 |
| Friday, December 02, 2011 |
|
| |
| |
Court holds 'discussion' on judicial conduct and recusal proposals
The Tennessee Supreme Court today devoted more than three and a half hours to what the court characterized as a "discussion" of the Tennessee Bar Association's petition to update the state's Code of Judicial Conduct and adopt new procedural rules to address disqualification of judges. Members of a TBA task force who have been working more than two years participated in the discussion. Committee members were lead by Task Force Chair and Chattanooga attorney Max Bahner, Reporter and Knoxville attorney Sarah Sheppeard, and judges Walter Kurtz and Angelita Blackshear Dalton from Nashville. Former TBA President Gail Vaughn Ashworth, who appointed the group during her term, kicked off the discussion. Also appearing before the court on the issue were Chancellor John Weaver from Knoxville, 16th District Public Defender Gerald Melton from Murfreesboro, District Attorney General Torry Johnson from Nashville, and Justice At Stake/Brennan Center representative Adam Skaggs.
Read more about the proposed changes from the AOC
|
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 or to obtain a text version of each opinion, 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 the TBA's Membership Central.
00 - TN Supreme Court
00 - TN Worker's Comp Appeals
00 - TN Supreme Court - Rules
03 - TN Court of Appeals
00 - TN Court of Criminal Appeals
00 - TN Attorney General Opinions
00 - Judicial Ethics Opinions
00 - Formal Ethics Opinions - BPR
00 - TN Supreme Court - Disciplinary Orders
You can obtain full-text versions of the opinions two ways. We recommend that you download the Opinions to your computer and then
open them from there. 1) 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. 2) 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
IN RE HANNAH M. N.
Court: TCA
Attorneys:
Eugene B. Dixon, Maryville, Tennessee, for the appellant, David. N.
Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General & Reporter, Joseph F. Whalen, Associate Solicitor General, and Warren A. Jasper, Senior Counsel, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee, State of Tennessee ex rel. Carissa D.
Judge: MCCLARTY
This is an appeal from a child support action. A juvenile court magistrate found the father to be willfully and voluntarily unemployed and imputed income to him for the purposes of calculating his child support obligation. The magistrate refused to consider a motion to
modify or vacate. On appeal to the juvenile court judge, the father was refused review on the basis that the magistrate had heard the motion to modify or vacate pursuant to Rule 34(b) of the Tennessee Rules of Juvenile Procedure. The father appealed. We vacate the judgment of the juvenile court and remand for further proceedings.
http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2011/hannahmn_120211.pdf
CHANDA KEITH v. REGAS REAL ESTATE COMPANY, ET AL.
Court: TCA
Attorneys:
Chanda Keith, Knoxville, Tennessee, Pro Se.
Gary M. Prince and Nathaniel C. Strand, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellee, LDB Corporation operating in Tennessee as Mr. Gatti's Incorporated f/d/b/a Mr. Gatti's and/or Mr. Gatti's, L.P.
Jennifer T. McGinn and Benjamin W. Jones, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Regas Real Estate Company.
Judge: MCCLARTY
This is a negligence case in which Chanda Keith ("Ms. Keith") filed suit against Regas Real Estate Company ("Regas") and LDB Corporation operating in Tennessee as Mr. Gatti's Incorporated formerly doing business as Mr. Gatti's and/or Mr. Gatti's, L.P. ("Mr. Gatti's").The trial court dismissed the suit against Regas. Approximately ten years after the initial suit was filed, the trial court dismissed the suit against Mr. Gatti's without prejudice, finding that Ms. Keith failed to comply with an order. One year later, Ms. Keith filed a new suit against
Regas and Mr. Gatti's. The trial court dismissed both suits. Ms. Keith appeals. We affirm the trial court relative to the dismissal of the suit against Regas but reverse the trial court relative to the dismissal of the suit against Mr. Gatti's. The case is remanded.
http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2011/keithc_120211.pdf
TIMOTHY A. MOORE v. HUGH A. BUTLER, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS AGENT AND SERVANT OF ANTHONY WOMMACK d/b/a WOMMACK TRUCKING, AND ANTHONY WOMMACK d/b/a WOMMACK TRUCKING, AND McCOY'S HEATING & AIR, INC.
Court: TCA
Attorneys:
R. Dale Thomas and Nathan E. Shelby, Memphis, Tennessee for Defendant/Appellant, Hugh A Butler, Individually and as Agent and Servant of Anthony Wommack d/b/a Wommack Trucking.
Charles H. Barnett, III and Sara E. Barnett, Jackson, Tennessee for Co-Defendant/Appellee, McCoy's Heating & Air, Inc.
Judge: KIRBY
This appeal involves summary judgment in a vehicular accident case. In a line of vehicles, he defendant service vehicle was first, followed by the plaintiff's tractor-trailer, and then by the co-defendant's tractor-trailer. The defendant's service vehicle allegedly made a left turn without braking or using a turn signal, forcing the plaintiff's tractor-trailer to brake quickly. This resulted in the co-defendant's tractor-trailer rear-
ending the plaintiff's tractor-trailer. The plaintiff filed a personal injury lawsuit against the defendant tractor-trailer for rear-ending him, and against the defendant service vehicle that turned in front of him. The defendant service vehicle owner filed a motion for summary judgment. The trial court granted the
motion, finding that the defendant service vehicle owner had negated the element of proximate cause. The defendant tractor-trailer owner appeals. We reverse under the summary judgment standard in Hannan v. Alltel Publ'g Co., 270 S.W.3d 1 (Tenn. 2008).
http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2011/mooret_.pdf
|
|
 |
|
| TODAY'S NEWS |
|
Legal News
Upcoming
TBA Member Services
|
| Legal News |
| Clerk's office releases part of TBI Baumgartner report |
| The Knox County Criminal Court clerk today released 155 pages of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's 1,200-page report on former judge Richard Baumgartner.
The redacted version outlines in more detail information that Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood used Thursday to award new trials to the convicted killers of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.
Attorneys for two of the defendants had argued against releasing the report to protect private interests of individuals who were not defendants. By releasing a small portion,
Blackwood made it clear the public likely will never know more.
"That information is not getting out," Blackwood said. |
The News Sentinel has this story
|
| Survey: State court budget cuts will impact public |
| A survey issued by the National Center for State Courts warns of the public
impact of recent cuts, including 42 states with substantial court budget
decreases; 39 states where clerk vacancies were not filled; 34 states where
court staff were laid off; and 23 states with reduced court operating hours. |
The National Law Journal has more [free registration required]
|
| Stites sued for $30 million |
| Dr. Christopher J. Savoie filed suit against Stites & Harbison PLLC on Nov. 30 for breach of contract, professional negligence and malpractice. He is asking Davidson County Circuit Court to grant him $30 million in compensatory and punitive damages, stemming from a child custody case. |
NashvillePost has more
|
| Research shows jurors confused over penal code |
| New legal research from a team of Vanderbilt University and other researchers suggests that juror confusion over how to apply the Model Penal Code in criminal trials could cause major, unnoticed and life-altering sentencing errors.
The research found that although people are reasonably good at identifying two distinctions among the mental states used to determine blameworthiness, they generally could not tell the difference between two other crucial mental states. And that could lead to sentences that are too lenient or too harsh, they say. |
Get more details from Vanderbilt
|
| Proposition 8 arguments to be televised |
| The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has announced that arguments to be heard Dec. 8 in two appeals involving California's struck-down law prohibiting same-sex marriage will be videotaped and then televised. Digital files of video and audio recordings of the proceedings will be available on
www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media by noon Dec. 9, the court said. |
The First Amendment Center has more
|
| Legal sector adds 100 jobs, not enough |
| The legal sector continued to make modest gains on the employment front in November by adding 100 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' preliminary employment report just released. However, the uptick in legal hiring over the past two months doesn't offset the 1,200 jobs the industry lost in September, reports |
the AmLaw Daily.
|
| Lawyer objects to Christmas tree with victim ornaments |
| An Alabama criminal defense attorney doesn't object to the Christmas tree in the Houston County Courthouse or even the ornaments, featuring photographs of crime victims, with which it is decorated.
But Billy Joe Sheffield II does object to having it sit next to the jury room as his clients' cases go to trial. |
ABAJournal.com connects you
|
| Upcoming |
| Judge Jordan to speak at fall hooding |
| The University of Tennessee College of Law's fall hooding ceremony will be
held Dec. 9 at 1 p.m. at The Foundry on the World's Fair Site in
Knoxville. The speaker will be the Hon. R. Leon Jordan, senior judge of
the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and a 1960
graduate of the college. The school will host a reception honoring its
graduates immediately following the ceremony.
|
Get more details here
|
| TBA Member Services |
| The Bar Plan is TBA's endorsed insurer |
| The Tennessee Bar Association endorses only The Bar Plan Mutual Insurance Company for lawyers' professional liability insurance. For 26 years, The Bar Plan has specialized in providing malpractice insurance to lawyers and therefore understands the needs and challenges you face as a practicing attorney. Contact Mark Bockius by email or phone at (314) 288-1050 to ask how your practice can be protected by The Bar Plan.
|
|
| |
|
| |
Discontinue your TBA Today subscription? ... Surely not!
But if you must, visit the TBALink web site at:
http://www.tba2.org/tbatoday/unsub_tbatoday.php
Questions, comments: Email us at TBAToday@tnbar.org
About this publication: Today's News is a compilation of digests of news reports of interest to Tennessee lawyers compiled by TBA staff, links to digested press releases, and occasional stories about the TBA and other activities written by the TBA staff or members. Statements or opinions herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Tennessee Bar Association, its officers, board or staff.
© Copyright 2011 Tennessee Bar Association
|
|
|
