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Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 8, 2020

The plaintiff filed this personal injury action seeking compensation for injuries allegedly sustained in an automobile accident. The jury found in favor of the defendant and awarded zero damages. On appeal, the plaintiff argues that the jury verdict was inadequate and the special verdict form was misleading. We conclude that there is material evidence in the record to support the jury award. And we deem the plaintiff’s second issue waived. So we affirm.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 8, 2020

In 2017, the trial court approved a settlement of the employee’s claim that provided an original award of 45 weeks of benefits based upon a 10% medical impairment. At the expiration of the 45-week original benefit period, the employee filed a petition for increased benefits alleging she was permanently totally disabled or, alternatively, she was entitled to extraordinary benefits in accordance with Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-242(a)(2). The trial court conducted a hearing to determine whether the employee was entitled to increased benefits and concluded the employee was not permanently totally disabled and was not entitled to extraordinary benefits as provided in section 50-6- 242(a)(2). The court did, however, award additional disability benefits in accordance with Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-207(3)(B) based upon the employee not having returned to work at the expiration of the 45-week original benefit period. The employee has appealed but has not filed a transcript of the hearing or a joint statement of the evidence and has not identified any issues on appeal nor provided any legal argument addressing how she contends the trial court erred. Having carefully reviewed the record, we affirm the trial court’s decision and certify the trial court’s order as final.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 7, 2020

Defendant, Novodny Young, appeals after the trial court revoked his probation and ordered him to serve his effective eight-year sentence in incarceration. Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 7, 2020

NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judge. Some men just want to watch the world burn. Others start fires to collect insurance money. Steve Pritchard is the latter. But after playing with fire several times, Pritchard’s penchant for profiting from arson took a deadly turn. Instead of only damaging property, a fire started by Pritchard in June 2011 led to firefighter Charles Sparks’s death. While responding to the fire, Sparks suffered a fatal heart attack. Although Pritchard could have supposed that a firefighter would respond to the blaze, he had no reason to suspect that Charles Sparks would arrive on the scene, bringing with him a history of coronary disease and spotty use of his prescription medication. At issue is whether Pritchard caused Sparks’s death within the meaning of the federal arson statute, 18 U.S.C. § 844(i).

Pritchard’s appeal turns on first principles of causation. The common law typically permits liability only when the perpetrator acts as both the but-for and the legal cause of the harm. And that distinction often matters. Every fledgling law student knows that “a kingdom might be lost ‘all for the want of a horseshoe nail,’” see Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 546 (2007) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting), but we still don’t hold the blacksmith responsible for the defeat despite his faulty craftmanship’s role as the but-for cause. For that reason, laws that invoke proximate causation generally impose liability when the harm was foreseeable. Under 18 U.S.C. § 844(i), Sparks’s death need only be “a direct or proximate result of [Pritchard’s] conduct.” Because the government introduced testimony showing how firefighting can trigger a heart attack, we find that the jury had sufficient evidence to hold Pritchard responsible for Sparks’s death. Pritchard also alleges that the lower court committed various reversible errors, including wrongly admitting propensity evidence, denying his motion to suppress cell phone data seized by the government, and applying an unwarranted sentencing enhancement. Those arguments also lack merit. Thus, we AFFIRM.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 7, 2020

HELENE N. WHITE, Circuit Judge. Cecil Koger is an inmate of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) and a practicing Rastafarian. Between 2006 and 2018, Koger made numerous religious-practice accommodation requests, including requests to grow his dreadlocks, keep a religious diet, observe fasts, and commune with other Rastafarians. Alleging that ODRC’s responses were inadequate, Koger brought these claims under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against several ODRC officials. The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 7, 2020

The Defendant, Jose Gonzalez Bonilla, was convicted by a jury of rape of a child and aggravated sexual battery, and he received an effective sentence of thirty-five years in confinement. The Defendant appeals, asserting that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict, that the trial court erred in denying his motion to sever, that the trial court erred in permitting the testimony of a forensic social worker, that he is entitled to relief from the convictions under the theory of cumulative error, and that the trial court erred in sentencing him. After a thorough review of the record, we conclude that the Defendant is not entitled to appellate relief, and we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 7, 2020

The defendant, Michael William Shavers, appeals the Hamilton County Criminal Court’s order revoking his probation and ordering him to serve the balance of the 10-year effective sentence for his guilty-pleaded convictions of attempted second degree murder in confinement. Discerning no error, we affirm.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 7, 2020

The Defendant, Maliq Asadi Muhammad, appeals from the Blount County Circuit Court’s revocation of probation for his Range I, eight-year sentence for possession with the intent to sell 0.5 gram or more of cocaine, a Class B felony. See T.C.A. § 39-17-417 (2018). The Defendant contends that the trial court erred in revoking his probation and ordering him to serve the remainder of his sentence in confinement. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 7, 2020

The Petitioner, Allen Hill, appeals from the Knox County Criminal Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his 2018 conviction for possession with the intent to sell 0.5 gram or more of cocaine, for which he is serving a twenty-year sentence as a Range II offender. The Petitioner contends that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel, rendering his guilty plea involuntary. We affirm the judgment of the post- conviction court.

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jul 7, 2020

Following a court-approved settlement of the employee’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits, the employee sought additional medical treatment for lumbar complaints that he contended should be provided as a result of the settlement agreement. The employer declined to authorize the treatment, and the employee filed a petition for benefits seeking additional medical care. Following a hearing, the trial court concluded that the parties’ settlement agreement did not exclude future medical care for any of the employee’s work injuries and ordered the employer to provide future medical treatment for the employee’s low back complaints. The employer has appealed. Tennessee Code Annotated section 50- 6-240(d) mandates that settlement agreements “compromising and settling the issue of future medical benefits” include a provision confirming that the employee has been informed of the potential consequences of the settlement, if any, with respect to Medicare and TennCare benefits and liabilities. Here, the parties’ settlement agreement did not include such a provision, and neither the parties nor the trial court addressed the applicability of section 50-6-240(d) to the parties’ settlement agreement. Without addressing the merits of the issues raised by the employer, we vacate the trial court’s order and remand the case for the trial court’s consideration of the applicability of section 50-6- 240(d) to the parties’ settlement agreement and the impact on this case, if any, of the absence of the statutory language from that agreement.


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