This appeal concerns the authority of an administrative judge when sitting with the Tennessee Underground Storage Tanks and Solid Waste Disposal Control Board during its review of an initial order in a contested case. In 2016, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation issued an order pursuant to the Tennessee Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Act to recover funds spent for investigating and closing a petroleum site. The Department alleged that petroleum was released from three underground storage tanks on the respondents’ property. The respondents filed a petition for review and sought a contested case hearing. Following the hearing before an administrative judge sitting alone, the administrative judge issued an initial order that upheld the assessment. The judge concluded that the respondents were “responsible parties” because they owned the site in 2010 when the tanks were removed. The respondents then filed a petition for appeal, seeking a review hearing before the Board. A different administrative judge was assigned to sit with the Board for the hearing. After the parties submitted their briefs but prior to the hearing, the second administrative judge issued an order independent of the Board that reversed several substantive rulings in the initial order and prohibited the Department from making certain legal arguments to the Board. Instead of proceeding with the review hearing, the Department obtained a stay from the Board to file a petition for judicial review to challenge the intermediate order issued by the second administrative judge. The trial court reversed the intermediate order, finding that inter alia, the administrative judge’s decisions were “in excess of his authority and an abuse of discretion” because the statutory interpretation issue was a substantive matter for the Board to consider. The trial court also remanded the matter to the Board for a hearing with the burden of proof assigned to the respondents. This appeal followed. We respectfully disagree with the trial court’s ruling as to the burden of proof because it is the duty of an administrative judge who “sits with” a Board to advise the Board on the applicable law. In all other respects, we affirm the judgment of the trial court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Week of January 25, 2021 - January 29, 2021

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge. During the early morning hours of October 20, 2017, Jamarco McShann was asleep in the driver’s seat of a locked, running car with his right hand resting on a pistol in his lap and music blaring from the car stereo. Just seconds after police officers roused him from his slumber, McShann stopped complying with their orders that he keep his hands up and away from the gun. He instead reached down, grabbed the gun, and swung it towards the driver-side door, where two officers were positioned. Fearing for their safety and that of their fellow officers, Officers Jerry Knight and John Howard opened fire, shooting and killing McShann. The district court concluded their use of deadly force was reasonable and therefore granted summary judgment in their favor on excessive force claims brought by McShann’s estate. We affirm.

This is a defamation case that was dismissed by the trial court on a motion to dismiss. Plaintiff, a former riverboat captain, predicated his defamation claim on a letter sent by a lawyer for the owner of a drawbridge to the riverboat captain’s former employer. The purpose of the letter was to put the employer on notice that damage had been caused to the drawbridge by one of the employer’s towboats. In its oral ruling, which was incorporated into its dismissal order, the trial court identified several grounds which it concluded supported dismissal. Not addressed by the trial court were several procedural defenses raised by the defendant, including a defense based on an alleged lack of personal jurisdiction. Notably, the defendant has not waived its personal jurisdiction defense on appeal. Because jurisdiction is a prerequisite to an adjudication on the merits of the case, we vacate the trial court’s dismissal order and remand the matter for a consideration of the defendant’s personal jurisdiction defense.

CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Scott Eric Sherwood appeals the district court’s denial of his motion seeking compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A). Sherwood’s motion is one of a wave of COVID-19-related compassionate release requests confronting the district courts. While perhaps not always easing that burden, we have offered direction as to how district courts should analyze these requests. Of that evolving body of case law, we recently held that the policy statement in U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13 is no longer an independent basis upon which a district court may deny a defendant-filed motion for release. See United States v. Elias, 984 F.3d 516, 519 (6th Cir. 2021). And where a district court relies on that ground as the sole basis for denying relief, we must remand the case for further consideration. See United States v. Hampton, --- F.3d ---, No. 20-3649, 2021 WL 164831, at *1 (6th Cir. Jan. 19, 2021); see, e.g., Order, United States v. Taylor, No. 20-2077, at *2 (6th Cir. Jan. 22, 2021). Because Sherwood was denied relief exclusively due to his failure to satisfy § 1B1.13(2)’s requirement that a defendant not be a danger to the community, we reverse and remand this case to the district court for application of the remaining § 3582(c)(1)(A) factors.

On that score, it bears noting that in weighing Sherwood’s § 3553(a) factors on remand, the district court is permitted to consider Sherwood’s history and characteristics, including his propensity to be a danger to the community upon release, as well as the nature and circumstances of his offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1)–(2). And we presume that the district court’s initial balancing of the § 3553(a) factors during Sherwood’s sentencing remains an accurate assessment as to whether those factors justify a sentence reduction, meaning Sherwood must make a compelling case as to why the sentencing court’s § 3553(a) analysis would be different if conducted today. See United States v. Navarro, --- F.3d ---, No. 20-5640, 2021 WL 287756, at *3 (6th Cir. Jan. 28, 2021) (“[The defendant] did not argue that his personal circumstances— beyond the COVID-19 outbreak—had changed so that the district court should weigh the § 3553(a) factors differently than it had at the original sentencing.”). But because the district court relied on § 1B1.13(2) as the sole basis for denying Sherwood compassionate release, we must remand the case so that the district court can, in the first instance, decide whether the § 3553(a) factors weigh in favor of Sherwood’s release.

This appeal arises from a divorce proceeding after a short-term marriage. The husband challenges the trial court’s decisions regarding his parenting time, the calculation of his income, and its award of alimony to the wife. We affirm.

A church filed a complaint in 2019 against a lending institution asserting causes of action for fraud and breach of contract based on conduct that occurred in 2008 and 2009. An earlier complaint the church filed in 2009 was dismissed in 2017 for failure to prosecute, and the church voluntarily dismissed a second complaint it filed in 2018. The lending institution moved to dismiss the 2019 complaint based on the running of the statute of limitations. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss, and the church appeals. We affirm the trial court’s judgment dismissing the complaint.

This case involves a petition to terminate the parental rights of the parents of two minor children. After a trial on the petition, the trial court granted the petition and terminated the parents’ parental rights. The trial court found that the ground of “severe child abuse” was proven by clear and convincing evidence and that it was in the best interest of the children to terminate the parents’ parental rights. Both of the parents appealed. We affirm the trial court’s decision and remand.

TRACEY N. WISE, Chief Bankruptcy Appellate Panel Judge. CONSOL Energy, Inc. (“CONSOL”) appeals from the bankruptcy court’s order and subsequent memorandum opinion approving a settlement under Rule 9019(a)1 between Murray Energy Holdings Co. and its affiliated debtor entities (collectively, “Debtors”), the Official Committee of Retirees (the“Retiree Committee”), and the United Mine Workers of America 1992 Benefit Plan (the “1992 Plan”). (Mot. to Approve Compromise Under Rule 9019, ECF No. 1265 (the “Settlement Motion” to approve the “Settlement”).)2 CONSOL also appeals from the bankruptcy court’s order granting Debtors’ motion in limine excluding CONSOL’s proposed witness testimony at the evidentiary hearing on the Settlement Motion. CONSOL lacks standing. Its appeal must be dismissed.

This action concerns the trial court’s dismissal of a complaint for injunctive relief in which Jefferson County sought to enforce its zoning ordinance as applied to a commercial wedding event venue operated in a rural residential area. We affirm the trial court’s holding that the activities are immune from the County’s authority to enforce its zoning powers by virtue of the agricultural use of the property.