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Survey: Lawyers happy with CLE in Tennessee
Lawyers indicate overwhelming approval of CLE course quality in Tennessee and most consider the number of CLE hours required here to be appropriate, according to survey results just released by the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education & Specialization. The survey, administered by the commission, returned 143 responses from 450 emailed invitations to participate. Of those respondents, 89 percent said they attended CLE courses in Tennessee during the previous year and 98 percent felt those courses were well presented. Eighty-five percent agreed that mandatory CLE should be continued in Tennessee. Three-quarters responded that the number of CLE hours required is "about right" or "too little."
Download the details of the survey:
http://www.cletn.com/Documents/MandatoryCLESurveyAnalysis2006.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.
01 - TN Supreme Court
00 - TN Worker's Comp Appeals
00 - TN Supreme Court - Rules
03 - TN Court of Appeals
02 - 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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PATRICIA M. BRYANT v. BAPTIST HEALTH SYSTEM HOME CARE OF EAST TENNESSEE
Court: TSC
Attorneys:
Reuben N. Pelot, IV, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the Appellant, Baptist Health System Home Care of East Tennessee.
J. Anthony Farmer, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the Appellee, Patricia M. Bryant.
Judge: ANDERSON
We transferred this case for review by the full Supreme Court prior to review by the Special Workers' Compensation Appeals Panel primarily to determine whether the trial court erred in dismissing the employer's counterclaim based upon the trial court's conclusion that the employee's false deposition testimony is not a "fraudulent insurance act" as that term is defined by the Workers' Compensation Fraud Act, Tennessee Code Annotated sections 56-47-101 to -112 (2000). The employer also argues that the trial court erred in awarding the employee benefits because the expert proof of permanency is insufficient and that the trial court's award of permanent partial disability benefits is excessive. After reviewing the record and applicable authority, we conclude that the trial court properly dismissed the employer's counterclaim and that the evidence does not preponderate against the trial court’s award of 22.5% permanent partial disability benefits. We therefore affirm the judgment of the trial court.
https://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TSC/2006/bryantp_122106.pdf
KATHERINE L. DAVIS v. JULIE MATTESON, ET AL.
Court: TCA
Attorneys:
Sean J. Martin of Nashville, Tennessee for Appellant, Julie Matteson, individually and d/b/a Matteson Heat, Air, and Refrigeration.
Mike J. Urquhart of Nashville, Tennessee for Appellee, Katherine Davis.
Judge: CRAWFORD
Appellant challenges trial court's order denying Appellant's motion to set aside an order imposing sanctions and granting a default judgment, which was entered after Appellant's prolonged refusal to respond to discovery requests. We affirm.
https://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2006/daviskatherine_122106.pdf
STEVEN A. DAVIS, JR. v. APRIL DAWN (BLACKMON) DAVIS
Court: TCA
Attorneys:
Russell E. Edwards of Hendersonville, Tennessee for Appellant, April Dawn (Blackmon) Davis.
John R. Phillips, Jr. of Gallatin Tennessee for Appellee, Steven A. Davis, Jr.
Judge: CRAWFORD
Appellant appeals the denial of a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 60.02 motion for relief from a Final Decree of Divorce as it relates to child custody. Appellant asserts that the judgment is void for lack of jurisdiction under the UCCJEA due to the entry of a previous order of protection in the Alabama family court. We affirm.
https://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2006/davissteven_122106.pdf
JERRY PETERSON, ET AL. v. HENRY COUNTY GENERAL HOSPITAL DISTRICT, ET AL.
Court: TCA
Attorneys:
David A. Riddick of Jackson, Tennessee for Appellants, Jerry and Jean Peterson.
John E. Quinn of Nashville, Tennessee for Appellees, Henry County General Hospital District, d/b/a Henry County Medical Center.
Judge: CRAWFORD
This is a premises liability case. Plaintiff/Appellant allegedly suffered injuries after slipping in a pool of water that was allowed to stand on the Hospital/Appellee's floor. The trial court ruled that Hospital/Appellee had no actual or constructive notice of the water and entered judgment in favor of Hospital/Appellee. Plaintiff/Appellant appeals. We affirm.
https://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2006/petersonj_122106.pdf
STATE OF TENNESSEE v. MITCHELL LEE BLANKENSHIP
Court: TCCA
Attorneys:
Edward Cantrell Miller, District Public Defender, and Amber Deaton Haas, Assistant Public Defender, for the appellant, Mitchell Lee Blankenship.
Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Benjamin A. Ball, Assistant Attorney General; Al C. Schmutzer, Jr., District Attorney General; and Jeremy D. Ball, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
Judge: TIPTON
The defendant, Mitchell Lee Blankenship, was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a Class C felony, and sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to five years, with one year to serve in confinement. On appeal, he argues that the evidence is not sufficient to support his convictions and that the trial court erred in sentencing by improperly weighing enhancement factors, not applying mitigating factors, and not granting him full probation. We conclude that the evidence is sufficient. Although the trial court erred in applying the multiple victims enhancement factor, we conclude that the sentence imposed by the trial court was justified. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
https://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCCA/2006/blankenshipm_122106.pdf
HAROLD TOLLEY v. STATE OF TENNESSEE
Court: TCCA
Attorneys:
Michael J. Flanagan, (on appeal) Nashville, Tennessee, and H. Randolph Fallin (at trial), Mountain City, Tennessee, for the appellant, Harold Tolley.
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter; Blind Akrawi, Assistant Attorney General; Joe C. Crumley, District Attorney General; and Anthony W. Clark and Fred Lance, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
Judge: MCLIN
The petitioner, Harold Tolley, appeals the post-conviction court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. On appeal, he argues that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel. Following our review of the record and the parties' briefs, we affirm the court's denial of post-conviction relief.
https://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCCA/2006/tolleyh_122106.pdf
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| TODAY'S NEWS |
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Legal News
Politics
Online CLE
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| Legal News |
| UT professor leads lawsuit to change U.S. currency |
| UT law school professor Otis Stephens is one of two individual plaintiffs in a national lawsuit hoping to change the look and feel of U.S. currency. "We've been at this for 25 years," says Stephens, who is blind. Since paper currency is indistinguishable by touch it constitutes a civil-rights issue, and specifically, a violation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, he maintains. "We're not asking for damages for the years that the government has insisted on uniform currency," Stephens says, "just that they find a remedy." |
Metro Pulse has the details
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| Former deputies sentenced in abuse of inmate |
| Two former Overton County sheriff's deputies have been sentenced for their roles in the beating of a jail inmate and subsequent coverup, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday. |
WSMV has the story
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| Vanderbilt law student awarded fellowship |
| Christina M. Yerian, a third-year student at Vanderbilt University Law School, has been awarded a 2007 Skadden Foundation Fellowship to work at the Tennessee Justice Center. Yerian is one of only 30 law school students and graduates in the U.S., and the only student at a southeastern law school, to receive the fellowship for the coming year. |
Read more in the Nashville City Paper
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| Execution date set, commutation denied for Abdus-Samad |
| A request for a certificate of commutation by Michael Joe Boyd, now known as Mika'eel Abdullah Abdus-Samad, has been denied by the state Supreme Court. A date for his execution has been set for March 7, 2007. |
Read the court's order
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| Model Code of Judicial Conduct filed with ABA House |
| A final report with recommendations to revise the American Bar Association model judicial ethics code now is available online from the ABA. The report includes changes reflecting some of
the comments received by the Joint Commission since Oct. 31, and will be considered when the ABA House of Delegates
convenes Feb. 12 and 13 in Miami. |
See the report here
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| Politics |
| Caldwell announces bid for District 12 seat |
| Roane County native and real estate broker Joe Caldwell announced yesterday that he would run for the 12th District state Senate seat being vacated in 2008 by current Senator Tommy Kilby, D-Wartburg.
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Chattanoogan.com has the story
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| $40,000 watch -- bad timing for Ford |
| Federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday that former Sen. John Ford received a watch -- a diamond-studded Rolex Masterpiece worth $40,000 -- in 2004 from prominent Memphis developer Rusty Hyneman. Neither Hyneman nor Ford has been charged in connection with the watch transaction, yet prosecutors plan to use it as evidence that Ford, who faces separate corruption charges in Memphis and Nashville, had a practice of taking payoffs. |
The Commercial Appeal has more
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| Online CLE |
| Here's help meeting 2006 CLE requirements |
| Need an hour or two of CLE to complete your 2006 requirements? The TBA's TennBarU online university is ready to help. With more than 25 text-based and 150-plus video courses -- many carrying ethics credit -- you'll find the programs you want and need. |
Register or find out more now
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