| Tennessee Bar Association

February, 2008

Cover Story

Preparing the Workplace for a Pandemic

Follow this guide to prepare your business clients for a possible avian flu pandemic

How should Tennessee employers prepare their workplaces for possible pandemics of avian influenza, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or illness spread by bioterrorism? Is the risk of a pandemic illness...

Feature Story

Problematic Legal Causations of Death

Interacting with the Medical Examiner

When an attorney provides representation centering on death, problematic legal causation issues may arise over whether the actor's conduct is the legal cause of death. In most circumstances, this issue of causation is not a problem since the conduct can be directly linked to the actual harm intended. For...

President's Perspective

Let's Focus on Unsung Heroes

It is a recognized fact that members of our profession are often held in disdain. Attorneys are subjects of jokes or stories, warranted or not. Part of the problem may be that when there is a negative story about a lawyer, or judge, human nature unfairly paints all people in the same profession with the same broad brush. Since attorneys are prominent...

People

Whitney Harmon, an attorney at Glankler Brown in Memphis, received the firm's first annual Frank J. Glankler Jr. Pro Bono Award in December. The award was created in 2007 to honor an attorney who commits to pro bono work. The firm as a whole has committed to handle a minimum of 35 pro bono cases each year. Harmon focuses her practice in...

But Seriously, Folks

'Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, Please Wake Up! It's Happy Hour!'

Throughout my 30 years as a trial lawyer, I have seen a lot of sleeping jurors. Heck, I've seen an entire jury nod off as if they were the cast of Bedtime for Bonzo.

Juror nap time generally happens during the afternoon session of the second day of a trial, as one of the lawyers reads a medical deposition into evidence. You got chronic...

Book Review

My Grandfather's Son

By Clarence Thomas | Harper Collins | $26.95 | 289 pages | 2007

This is the autobiography of Justice Clarence Thomas from his birth in Pinpoint, Georgia, through his swearing in at the United States

Supreme Court. It is a moving book, a memoir dedicated to his maternal grandfather Myers Anderson. Mr. Anderson ("Daddy") and...

News

Court of Appeals

Dinkins is New Appellate Judge

Gov. Phil Bredesen appointed Richard H. Dinkins of Nashville Jan. 11 to fill the vacancy on the Tennessee Court of Appeals, Middle Section. The vacancy was created by the death of Judge William Bryan Cain in September.

Prior to his appointment to the Court of Appeals...

Disciplinary Actions

Reinstated

The following attorneys have been reinstated to the practice of law after complying with Supreme Court Rule 21, which requires mandatory continuing legal education: James M. Allen, Memphis; William Lawley Baggett Jr., Atlanta, Ga.; H. Scott Bates, Orlando, Fla.; Timothy M. Davis...

Paine on Procedure

State v. Hartman: In Memory of Kathy Nishiyama

Charles Edward Hartman died in prison at age 49 on May 24, 2007. Good riddance. Had he never existed, Kathy Nishiyama might have enjoyed a fulfilling existence. But on Nov. 16-17, 1981, he kidnapped the 16-year-old and raped, murdered, then raped her again.

Who was this fiend? Three Supreme Court opinions tell the tale at 703 S.W.2d 106 (1985),...

The Law at Work

Tennessee Supreme Court Speaks on Supervisory Harassment and Retaliation

When is a Tennessee employer liable for the harassing acts of a supervisor under the Tennessee Human Rights Act (THRA)? What are reasonable steps to prevent and correct harassment? When does the individual harasser face liability? What must a plaintiff demonstrate to show retaliation? The Tennessee Supreme Court recently addressed these issues...