Stay current with legal news in Tennessee. This page features the latest news for and about the Tennessee legal community, either produced by the Tennessee Bar Association or collected from news sources.
Tennesseans can now report suspected cases of fraud, waste and abuse of public funds at www.comptroller.tn.gov. The new service from the Office of the Comptroller compliments a toll-free telephone hotline that has been in existence since 1983 and has logged 17,000 calls. The Chattanoogan reports that the online tool was created in response to a new requirement passed by the General Assembly.
The Chattanooga Chapter of the Federal Bar Association will hold its annual meeting Jan. 15 at noon at The Chattanoogan. The speaker will be University of South Carolina Emeritus Professor Dan T. Carter, a leading authority on race relations and American politics. Carter will focus his remarks on current trends in voting rights in the United States. The event is open to the public. Cost for admission is $30, which includes lunch. For questions or to reserve a seat, contact Katharine Gardner.
Former Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner is challenging loss of his pension after a jury convicted him on federal charges of misprision of a felony for his role in covering up a prescription painkiller conspiracy. The pension earlier had been spared when he pleaded guilty to a state charge of official misconduct. Baumgartner now argues that the law only bars him from retirement benefits if the crimes stem from "official" duties, and that his conduct in the federal case had nothing to do with his role as judge, the Knox News reports.
Veteran Memphis lawyer R. Sadler Bailey plans to appeal a disciplinary panel decision that he be suspended for 60 days for showing "disrespect and sarcasm" in comments made to Circuit Court Judge Karen Williams during a medical malpractice trial in 2008. He also is criticizing release of the opinion, which he says should have been kept private until his appeal is heard. He said it was proof of "a conspiracy and vendetta to humiliate and embarrass me," The Commercial Appeal reports.
The Montgomery County Bar Association recently elected new officers for 2013. They are President Stanley Ross, Vice President Nathan Hunt and Secretary/Treasurer Bradley M. Carter. The association also named new board members. They are Jennifer Ray, Shelby Silvy and Kathryn Stamey and Lee Willoughby.
The Administrative Office of the Courts has received 24 applications to fill the Judicial Nominating Commission vacancy created by the retirement of Theresa Lee. The new commissioner will serve out the remainder of Lee’s term, which expires June 30, 2015. Public comments regarding the applicants will be accepted through Jan. 18 and should be sent to jnc@tncourts.gov or AOC/Judicial Nominating Commission, Attn: Debbie Hayes, 511 Union St., Suite 600, Nashville, TN 37219. After the comment period, the lieutenant governor will have 14 days to fill the vacancy on the commission.
The 2013 class of the TBA Diversity Leadership Institute was announced today. The six-month leadership and mentoring program for law school students is sponsored by the TBA's Young Lawyers Division. This year it is made up of 18 students who will gather for their first meeting Jan. 18 in Nashville in conjunction with the TBA Leadership Conference.
Class members are: Shana Berkeley, Brett Knight, Kimberlee McTorry, Daniela Quintero and Ashley Upkins from the Belmont College of Law; Aisha DeBerry from the Duncan School of Law; Sonia Boss, Cynthia Brown, Cole Rogers, Mike Sandler and Tracey Williams from the Nashville School of Law; Anthony Adewumi, James Cobb, Jayniece Higgins and Jerry Ivery from the University of Memphis School of Law; and Estefania Chavez, LaToyia Trotter and Yessle Yi from the University of Tennessee College of Law. The program is being chaired this year by Memphis attorney Ahsaki Baptist and Nashville lawyer Brian Winfrey.
In the ongoing fight between businesses and gun-rights advocates over restricting guns in parking lots, House Republicans are exploring a compromise, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, proposed a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that would still allow businesses to ban guns from vehicles on their property, but prohibits them from searching those vehicles for the sole purpose of checking for guns. While Campfield’s proposal interested many members, House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, said “nobody knows what the bill’s going to look like.”
The Boston Globe reports that the New England Compounding Center -- the pharmacy linked to the nationwide meningitis outbreak -- is attempting to get its cleaning contractor to take responsibility for problems in its factory. The firm, UniFirst, acknowledges that a subsidiary helped clean portions of the pharmacy’s cleanroom facility, but a spokesperson called the claims “unfounded and without merit.”
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, Nashville’s third-largest law firm, is expanding its Music Row Roundabout office by 12,500 square feet to accommodate growth at the firm. Bob Patterson, partner at the Birmingham-based firm’s Nashville office, told the Nashville Business Journal the firm will expand onto the sixth flood of Roundabout Plaza where it also occupies the seventh, eighth and ninth floors. Construction is expected to start the beginning of May, with the hope that the firm can begin using the space by September.
The Department of Justice yesterday told U.S. District Judge John D. Bates that it will not try again to sue the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight for sharing $400,000 of a $1.2 million whistleblower settlement with Richard A . Bearman, a government economist at the time, for exposing oil companies’ underpayment of royalties to the government 14 years ago. The government argued the payment violated a federal ban on supplementing the salary of an executive branch employee, but the jurors split 7-1, causing the judge to declare a mistrial.
The Justice Department has reached a $1.4 billion settlement with Transocean Ltd., the owner of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded in 2010, killing 11 workers and spawning a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition to the $1 billion in civil penalties and $400 million in criminal penalties, the Switzerland-based company must plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Clean Water Act and implement a series of operational safety and emergency response improvements to its rigs.
Former Tennessee Republican Party chief of staff Mark Winslow is including the state party in a defamation suit against U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Chattanooga, and advisor Chip Saltsman, the Tennessean reports. Winslow claims a television ad that ran shortly before the 2010 Republican primaries stated that Fleischmann's opponent, and former party chairwoman, Robin Smith paid “lavish bonuses” to staff, including Winslow. The suit states the ad may have referred to the severance payment Winslow received although it was supposed to be confidential. Winslow claims the depiction of his payment was libelous and that he lost political consulting work as a result.
The House voted 354-67 to provide $9.7 billion to pay insurance claims in areas devastated by Superstorm Sandy, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. The bill gives more borrowing authority to the National Flood Insurance Program to pay about 115,000 pending claims.
Robert D. “Don” Arnold became the third General Sessions Judge for Washington County after being appointed by the Washington County Commission during a special meeting Thursday. He was immediately sworn in by Criminal Court Judge Robert E. Cupp.
National student loan expert Heather Jarvis will speak to students at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law as part of a comprehensive workshop for rising first and second year students. Jarvis has contributed to student debt relief policy for the House Education Committee and others in Congress, as well as advancing public service loan forgiveness. The event will be held next Tuesday at 9 p.m. in the law school’s Wade Auditorium.
The federal government has confiscated Tennessee’s entire stock of sodium thiopental, a key drug for lethal injection, amid questions of whether it was legally obtained overseas during a 2010 shortage in America. Department of Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield said the state is pursing alternative drugs in order to maintain its lethal injection protocol. Eighty-four inmates currently sit on Tennessee’s death row, 67 of whom have been there for more than 10 years. While death penalty opponents view the sodium thiopental shortage as a godsend, advocates think the state’s delay in finding an alternative drug is preventing justice from being carried out. The Tennessean has the story.
The Kansas Department of Children and Families (DCF) is suing a sperm donor for child support despite his written agreement with a lesbian couple to relinquish parental rights, the ABA Journal reports. Although the Kansas Supreme Court refused to allow a sperm donor to assert parental rights in a case five years ago, the DCF says the written agreement is void and the law doesn’t apply since a physician did not perform the artificial insemination. The nonbiological mother of the child who supports her has been unable to work reportedly due to health problems.
President Barack Obama renominated 33 people for federal judgeships today, including seven to the federal appeals courts, 24 to federal district courts, and two to the Court of International Trade. The Legal Times reports that he chastised Congress for failing to act on nominations before they expired at the end of 2012. Obama said in a statement that several candidates had been awaiting a vote for more than six months despite having bipartisan support. View the full list of renominated candidates.
