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Law student practice rule under study
The Tennessee Supreme Court has published for comment a proposal to amend
Rule 7 to update the student practice rule. The proposal is contained in a petition filed by all four Tennessee law schools. Many of the changes proposed were vetted by the TBA Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee before the petition was filed. The proposed amendments focus the program purpose on the clinical education of the students, require approval of the clinical program portion by the Board of Law Examiners, continue the temporary program permitting non-litigation clinical practice, and clarify the supervisory responsibility of lawyers in legal aid, district attorney, public defender or other government offices where students may practice. The court is accepting public comments on the proposed changes through April 10. Read more here:
http://www.tba2.org/tbatoday/news/2006/Rule7Sec10_3.pdf
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TODAY'S OPINIONS
Click on the category of your choice to view summaries of today’s opinions from that court, or other body. A link at the end of each case summary will let you download the full opinion in PDF format. To search all opinions in the TBALink database, go to our OpinionSearch page. If you have forgotten your password or need to obtain a password, you can look it up on TBALink at http://www.tba.org/getpassword.mgi.
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
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LOUIS J. FEDERICO v. ALADDIN INDUSTRIES, LLC
Court: TCA
Attorneys:
H. Rowan Leathers III, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Louis J. Federico.
William N. Ozier, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Aladdin Industries, LLC.
Judge: CLEMENT
This appeal arises from the second civil action between these parties. In both civil actions, Mr.
Federico brought suit against Aladdin Industries for breach of a written employment agreement. In
the first action, Federico only sought recovery of a bonus. In this second action Federico seeks to
recover the value of a so-called "phantom unit" equity plan provided for in the employment
agreement. Both claims were based on the same employment agreement. Aladdin filed a motion
for summary judgment contending res judicata barred this second action. The trial court granted
Aladdin's motion, and we affirm.
http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2006/federicol030806.pdf
ALEXANDER A. STRATIENKO, M.D., v. CHATTANOOGA-HAMILTON COUNTY HOSPITAL AUTHORITY, ET AL.
Court: TCA
Attorneys:
John P. Konvalinka and J. Scott McDearman, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the Appellant Alexander A. Stratienko, M.D.
Fred H. Moore and Joseph R. White, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the Appellees Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority and Mel Twiest, M.D., in his official capacity as Chief of Staff of Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority.
Judge: SWINEY
This Tenn. R. App. P. 9 interlocutory appeal involves the interpretation of the Tennessee Peer
Review Law of 1967, Tenn. Code Ann. Sec. 63-6-219. After Alexander A. Stratienko, M.D. (Plaintiff) filed this lawsuit against the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority and its Chief of Staff, Plaintiff submitted a discovery request seeking credentialing information pertaining
to another physician. The Peer Review Statute grants very broad confidentiality privileges to peer review committees and information provided to those committees. However, the statute exempts from that privilege "records made in the regular course of business by a hospital or other provider of health care and information, [and] documents or records otherwise available from original
sources ...." The Trial Court determined that the requested documents were covered by this statute
but were not covered by this exception and, therefore, were privileged, and denied Plaintiff's motion
to compel. We vacate the judgment of the Trial Court and remand for further proceedings.
http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2006/stratienkoa030806.pdf
STATE OF TENNESSEE v. FREDERICK LEON TUCKER
Court: TCCA
Attorneys:
Emma Rae Tennent (on appeal), Nashville, Tennessee, and Jonathan F. Wing, and Jennifer T. Lichstein (at trial), Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Frederick Leon Tucker.
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter; David E. Coenen, Assistant Attorney General; Victor S. Johnson III, District Attorney General; and Brian Holmgren, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
Judge: MCLIN
The defendant, Frederick Leon Tucker, was convicted by jury of rape of a child. As a result, he
received a sentence of twenty-one years. On appeal, the defendant presents five issues for
review: (1) whether the evidence was sufficient to convict him of rape of a child; (2) whether the
trial court erred in admitting the expert testimony of the nurse practitioner who examined the
victim; (3) whether the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the victim's statements to a
psychologist; (4) whether the trial court erred in admitting the rape kit because the chain of
custody was not sufficiently established; and (5) whether the trial court erred in instructing the
jury on child rape. Upon review of the record and the parties' briefs, we affirm the judgment of
the trial court.
http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCCA/2006/tuckerf030806.pdf
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| TODAY'S NEWS |
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Legal News
BPR Actions
Legislative News
TBA Member Services
Online CLE
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| Legal News |
| Judge seals documents in doctor's trial |
| Williamson County Judge Jeff Bivins has temporarily sealed discovery documents filed in the case of a doctor charged with second-degree murder. Bivins has said that he will hear arguments from media outlets seeking access to the material before making a final decision on whether to seal the documents until the trial is over. He also encouraged the district attorney's office, which is concerned that televised coverage of evidence will prejudice jurors, to rethink its policy of filing discovery with the court clerk. |
Read the full story in the Tennessean
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| New UT Law scholarships announced |
| The law firm of Kramer Rayson LLP has endowed two new scholarships at the UT College of Law. The first, to be known as the Kramer Rayson LLP African American Scholarship, will be a needs-based scholarship for an African American law student. The second award, the Kramer Rayson LLP Scholarship, will go to a Tennessee resident who demonstrates financial need. Kramer Rayson, which has offices in Knoxville and Oak Ridge, has a long relationship with UT: the firm's managing partner once taught business law at the school while another partner served as a trustee. The full story is on |
the law school's website
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| BPR releases winter newsletter |
| The Board of Professional Responsibility recently published the winter 2006 issue of Board Notes, its bi-annual electronic newsletter. This issue includes a profile of Calvin Craig Fitzhugh, the BPR's newest board member; a review of attorneys who have been admitted to practice in Tennessee courts pro hac vice; and a summary of the board's Consumer Assistance Program (CAP), which mediates disputes that do not rise to the level of disciplinary action. |
View the full newsletter here
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| Historian to lecture on Scopes trial |
| Pulitzer Prize winning historian Edward J. Larson will lecture on the Scopes trial March 28 on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. The author of six books and more than 100 articles, Larson writes about issues of law, science and medicine from a historical perspective. For his 1997 book, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, Larson became the first sitting law professor to receive the Pulitzer Prize in History. Larson received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1979 and a Ph.D. in the history of science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. For more information about the lecture read this article by the |
Daily News Journal
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| Supreme Court justices more talkative of late |
| U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer spoke to reporters at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock yesterday. Among other court observations, he said that the addition of two new and younger members of the court (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito) has led to more conversation among the justices than under Chief Justice William Rehnquist. |
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| BPR Actions |
| Tennessee attorney suspended |
| Tennessee attorney Kerry Lee Prisock was suspended for 18 months by a Supreme Court order issued on March 6. His suspension will run concurrently with his suspension in Mississippi. |
Read the BPR release
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| Legislative News |
| Track legislation of interest to Tennessee attorneys |
| The TBA Action List tracks bills in the General Assembly that the TBA has a direct interest in. This means it has either initiated the legislation, taken a position on the bill or has a policy on the issue. The TBA Watch List is a broader list of bills of interest to the Tennessee legal community. |
TBA Bill Tracking Service
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| TBA Member Services |
| Discounts from Office Depot |
| Are you saving yet? Sign up for the TBA-Office Depot program and begin saving. TBA Members receive significant discounts on office supplies from Office Depot. |
Find out more
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| Online CLE |
| New course looks at key 2005 Tennessee Supreme Court decisions |
| What were the major holdings of the Tennessee Supreme Court during 2005 and what do they mean to your and your practice? Find out in Virginia Mayo's latest online course from TennBarU. The editor of M. Lee Smith's Tennessee Attorneys Memo, Mayo offers a detailed look at issues ranging from the liability of a diocese for the conduct of a former priest to the duty of convenience store employees not to sell gas to obviously intoxicated individuals. |
Register or find out more
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