Attorney General Herbert Slatery III announced last week that the state will not join in a legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s new carbon restrictions on power plants. State attorneys in 27 states are suing the Obama administration over the limits, claiming the EPA overstepped its authority. The Times Free Press reports Tennessee Valley Authority, the state’s primary power provider, has already taken most of the steps required to meet the new carbon controls and plans to shut down more than half of its 59 coal-fired generators. Some state Republican lawmakers are urging Slatery to reconsider joining the legal challenge and say that the limits will cause increases in power rates.

Need last minute CLE credits? The Tennessee Bar Association is currently hosting the 2015 CLE Blast through Dec. 31 in Nashville. The program offers three tracks of dual and general credit CLE programs. You can create your own schedule and attend as many CLE programs as you need.

Protect yourself from malpractice by learning more about the impact of our changing legal world in these two online video courses. Preventing Legal Malpractice Part 1 and Part 2 address recent trends in legal ethics and malpractice and each is approved for 1.5 hours of dual credit.

Kay Robilio, who will begin her term as Memphis City Court clerk next month, has named Frances M. Riley as the chief administrative officer/senior chief deputy clerk and Kevin Key as the chief deputy officer. Riley previously served as a law clerk to judges of the Western District of Tennessee U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Key is the former Shelby County Criminal Court clerk. Read more from The Commercial Appeal.

Marcella “Marcy” Bunch, mother of a 23-year old man who was shot and killed while he was confined to his wheelchair, has filed a $6 million wrongful death lawsuit. The suit names Joseph McClane, who accidentally shot Bunch’s son in 2014, and the man who gave McClane the gun as defendants. Bunch also filed the suit against Robert and Melissa Kemp, whose Anderson County home is where the shooting occurred. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, the lawsuit says the incidents "were negligently contrary to those honorable people who responsibly adhere to their Second Amendment right to bear arms for their own protection in a responsible manner."

Attorney General Herbert Slatery III filed a lawsuit against Chevron, accusing the petroleum company of a 30-year "prolonged and costly scheme" to fraudulently siphon more than $18 million from a cleanup fund. The fund receives four-tenths of a penny per gallon purchased by Tennesseans at the pump and reimburses tank owners for expenses during spill cleanups. The Tennessean reports that the lawsuit, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court, alleges Chevron and its subsidiaries engaged in "double recovery" by using the funds to pay for leaks and spills at more than 100 Tennessee gas stations while having private insurance also pay cleanup costs.

The Tennessee Supreme Court today unanimously affirmed a Board of Professional Responsibility hearing panel’s suspension period for Williamson County attorney Connie Reguli and the trial court’s requirement that Reguli pay restitution to a former client. The 2011 petition for discipline against Reguli alleged that she failed to return client communications, refund unearned fees, provide an accounting of fees to a former client and the board, and that her website contained false statements. Reguli and the board appealed a hearing panel’s judgment to the Williamson County Circuit Court and later to the Supreme Court. Reguli claimed there had been a number of procedural and constitutional objections and the board challenged the panel’s probation period and requirements. The Court found that an 11-month, 29-day probated suspension from the practice of law was appropriate. Reguli is also required to submit to a probation monitor, and undergo an evaluation by the Tennessee Lawyer’s Assistance Program and submit to any monitoring requirement that TLAP deems necessary. Read the opinion in Board of Professional Responsibility v. Connie Reguli, authored by Chief Justice Sharon G. Lee and read the BPR release.

A bill filed by Tennessee State Rep. Daniel Byrd, R-Waynesboro, would make it illegal for a private citizen to attach a gun, rocket launcher or any other similar weapon to a drone. The prohibitions do not apply to law enforcement, The Tennessean reports. "It is an offense for any person, other than a state, federal, or local law enforcement agency, to knowingly attach or affix a weapon to an unmanned aircraft or to use an unmanned aircraft that the person knows has a weapon attached or affixed to it," the bill states.

The Petitioner, Christopher Farrow, appeals the Shelby County Criminal Court’s summary dismissal of his motion to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1. On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the trial court erred by summarily dismissing his motion. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The Defendant-Appellant, Victor Dyson, was convicted by a Shelby County jury of two counts of aggravated assault and one count of theft of property valued at less than five hundred dollars. As a Range III, persistent offender, he was sentenced to fifteen years, eleven months and twenty-nine days in the Tennessee Department of Correction.