Authorities in Dickson County have settled a First Amendment lawsuit for $125,000 filed by a man who said he was arrested over a disparaging social media post about a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty, News Channel 9 reports. Joshua Andrew Garton was arrested in 2021 after posting a meme depicting two people urinating on a gravestone with a photo of a Dickson County sheriff’s officer who was fatally shot in 2018. The officer's face was pasted into the image. Garton was charged with harassment and jailed for almost two weeks until a Dickson County judge dismissed the charges. Garton's attorneys, who filed a federal lawsuit in Nashville, said Monday the settlement compensated Garton for malicious prosecution, false arrest, and violations of his First Amendment rights.

A judge in Kansas blocked a state law Monday requiring healthcare providers to tell patients that medication abortion can be reversed and that abortion is linked to breast cancer, reports Reuters. Judge K. Christopher Jayaram of the District Court of Johnson County said the law, which passed in April, violated doctors' right to free speech and patients' right to abortion, which the state's highest court recognized in 2019. Jayaram's order is a preliminary injunction and will remain in place while he considers a lawsuit by abortion providers and Planned Parenthood.

The widow of audio engineer Mark Capps is suing Metro Nashville and the police officer who shot and killed Capps at his home in January, reports the Tennessean. The lawsuit contends the Nashville Police Department fostered a "culture of fear, violence and impunity" among its officers and failed to adequately reform its policies and practices to prevent mental health-related police shootings. In January, three Nashville SWAT officers responded after Capps threatened to kill himself and his family. Capps was shot after he opened the front door once the officers were on his porch. The lawsuit challenges MNPD's narrative that Capps was armed.

United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain announced today a new contract between autoworkers and GM and suspended the stand-up strike in effect for the three largest U.S. automakers, reports the Tennessean. UAW reached a tentative agreement with Ford on Wednesday and another with Stellantis on Saturday. If ratified, Fain said GM salaried workers will be given a 25% general wage increase and the return of cost of living adjustments. Ford, G.M. and Stellantis have announced car prices would increase to maintain their profits. The GM assembly plant in Spring Hill is GM's largest in North America with nearly 4,000. According to the Tennessee Economic and Community Development department, the state is the number one auto employer in the southeast.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled unanimously that a group of health care providers can sue the state of Arizona over a law banning abortions from being performed solely because the fetus has a genetic abnormality. Reuters reports the panel did not address the merits of the challenge, finding only that the providers are entitled to pursue it in court. The providers, two doctors and medical associations, said the law was so vague they did not know when it applied. The panel found that the economic loss of not performing abortions that they otherwise would perform was enough to go forward with the lawsuit. The law was signed by Republican then-Gov. Doug Doucey in 2021 and makes nearly all abortions a crime punishable by prison. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat elected in 2022, has said she would not enforce it.

Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands (LAS), announced last week that it is partnering with the Lawyers' Association for Women (LAW) for a fundraising campaign aimed at assisting survivors of domestic violence. The fundraising effort, which will last through the end of 2023, is being launched as part of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Funds raised will go toward vital educational materials. “We’re proud to partner with the Lawyers’ Association for Women for this important fundraising campaign,” said DarKenya W. Waller, executive director of LAS. “It requires enormous bravery for domestic violence survivors to extract themselves from the situations they’re in.” Contributions are being accepted through Give Lively. Read the full press release from LAS.

Volunteer attorneys, notaries and witnesses are needed for the TBA Young Lawyers Division Essential Documents for Essential Workers Clinic to be held Nov. 29, 3-7 p.m. CST at the White County Public Library, 11 North Church St., Sparta 38583. The program will offer free wills, powers of attorney and advanced health care directives to essential workers such as teachers, first responders and their spouses. No prior experience is needed. To volunteer or for more info, email Amber Vargas.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled today a family court judge must face a lawsuit for leading a warrantless search of a litigant’s home in a divorce dispute, reports the National Law Journal. The court held that West Virginia judge Louise Goldston is not entitled to judicial immunity from claims she violated Matthew Gibson’s constitutional rights when she directed both parties during a divorce proceeding to meet at Gibson’s house to search for property his ex-wife claimed he still had. The three-judge appellate panel said Goldston lacks immunity because the search in which she participated was a non-judicial act, and she "clearly exceeded the most common understandings of the proper judicial role."

A story in Friday's TBA Today misidentified the court to which Ashleigh Travis was recently sworn in, and the date on which the ceremony took place. Travis is now a circuit court judge in the 19th Judicial District and was sworn in on Oct. 6. Read the full press release from the Administrative Office of the Courts.

The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law will host a conversation between the Hon. Bernice Bouie Donald and Professor Daniel Kiel on Nov. 6 at 3:30 p.m. CDT at Wade Auditorium at the University of Memphis, 1 North Front St., Memphis 38103. Donald and Kiel will discuss Kiel's recent book, 'The Transition: Interpreting Justice from Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas,' which explores the lives and writings of the first two African-American justices on Supreme Court.