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.
The Chattanooga-Hamilton County NAACP will host the 6th Annual Criminal Justice Seminar June 8 at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo. This year’s event, Let the Dreams Live!, seeks to shed light on how legal issues, social challenges and advents in the law affect social welfare. Featured topics and presentations will include youth- and adult-oriented seminar tracks. Youth presentations include a session by Rosalyn L. Rice, southeast regional coordinator for the Tennessee Commission of Children and Youth, who will discuss children's advocacy, juvenile justice and conflict resolution strategies. Adult tracks will feature presentations on evolving gun laws, inmates’ rights, neighborhood safety and identity theft. The event is free and open to the public. RSVP at chattanooganaacp@comcast.net or by calling (423) 267-5637. For more information contact Eric Atkins at (423) 320-8598 or atkinse@hotmail.com. Chattanoogan.com had information on the event.
Three students who recently graduated as part of the inaugural class at the Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law spoke to the Citizen Tribune about their experience and the mood among students given the school’s initial failed attempt to win ABA accreditation. One expressed concern about the lack of communication between administrators and students during the process, while another lamented that the school’s accomplishments and contributions to the community get overlooked as negative coverage of the accreditation issue seems to have defined the school. They all expressed hope that the school would ultimately succeed as it reapplies for ABA recognition.
In a major victory for a handful of the local victims of a nationwide meningitis outbreak, a federal judge has ruled that — at least for now — their cases will proceed before a circuit court judge in Nashville and could eventually be tried by a local jury. In a 33-page ruling issued late Friday, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Boston ruled that victims who have sued only local healthcare providers, and not the compounder who provided the drugs, may keep their cases in Tennessee. Meanwhile, the more-than-100 suits that include claims against the New England Compounding Center will be consolidated in Saylor’s court. The Tennessean has the story.
A divided U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the power of government at all levels to take DNA samples from persons legally arrested for a “serious” new crime, SCOTUSblog reports. What a suspect may have done in the past, the court majority ruled, is a part of the profile that police may constitutionally begin to assemble at the time of arrest for a separate offense. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for a five-four majority, said the practice is akin to taking a suspect’s fingerprints or mug shot. But Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the dissenters, said the ruling cast aside a long-standing rule that police may not take scientific samples involuntarily from an individual, if the only purpose is to solve a prior crime.
A Shelby County judge filed an order Friday explaining why he tossed out the confession of a teen that admitted setting a house fire that killed his mother. Juvenile Court Special Judge Dan Michael said he considered 14-year-old murder suspect Jonathan Ray’s age, experience, education and intelligence as well as investigators’ actions before agreeing with the teen’s attorney that the boy was not properly informed of his Miranda rights before answering questions about the arson. A review of the videotaped interrogation reveals that police officers did not read Ray his Miranda rights, but instead handed him a piece of paper and said his dad had already signed it and authorized the questioning. But the teen’s stepfather was in Detroit, unaware of the death or his son’s legal predicament, the Commercial Appeal reports.
Tennessee legal employers planning to participate in the 3rd Annual TBA Diversity Job Fair have until Friday to register to participate. There are also sponsorship opportunities available for firms that wish to participate in that way. More than 30 law schools in Tennessee and surrounding states have signed up to participate in the job fair set for Aug. 23-24 at the Tennessee Bar Center in Nashville. The event provides legal employers in Tennessee the opportunity to interview diverse 2L and 3L law students for summer associate positions, clerkships and associate attorney positions. To learn more, sign up online or email TBA Programs Director Lynn Pointer or call her at (615) 383-7421. The TBA Diversity Job Fair is an initiative of the TBA Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity.
A guardian ad litem appointed to protect the legal interests of an 80-year-old woman is challenging the fee arrangement her relatives signed with the Memphis law firm of Wilkes & McHugh. Although state law caps contingency fees at one-third of the recovery in medical malpractice cases, the firm had the woman’s relatives sign a waiver allowing a fee of up to 40 percent of any recovery, with an extra five percent allowed if the case was decided on appeal. The guardian, Robert Hutton, says he also wants to look into fee arrangements in 21 other medical malpractice cases the firm has filed since January 2009. The firm's lead attorney on the case did not return a telephone call from the Commercial Appeal, but said in court papers that he never intended to use contingency fee agreements to seek excessive fees.
GEORGE SMITH v. GENERAL TIRE AND EMILY ALEXANDER
Court: TN Court of Appeals
Attorneys:
Herbert Schaltegger, Thomas R. Lewis, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, George Smith.
W. Bryan Brooks, Alisha M. Toll, Benjamin J. Miller, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellees, General Tire and Emily Alexander.
Judge: COTTRELL
A man who was injured in a head-on collision filed suit against the woman driving the car that hit him and the company that owned the car. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, accompanied by affidavits indicating that the woman unexpectedly blacked out just prior to the collision, probably as a result of her diabetic condition. After examining the affidavits of medical experts for both the plaintiff and the defendants, the trial court granted summary judgment to the defendants, holding that the driver’s loss of consciousness was unforeseeable. The plaintiff appeals the summary judgment. We affirm the trial court.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee has revised the local court rules and local patent rules. This revision has been drafted for adoption by the court. The proposed changes are available for review and public comment for a 30-day period beginning June 1. View the rule amendments here.
All five members of the Tennessee Supreme Court and Administrative Office of the Courts staff held a luncheon in honor of retiring state Budget Office director Bill Bradley. Bradley headed the division for 14 years and has worked for the state for 39 years.
The Rutherford/Cannon County Bar Association hosts a free legal clinic at Greenhouse Ministries in Murfreesboro every Thursday at 3:30 p.m. The clinic is open to the public. The Legal Aid Society, in partnership with Higher Ground Worship Center, also offers clinics on every third Saturday of the month (excluding July and December). For more information about these clinics, contact Andrae Crismon at (615) 890-0905 acrismon@las.org.
An appeals court ruled this week that the Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission provided proper public noticebefore approving construction plans for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro mosque in 2010, the Tennessean reports. The appeals court reversed Chancellor Robert Corlew III’s decision that the county’s public notice in The Murfreesboro Post about the meeting time, date and location without an agenda, didn’t reach enough people before planning commissioners approved the mosque plans. The plaintiffs’ attorney Joe Brandon said Thursday that the Tennessee Supreme Court will be asked to reverse the ruling.
In an opinion piece for the Millington Star, injury lawyer David Peel states that despite the besmirched images of lawyers in unseemly television ads, lawyers have done -- and still do -- good work. In particular, Peel (a self-professed “dog-lover”) recalls attorney and politician George Graham Vest, who is best known for his “a man’s best friend” closing arguments during a trial in which he represented a family that owned a dog who was killed. Vest won his case and Peel concludes that the verdict still resonates some 144 years later.
The Nashville School of Law will host the 20th Annual Recognition Dinner to pay tribute to three local leaders who share a commitment to justice, dedication to legal education and a lifelong passion for service. The event will be held next Friday, June 7, at the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville. Cocktails will be served at 5:30 p.m. with dinner and remarks following at 7 p.m. Tickets are $125 per person.
The recently released ALM/PMA Annual Compensation Survey for Paralegals and Managers finds that pay for paralegals has increased by three percent even as law firms' charge for paralegal services dropped five percent. Of the nearly 300 law firms and legal departments surveyed, about 86 percent reported pay increases. The ABA Journal has the story.
The U.S. News and Word Reports data team complied a list ranking American law schools only by efficiency, the JD Journal reports. According to the team, the less a law school spends per student relative to their own ranking determines their efficiency. The University of Tennessee, ranked 61 on the overall U.S News law schools list, cracks the top 10 at number eight.
The surprise announcement that Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Joseph M. Tipton and Court of Appeals Judge Patricia J. Cottrell will step down next year highlights the legislature’s failure to extend the life of the Judicial Nominating Commission beyond June 30, leaving commissioners scrambling to nominate replacements. In an editorial detailing the problems now facing the judicial branch, the Knoxville News Sentinel editorial board tasks the legislature next year with fixing the mess it made.
In the new Tennessee Bar Journal, Edward G. Philips and Brandon L. Morrow write about the recent "guns in trunks" law. However, after the article went to print, Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper issued an opinion on what limitations, if any, 2013 Tenn. Pub. Acts, Chapter 16, places on employers’ rights to terminate an employee who brings a firearm or firearm ammunition onto the employer’s property. In the opinion, Cooper says the law does not impact the employer/employee relationship ”and does not prohibit an employer from terminating an employee for possession of a firearm or ammunition on the employer’s property. This opinion, Phillips and Morrow say, would have significantly, but not completely, altered the article. "Our advice to employers," they write in an updated electronic version of the article, "would be to tread lightly in this area, or risk being a test case for a terminated permit carrier. In the end, the Tennessee appellate courts will have to decide."
MARTIS J. KELLEY ET AL. v. CHATTANOOGA-HAMILTON COUNTY HOSPITAL AUTHORITY ET AL.
Court: TN Court of Appeals
Attorneys:
Jimmy W. Bilbo and Brent J. McIntosh, Cleveland, Tennessee, for the appellants, Martis J. Kelley and Joseph Kelley, Sr.
Arthur P. Brock and William J. Rieder, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the appellee, Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority.
Judge: SUSANO
This is a medical malpractice action filed pursuant to the Tennessee 1 Medical Malpractice Act (“the TMMA.”) The plaintiffs are wife and husband. The sole defendant is a governmental entity subject to the Governmental Tort Liability Act (“the GTLA”). The defendant operates a hospital in Chattanooga. The complaint alleges that wife was a victim of medical malpractice at the hospital in February 2010. On February 2, 2011, the plaintiffs sent the notice required by Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-121(a) (2012), a part of the TMMA. On June 3, 2011, the plaintiffs filed suit against the Hospital Authority. The Authority filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to the provisions of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12(6), arguing that the suit was not timely filed because it was not filed within the one-year statute of limitations, Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-305(b) (2012), set forth in the GTLA. The plaintiffs responded that the period of limitations was extended by 120 days by Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-121(c) because the plaintiffs had complied with the pre-suit notice requirements of Tenn. Code Ann. § 29- 26-121(a). The trial court dismissed the complaint as untimely filed. The plaintiffs appeal. We affirm.
BERLINDA LANE, AND EDWARD L. MONTEDONICO, AS CHAPTER 7 TRUSTEE FOR THE ESTATE OF BERLINDA LANE v. JACOB L. DANIEL AND DANIEL J. LUND
Court: TN Court of Appeals
Attorneys:
James E. Bailey, III and R. Campbell Hillyer, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellants, Edward L. Montedonico, as Chapter 7 Trustee for the Estate of Berlinda Lane.
Christopher L. Richardson, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Daniel J. Lund.
Dawn Davis Carson, Russell B. Jordan, and Hal S. Spragins, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellee, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.
Judge: STAFFORD
This case involves the application of the statute of limitations to an intervening personal injury complaint filed by a bankruptcy trustee after the defendants asserted that the original plaintiff, the debtor in the bankruptcy proceeding, lacked standing to bring the claim. Once the bankruptcy trustee became aware of the claim, he filed a motion for intervention, or in the alternative, for substitution pursuant to Rule 17.01 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. The trial court granted the trustee’s motion and the trustee later filed an intervening complaint. The trial court, however, later dismissed the case, reasoning that because the first complaint was filed by a party without standing, the original complaint was a nullity. Under this theory, the trial court concluded that the action was commenced upon the filing of the trustee’s intervening complaint, which was undisputedly outside the applicable statute of limitations. Having determined that the plaintiff’s original complaint was not a nullity, we conclude that the trustee’s intervening complaint relates back to the original complaint and, thus, was filed within the applicable statute of limitations. Accordingly, we reverse and remand.
