In this issue's Day on Torts column, John A. Day explores the principal tool used by the Tennessee General Assembly to enforce the prohibition of gender-affirming care — the tort system.

Even if one can prove publication of an untrue, defamatory statement, the plaintiff must worry about whether he or she will be deemed a public figure or a limited-purpose public figure and, if a public figure, whether actual malice can be demonstrated. John A. Day explains why filing a defamation claim is not for the faint of heart.

Legal writers endeavor to use best efforts to select words that communicate the intended message. When, upon reflection or experience, the words we use do not adequately communicate what they are intended to communicate, they must be changed. This is especially true for legal concepts used in jury instructions. John Day explores the meaning of "loss of consortium" and considers how that term could be updated.

The Center for Innovative Public Health Research tells us that one in 25 online Americans has been threatened with or had explicit images shared online without the subject’s consent, John Day writes in his new column. The common law of torts gives victims of revenge porn potential recourse via the torts of intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, or intrusion upon seclusion. In 2016, Tennessee joined most states by enacting Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-318, which created the crime of “unlawful exposure” to address some aspects of nonconsensual porn. Violating this law is a Class A misdemeanor. Read about a new federal law, Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022, effective Oct. 1, that expands the rights of revenge porn victims and certain others.

Effective May 11, 2021, the law changed as to in utero wrongful death. The language of former subsection (d) was deleted by the General Assembly. Now, an action for wrongful death can be filed and maintained if the decedent was a “person,” which “includes an unborn child at any stage of gestation in utero.” But what is meant by the phrase “unborn child at any stage of gestation in utero?” Columnist John Day explains.

The question of where suit can be filed for a products liability claim for a person injured in Tennessee against an out-of-state product manufacturer requires more than an analysis of Tennessee’s venue statute. The manufacturer must also be subject to personal jurisdiction — general or specific — in Tennessee. John Day has the details.

Every lawyer who has crossed the threshold of a Tennessee courthouse door knows mentally competent adults are subject to a one-year statute of limitations for Tennessee personal injury tort cases. The Tennessee Legislature has lengthened the period to file suit for personal injury cases for mentally competent adults under three circumstances: claims for sexual misconduct against therapists, claims under the Drug Dealer Liability Act, and in the presence of the initiation of criminal charges against the defendant. John Day's column this month focuses on the latter of the three.

Not every Tennessee health care liability case requires expert testimony on the issue of whether the defendant violated the standard of care. An expert is not required when “common knowledge” exception negates the need for it.

The law of interpreting statutes? No self-respecting tort lawyer needs to spend much time thinking about that sort of thing; understanding the “thou shall stop at a stop sign” statute does not require an injury lawyer to spend $3,332 for the privilege of having Sutherland Statutes and Statutory Construction¹ in her library. No — knowledge and application of the law of statutory construction has historically been an arrow in the quiver of lawyers who go to Chancery Court.

An unusual case decided by the Court of Appeals presents an interesting mix of the law of comparative fault and the law of summary judgment: under what circumstances may a trial judge find a plaintiff 50% at fault as a matter of law and dismiss the case before trial?