Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee last week appointed Melanie Sellers as the new public defender for the 1st Judicial District. The appointment will take effect March 1. Sellers currently serves as assistant district public defender in the district and will replace Jeffery Kelly, who is retiring. Sellers earned her bachelor’s degree at East Tennessee State University and law degree at University of Tennessee College of Law. The 1st Judicial District Court covers Carter, Johnson, Unicoi and Washington counties. Read the full announcement from the governor.

The Tennessee Senate has passed a resolution to form a joint committee to consider removing Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy from office. Action News 5 reports that Senate Joint Resolution 26, sponsored by Sen. Brent Taylor, R-Memphis, now heads to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Taylor and Mulroy have been at odds for months. Taylor outlined his case for Mulroy’s removal earlier this month. Mulroy has responded to efforts to remove him from office, including calling the effort “political.” Last summer, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, revealed he was in talks with the attorney general about removing Mulroy from office. 

President Donald Trump has named former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn as deputy U.S. secretary of education. The Tennessean reports that Schwinn, a former teacher and founding principal of a charter school, was an early appointment in Gov. Bill Lee's administration. She served in the role for five years. Lee praised the selection as “another strong choice to further [the [president’s] education agenda — delivering school choice and finally returning power back to the states,” though other conservatives in the state expressed concern about the choice.

BLOOMEKATZ, Circuit Judge. When Megan Miller was arrested and booked into the City of Troy’s pretrial detention facility, she informed facility staff that she had been heavily using heroin and expected to go into withdrawal within about a day. Over the next two and a half days, Miller vomited continually. On the third day of her detention, Miller was found unconscious and unresponsive in her cell. She was pronounced dead soon after. Despite Miller’s continual vomiting, no jail official sought medical care for her—not even Julie Green-Hernandez, one of the employees responsible for monitoring the City’s pretrial detainees on the day of Miller’s death. So Miller’s husband sued Green-Hernandez, arguing that she violated Miller’s constitutional right to adequate pretrial medical care under the Fourteenth Amendment and violated Michigan state law by acting with gross negligence. In this appeal, Green-Hernandez asks us to reverse the district court’s conclusion that she is not entitled to qualified immunity on the Fourteenth Amendment claim or state law immunity on the negligence claim. Because Green-Hernandez’s arguments regarding qualified immunity are premised on disagreements with the district court’s factual findings, we lack jurisdiction over the qualified immunity question and dismiss that part of Green-Hernandez’s appeal. Our jurisdiction is proper, however, over the district court’s denial of Green-Hernandez’s claim to governmental immunity under Michigan state law, and on that question we reverse.

In 2010, a Washington County jury found Petitioner, Howard Hawk Willis, guilty of two counts of premeditated first degree murder and one count of felony murder in the perpetration of a kidnapping. The jury sentenced Petitioner to death on each conviction.1 After his convictions and sentences were affirmed by the Tennessee Supreme Court on direct appeal, Petitioner sought post-conviction relief. The post-conviction court denied relief after extensive hearings. On appeal, Petitioner raises numerous arguments assailing his convictions and sentences based primarily on ineffective assistance of counsel as well as several stand-alone claims. After a thorough review of the record, the applicable law, the parties’ briefs, and oral arguments, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

A Davidson County jury convicted Defendant, Timothy Eugene Sanders, of two counts of carjacking and one count of robbery. Defendant contends on appeal that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions and that the trial court failed to properly charge the jury regarding use of force. We find all of Defendant’s issues waived for insufficient briefing and therefore affirm the judgments of the trial court.

At issue in this appeal are claims for unjust enrichment and breach of a limited liability company’s operating agreement. The plaintiff, individually and on behalf of the LLC, filed the complaint against his business partner. The complaint alleged that the defendant breached the LLC’s operating agreement by executing a promissory note to satisfy a foreclosure deficiency and by securing that note with a deed of trust on the LLC’s remaining real estate. After a bench trial, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s claims with prejudice. The court found that the promissory note was an extension or renewal of the LLC’s existing loan and that the defendant’s actions were authorized by a “written consent,” which allowed the defendant “to do any acts, including but not limited to the assignment, delivery, pledge, or hypothecation . . . of any or all assets of this LLC to secure such Loan, renewals and extensions.” Thus, the court concluded that the defendant did not breach the operating agreement. And because the parties had a valid and enforceable contract, the court determined that the plaintiff had no claim for unjust enrichment. But the court denied the defendant’s request for an award of attorney’s fees under the operating agreement’s fee-shifting provision. The court reasoned that the action was not “to secure enforcement” of the operating agreement, as required by the operating agreement. We affirm the court’s judgment on the plaintiff’s claims, albeit for different reasons with respect to the unjust enrichment claim but reverse the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s request for attorney’s fees.

A father moved to set aside two court orders as absolutely void. See TENN. R. CIV. P. 60.02(3). The trial court denied the motion. We affirm.

In this interlocutory appeal, the employee contends the trial court erred by concluding he was unlikely to prevail at a hearing on the merits in proving he suffered a compensable hernia. The court found that the employee did not come forward with sufficient evidence to meet the specific statutory requirements necessary to establish a compensable, work- related hernia. As such, the court determined the employee had failed to show a likelihood of proving that his hernia arose primarily out of and in the course and scope of his employment. The employee has appealed. Upon careful consideration of the record, we affirm the trial court’s decision and remand the case for further proceedings as may be necessary.

Charles Youree, Jr. filed a lawsuit against two business entities seeking to hold them liable, under the theory of piercing the corporate veil, for a judgment he previously had obtained against another business entity. When the two entities did not answer, he was awarded a default judgment. The entities moved to vacate the default judgment before it became final. They argued that the trial court should not have entered judgment in the first place because the complaint did not plead the elements required for piercing the corporate veil. They also argued that their failure to respond was due to excusable neglect, but they later withdrew that argument. The trial court denied the motion to vacate. In determining that the complaint stated a claim for piercing the corporate veil, the trial court evaluated the factual allegations under the so-called Allen factors. See Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Allen, 584 F. Supp. 386 (E.D. Tenn. 1984). On appeal as of right, the Court of Appeals reversed. The court looked not to the Allen factors, but rather to a three-element standard set forth in Continental Bankers Life Insurance Co. of the South v. Bank of Alamo, 578 S.W.2d 625 (Tenn. 1979). We granted permission to appeal. Based on our review of the applicable law, we hold that it was proper in this case to address whether the complaint pleaded the elements for piercing the corporate veil even absent a claim of excusable neglect. We further hold that the Continental Bankers elements provide the correct framework for piercing the corporate veil and that the complaint failed to plead the elements sufficiently. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals that the trial court erred in denying the motion to vacate the default judgment. We remand this case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.