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Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 15, 2022

In this post-divorce proceeding, a father sought to modify a parenting plan to increase his parenting time and reduce his child support obligation. He later sought to be designated as primary residential parent for the parties’ daughter due to threats made by the mother’s then-husband. The father was designated as such on a temporary basis, and the mother filed numerous motions seeking to be restored as the primary residential parent. After a trial, the court named Father primary residential parent, finding that a material change in circumstances had occurred and that the change was in the best interest of the child. The trial court entered a new parenting plan and set Mother’s support obligation. The mother appeals the designation and raises many other issues. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 14, 2022

SUTTON, Chief Judge. Dipendra Tiwari and Kishor Sapkota sought to establish a home healthcare company, called Grace Home Care, that would focus on serving Nepali-speaking individuals in the Louisville area. Like other companies that provide healthcare services, home healthcare companies face a number of regulations. One of them is a certificate-of-need requirement, which restricts the number of such companies that may serve each county in Kentucky. When the Commonwealth denied their certificate-of-need application, Tiwari and Sapkota filed this lawsuit. They claim that the regulation violates their Fourteenth Amendment right to earn a living, serves only the illegitimate end of protecting incumbent home healthcare companies from competition, and through it all lacks a rational basis. At the motion to dismiss stage, the district court allowed the case to proceed to discovery. On summary judgment, the district court upheld the law. We affirm.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 14, 2022

In 2000, a Hamilton County jury convicted the Petitioner of the first degree murder of his wife and of the abuse of her corpse, and the trial court sentenced him to life plus two years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. This court affirmed the judgments on appeal. State v. Boatfield, No. E2000-01500-CCA-R3-CD, 2001 WL 1635447, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App., at Knoxville, Dec. 20, 2001), perm. app. denied (Tenn. June 3, 2002). The Petitioner unsuccessfully sought post-conviction relief, Boatfield v. State, No. E2005-01949-CCA- R3-PC, 2006 WL 2135449 (Tenn. Crim. App., at Knoxville, July 31, 2006), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Nov. 13, 2005), and federal habeas corpus relief. The Petitioner then filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis, alleging as newly discovered evidence a June 20, 2018 deposition in which the deponent stated that deponent’s brother, who was originally a suspect in this murder, admitted committing the murder. The Petitioner also alleged that a jewelry box taken at the time of the murder was found in the home of a suspect in the original investigation. After a hearing, the coram nobis court denied the Petitioner relief, and he now appeals. After review, we affirm the judgment of the coram nobis court.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 14, 2022

This appeal concerns a subrogation action. Roberta Woody (“Woody”) accidentally backed her tractor-trailer into one driven by Darrell King (“King”). King had an insurance policy through Old Republic Life Insurance Company (“Old Republic”). Old Republic, as King’s subrogee, sued Woody and her employer, Osborn Transportation, Inc. (“Osborn”) (“Defendants,” collectively), in the Circuit Court for McMinn County (“the Trial Court”). King later joined as a plaintiff. The Trial Court allowed Old Republic to participate at trial alongside King’s counsel, but did not allow Old Republic to reveal its identity to the jury. After trial, the jury awarded King damages. Old Republic appeals, arguing among other things that it should have been permitted to identify itself so as to make a case for its own unique and specific damages. We hold, inter alia, that in this subrogation action, Old Republic could recover damages from Defendants only to the extent King could, and the Trial Court did not commit reversible error in preventing Old Republic from identifying itself to the jury. We affirm the judgment of the Trial Court in its entirety.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 14, 2022

In this case involving termination of the father’s parental rights to his children, the Sullivan County Juvenile Court (“trial court”) determined that several statutory grounds for termination had been proven by clear and convincing evidence. The trial court further determined that clear and convincing evidence demonstrated that termination of the father’s parental rights was in the children’s best interest. The father has appealed. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 14, 2022

Week of February 7, 2022 - February 11, 2022

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 4, 2022

SILER, Circuit Judge. Davel Chinn, an Ohio prisoner sentenced to death, appeals the district court’s judgment denying his petition for writ of habeas corpus filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 3, 2022

LARSEN, Circuit Judge. Taurus Cooper pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), but reserved the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress the gun underlying the charge. On appeal, Cooper contends that the district court erred in applying the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule. Because the district court focused on the wrong legal test, we VACATE the district court’s judgment and REMAND for further proceedings.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 3, 2022

Defendant, Christopher Nichol Cox, was convicted by a jury of eighty-one counts of aggravated sexual battery, one count of rape of a child, and one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child. The trial court merged the convictions for aggravated sexual battery and rape of a child into the conviction for continuous sexual abuse of a child and imposed a sixty-year sentence as a Range III offender to be served at 100%, by operation of law, in the Department of Correction. On appeal, Defendant argues that: the trial court erred by denying his motion for a continuance; the trial court erred by allowing the victim to testify with the aid of a therapy dog without a hearing to determine the animal’s training or necessity to the victim’s testimony; the trial court improperly bolstered the victim’s testimony by allowing the victim’s entire forensic interview to be played to the jury; the trial court erred by failing to grant a mistrial when a witness testified that Defendant had other cases and that there were other victims; the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for rape of a child and thirty of the counts of aggravated sexual battery; the jurors did not make a unanimous decision as to which acts of sexual abuse it relied on to support his continuous sexual abuse of a child conviction; the trial court improperly enhanced his sentence by relying on an enhancement factor that is an essential element of the offense; and the cumulative effect of repeated constitutional errors denied him a fair trial. After hearing oral arguments and following our review of the record and the briefs of the parties, we conclude that the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions of aggravated sexual battery in counts sixteen through twenty-seven, counts forty-eight through fifty-four, and counts sixty-five through eighty-one and accordingly dismiss those counts and remand for entry of amended judgments. In all other respects, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Feb 3, 2022

This is an interlocutory appeal involving a discovery dispute. The plaintiff corporation initiated this action to enforce a non-competition provision in an employment agreement, naming as defendants the plaintiff’s former chief operating officer and his current employer. Central to the discovery dispute, the plaintiff averred that it had terminated the chief operating officer’s employment for cause based on having learned that he had been involved in a payment scheme involving benefits and favors to an employee of one of the plaintiff’s customers. The defendants averred that the employment termination had actually been due to the plaintiff’s corporate restructuring. Prior to the chief operating officer’s employment termination, the plaintiff had retained outside counsel to conduct an internal investigation, and the customer whose employee had been identified as the recipient of the scheme had likewise conducted an investigation. Upon the defendants’ motion to compel discovery of materials related to the plaintiff’s internal investigation, the plaintiff opposed the motion, asserting that the materials were entitled to protection pursuant to the attorney-client privilege, common interest privilege, and work product doctrine. Following a hearing, the trial court found that the defendants had established, prima facie, that the plaintiff had waived the asserted privileges and protections by placing the internal investigation materials at issue in the litigation. The trial court then conducted an in camera review of specific materials presented to the court during the final day of the hearing. At the time these materials were submitted, it was undisputed that the only attorney work product included in the materials was “fact” or “ordinary” work product with no “opinion” work product included. Following in camera review, the trial court entered an order granting the motion to compel specifically as to the materials it had reviewed. Upon the plaintiff’s motion, the trial court entered an agreed order granting permission for application to this Court for an interlocutory appeal addressing the certified issue of whether the plaintiff had “waived the work product, attorney-client, and common interest privilege or protection by placing the internal investigation ‘at issue’ in this litigation.” This Court subsequently granted permission for interlocutory appeal.


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