After a car accident, a plaintiff sued a defendant, but never served him with process. Almost two years later, the defendant moved to dismiss the case as time-barred. The plaintiff opposed the dismissal and moved for an enlargement of time to serve the defendant. The court denied the requested enlargement and dismissed the case. We affirm.

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Geomatrix sells a septic system that substantially differs from those sold by its competitors. It asserts defendants, those competitors and NSF International (the primary standard-setting organization for the wastewater product industry), conspired to exclude its unique system from the marketplace. The district court dismissed Geomatrix’s claims on several grounds, including the Noerr-Pennington doctrine and for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). We agree that dismissal is proper and affirm.

Three Tennessee women and two doctors have filed a lawsuit in Davidson County Chancery Court claiming the state's abortion law is too restrictive and vague about when doctors can legally terminate a pregnancy with serious complications, reports the Tennessean. The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based legal firm, is representing the women. The firm has made similar legal filings in Oklahoma and Idaho and is looking to build on a recent decision in a Texas lawsuit that temporarily ruled the state's abortion law is too restrictive.

The U.S. Justice Department has filed criminal charges against five former Memphis police officers for violating the civil rights of Tyre Nichols in addition to conspiracy and obstruction charges, reports the Commercial Appeal. Nichols was pulled over by the officers for reckless driving on Jan. 7 and was subsequently tased and beaten. He died three days later due to blunt-force trauma. The former officers face one count of excessive force and failure to intervene under the color of law, one count of deliberate indifference under the color of law, one count of conspiracy to witness tamper and obstruction of justice through witness tampering in federal court. The officers already face murder charges. Read the full indictment and press release. A civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the Nichols family's attorneys is seeking $550 million in damages.

OpenAI and partner Microsoft are facing a new round of class action lawsuits in federal court for allegedly breaking privacy laws in developing OpenAI's popular ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence systems, reports Reuters. The complaint, filed last week on behalf of two unnamed software engineers, accuses the companies of using stolen personal information from hundreds of millions of internet users to train their fast-growing AI technology. The two engineers who brought the lawsuit are concerned that the companies have incorporated their "skills and expertise" into products that could "someday result in [their] professional obsolescence."

The Tennessee Opioid Abatement Council is now accepting applications for community grants, reports the Nashville Post. Proposed projects must fit into approved remediation strategies organized into six categories: research/evaluation of abatement strategy efficacy, primary prevention, education, treatment, harm reduction and recovery support. Applications close Oct. 9. The council is set to receive more than $600 million over the next 18 years to distribute from various lawsuits against companies that made, distributed, or sold opioid painkillers, including Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and Walmart. Learn more about the community grants.

A Tennessee appeals court recently ruled that a Jewish couple’s lawsuit challenging a 2020 law that allowed private adoption agencies to reject placement on religious beliefs can continue, reports Associated Press. The ruling overturns a lower court’s decision that the couple had no legal standing. The law has been criticized for shielding adoption agencies that refuse to serve prospective LGBTQ parents. 

A new report released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the U.S. legal services sector lost 4,200 jobs in August, reaching its lowest level so far this year, Reuters reports. Legal sector jobs totaled 1,175,700 last month, according to preliminary seasonally adjusted data. Though the count includes a range of legal workers such as paralegals and assistants, the majority of jobs lost were lawyers. The report also adjusted downward initial projections for legal sector employment in June and July.

Knox County lawyer Keith Allen Pope was temporarily suspended from the practice of law today in Tennessee. The court took the action upon finding that Pope is substantially non-compliant with a Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program and poses a threat of substantial harm to the public. Pope is immediately precluded from accepting any new cases and must cease representing existing clients by Oct. 12. After that date, Pope shall not use any indicia of lawyer, legal assistant or law clerk nor maintain a presence wherein the practice of law is conducted. The court allowed the Board of Professional Responsibility to file exhibits in the case under seal. The court said the documents contained personal healthcare information, which is confidential and not public record.

We hope to see you on Oct. 18 for the TBA Creditors Practice Annual Forum in Nashville! We have a stellar lineup of speakers and topics for this year's program. The day will begin with a hot-topic presentation by Zack Glaser on artificial intelligence (AI) and its advantages, limitations and ethical considerations within the legal sphere. He will discuss specific use cases for LLMs, AI and machine learning in the creditors rights industry, including document management, litigation analysis, e-discovery and general productivity. Dan Puryear will present on charging orders and theories of successor liability, and Walt Winchester and David Anthony will follow with a session discussing the use of contractual and statutory liens to increase likelihood of payment. The day will end with a presentation by Griffin Dunham and Gray Waldron providing tips that debtors' lawyers don't want creditors to know. There will be a networking reception immediately following the program offering wine, beer, soft drinks, snacks and more.