Here’s the late summer 2025 newsletter from TBA’s Labor & Employment Section. We want to thank our writers — Doug Hamill, Rick Bennett, Jay A. Ebelhar, Jason Ensley, Bethany Westcott Wilson and Bruce E. Buchanan — for their excellent articles. In this issue you will find the following submissions:

1. The Tennessee Human Rights Commission Has Been Dissolved; Attorney General’s Office Now Assumes Oversight of THRA and TDA Claims
2. Supreme Court Rejects 6th Circuit’s Higher Standard for “Majority-Group” Title VII Discrimination Claims: Concurrence Casts a Shadow over DEI Programs and Encourages Courts to Discard McDonnell-Douglas Burden-Shifting Analysis
3. School Leader’s Claims Perish Due to 'Ministerial Exception'
4. No Independent Recollection: Kean Reminds Everyone Contemporaneous Documentation is Still King
5. Are Your Employer Clients Ready for an ICE Encounter?

We are always looking for volunteer attorneys to write articles. If you have an article or an idea for an article, please email section coordinator Chelsea Bennett at cbennett@tnbar.org. 

-Maha Ayesh, Doug Hamill & Jeb Gerth

CLAY, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Naysha Y. Oquendo appeals from an order of the United States Tax Court dismissing for lack of jurisdiction her petition for redetermination of a tax deficiency pursuant to Internal Revenue Code (“I.R.C.”) § 6213(a). Oquendo petitioned the tax court for a redetermination approximately five months after the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) mailed her a notice of deficiency. Oquendo argues that the tax court erred by treating § 6213(a)’s ninety-day petition-filing deadline as a jurisdictional requirement and not exercising its equitable authority to excuse her noncompliance with the deadline. For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE the judgment of the tax court and REMAND for consideration of Oquendo’s entitlement to equitable tolling.

READLER, Circuit Judge. Regrettably, student C.M. suffered racial harassment by her peers while she attended public school in Michigan. She claims that her school failed to adequately respond to her complaints, in violation of federal and state law. The district court disagreed, and so do we. We affirm.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. The Bankruptcy Code gives a bankrupt company’s creditors a greater chance than its equity holders of recovering from the estate. So when a company goes bankrupt, equity holders sometimes claim that they advanced money to the company as a loan. But bankruptcy courts have the power to “recharacterize” this alleged loan as a lower-priority infusion of equity. In this case, a bankruptcy court refused to recharacterize a loan as an equity contribution when a businessman arranged for one of his family-owned companies to transfer money to another. Tragically, this man died before the trial over whether to recharacterize the loan. And the court excluded his deposition testimony from that trial because the opposing side lacked the opportunity to cross-examine him. Yet the court committed a critical legal error when making this evidentiary ruling. We thus must reverse and remand for further proceedings.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. This case about feuding housemates raises a host of Fourth Amendment questions. A woman called 911 from outside her residence claiming that her housemate, Matthew Howell, had pointed a gun at her and refused to give her access to (what she said was) her car. In response, the Nashville police knocked on Howell’s front door to speak with him. When Howell opened the door, the officers smelled an illegal drug. They entered Howell’s home and arrested him for assaulting his housemate. They also temporarily handcuffed Howell’s girlfriend, Alisha Brown, while they walked through the home. Howell and Brown allege that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment by entering their home without a warrant, by arresting them without probable cause, by allowing the housemate to take the car, and by maliciously prosecuting Howell. They also allege that the officers’ municipal employer had a policy or custom of condoning warrantless home entries. But the claims against the officers all fail either because the officers’ conduct comported with the Fourth Amendment or because Howell and Brown have not shown that the officers violated clearly established law. And Howell and Brown lack adequate evidence to show an unconstitutional municipal policy or custom. We thus affirm the grant of summary judgment to the officers and municipality.

The Defendant, Michael Taylor, entered a guilty plea to arson pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), for which he received an agreed upon four-year sentence with the manner of service to be determined by the trial court. Following a hearing, the trial court imposed a sentence of one year in confinement followed by three years’ supervised probation. In this appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred in denying full probation. 1 Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

A Shelby County jury convicted the Petitioner, Antonio Dodson, of three counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated robbery, one count of aggravated rape, one count of aggravated burglary, and one count of employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony. On appeal, this court affirmed the trial court’s judgments against the Petitioner. State v. Sherrod and Dodson, W2015-02022- CCA-R3-CD, 2017 WL 1907723 at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. May 9, 2017) perm. app. denied (Tenn. Sept. 22, 2017). The Petitioner filed a petition for post-conviction relief, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel. After a hearing, the post-conviction court denied relief. The Petitioner appeals, maintaining that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel and that his due process rights were violated. After review, we affirm the post-conviction court’s judgment.

Defendant, Joshua Neil Blair, appeals the thirty-five-year sentence imposed for his Campbell County Criminal Court Jury convictions of felony evading arrest, vandalism, aggravated assault, and attempted second degree murder, claiming that the trial court erred by imposing partially consecutive sentences. Because the record supports the sentencing decision of the trial court, we affirm.

The Defendant, Billy Joe Anderson, pleaded guilty in the Washington County Criminal Court in case number 48319 to second degree murder, a Class A felony, and in case number 48913 to attempted first degree murder, a Class A felony. See T.C.A. §§ 39-13-210 (2018) (second degree murder); 39-13-202 (Supp. 2024) (first degree murder); 39-12-101 (2018) (criminal attempt). On appeal, the Defendant contends the trial court erred by determining that he was a Range II multiple offender based on his 2010 Florida conviction. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.

In this interlocutory appeal, both parties have filed notices of appeal. At an expedited hearing, the employee sought additional medical treatment and temporary disability benefits related to injuries he sustained when he slipped and fell at work. The court ordered the employer to provide the requested benefits but declined to order the employer to authorize treatment with the employee’s unauthorized physician for his alleged cervical spine injury. In its notice of appeal, the employer contends the trial court erred when it ordered additional medical and temporary disability benefits for the employee’s alleged left knee injury. In his notice of appeal, the employee asserts the trial court erred in declining to compel the employer to approve his unauthorized physician as his authorized treating physician moving forward. Having carefully reviewed the record, we affirm the trial court’s order in part, reverse it in part, and remand the case.