer and then open them from there. Click the URL at end of each Opinion paragraph below. This should give you the option to download the original document. If not, you may need to right-click on the URL to get the option to save the file to your computer. Do a key word search in the Search Link area of TBALink. This option will allow you to view and save a plain-text version of the opinion. Browse the Opinion List area of TBALink. This option will allow you to download the original version of the opinion. Howard H. Vogel Knoxville, Tennessee Editor-in-Chief, TBALink CUMULUS BROADCASTING, INC. ET AL. v. JAY W. SHIM ET AL. Court: TCA Attorneys: James C. Hofstetter, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Jay W. Shim. Douglas R. Pierce and Jeremy W. Parham, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Cumulus Broadcasting, Inc. and Phoenix of Hendersonville, Inc. Judge: KOCH This appeal involves a dispute between a broadcasting company and a neighboring property owner regarding the access road to the company’s tower and transmitter. The neighbor destroyed a portion of the access road after a survey revealed that the road ran beyond the boundary of the right of way. Thereafter, the broadcasting company filed suit in the Chancery Court for Davidson County requesting a declaration that it owned the access road and an injunction to prevent its neighbor from blocking the road. The trial court, granting the broadcasting company’s summary judgment motion, concluded that the company had acquired the disputed portion of the access road through adverse possession. The neighboring property owner takes issue on this appeal with one of the trial court’s evidentiary rulings and with the factual foundation of the trial court’s decision. We have determined that the neighboring property owner was entitled as a matter of law to a dismissal of the broadcasting company’s complaint because it was barred by Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-2-110(a) (2000). http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2005/cumulus_121605.pdf GRACE HOLT WILSON SWANEY v. RANDALL PHELPS SWANEY Court: TCA Attorneys: Leslie Gattas Coleman, Memphis, TN, for Appellant Beth Cocke, Memphis, TN, for Appellee Judge: HIGHERS This action stems from a divorce case. In this appeal, we are asked to determine whether the circuit court applied an inappropriate standard when disposing of a husband’s motion to dismiss his wife’s complaint for divorce for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. The wife asserts that, by considering evidence outside the pleadings, the circuit court converted the husband’s motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment and that the circuit court failed to apply the standards under Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 56 when considering the husband’s converted motion for summary judgment. We reverse and remand for further proceedings. Further, we decline to award damages to Appellee for frivolous appeal. Likewise, we decline to award Appellant attorney’s fees on appeal. http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2005/swaneyg_121605.pdf STATE OF TENNESSEE v. CLARENCE BUNTON Court: TCCA Attorneys: Garland Erguden (on appeal) and Barry Kuhn (at trial), Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellant, Clarence Bunton. Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter; Elizabeth B. Marney, Assistant Attorney General; William L. Gibbons, District Attorney General; and Kevin Rardin and Scot Bearup, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee. Judge: NORMA MCGEE OGLE A Shelby County Criminal Court jury convicted the appellant, Clarence Bunton, of attempted child rape, and the trial court sentenced him as a Range II, multiple offender to twelve years in confinement. The appellant appeals, claiming that the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction. Upon review of the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCCA/2005/buntonc_121605.pdf   PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL! Feel free to forward this Opinion Flash on to anyone you know of with an e-mail address. GET A FULL-TEXT COPY OF AN OPINION! See the instructions at the beginning of this edition of Opinion Flash. JOIN THE TENNESSEE BAR ASSOCIATION! 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