This week's Estate Planning & Probate Forum will feature a session on lawyers serving as trustees. Experts Branch Howard and TBA Estate Planning & Probate Section Vice Chair Rob Malin will detail advice on fiduciary selection, best practices and concerns to consider before accepting the role. Other topics include community property trusts, AI developments, a probate panel, ethics, legislative updates and more. Don’t miss this once-a-year opportunity to meet with colleagues, learn from planning experts and earn necessary CLE. Estate Planning & Probate Section members receive a discounted rate to attend. Register now.

The American Bar Association (ABA) is suspending enforcement of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) mandate for law schools, Bloomberg Law reports. The ABA says it is taking the action to comply with recent messaging from the U.S. Department of Education that schools must comply with new presidential directives by Feb. 28 or lose federal funding. Last fall, the ABA had proposed a change to the standard and the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar was expected to review comments on the proposal at its most recent meeting. Bloomberg reported yesterday that law schools, including Vanderbilt Law School, had started removing DEI language from their websites.

DAVIS, Circuit Judge. A federal grand jury charged Defendant Raymon Risner with several drug trafficking and firearms offenses. Risner moved to dismiss the firearm-related counts, arguing that the charging statutes violate the Second Amendment. The district court denied Risner’s motion, and Risner pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense. As part of the plea agreement, Risner retained the right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss and filed this timely appeal. To the extent of our jurisdiction, as discussed herein, we AFFIRM.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. A regulation implementing the Black Lung Benefits Act allows coal miners to file a second claim for benefits after their first claim has been denied if they identify changed circumstances. 20 C.F.R. § 725.309(c). When miners show such a change, the regulation generally allows the parties to relitigate all issues in the proceedings over the second claim. Id. § 725.309(c)(5). Yet it adds that a “stipulation” that a party “made” when litigating the first claim “will be binding” in those later proceedings. Id. That provision proved critical in this case. An administrative law judge required Ken Lick Coal Company to pay a miner’s benefits solely because of a stipulation the company allegedly made when litigating the miner’s earlier claim. But we hold that this purported “stipulation” addressed the law rather than the facts, so the judge had the power to disregard it. And the judge made clear that he would not have required Ken Lick to pay the benefits but for the stipulation. We thus grant Ken Lick’s petition for review and transfer the liability on the miner’s claim to the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund. We grant Ken Lick’s petition for review and order the Trust Fund to pay Reed’s benefits.

Matthew Cole Welch, Defendant, was indicted for first degree murder and aggravated assault. After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of the lesser included offense of second degree murder and not guilty of aggravated assault. The trial court denied a motion for new trial and Defendant appealed, arguing that the evidence was not sufficient to support the conviction for second degree murder and that the trial court erred by refusing to charge the jury with a self-defense instruction. After a review, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction for second degree murder and that Defendant was not entitled to a self-defense instruction where the proof established that Defendant had a duty to retreat and failed to do so. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

The defendant, Crystal Lee Martin, appeals the order of the trial court revoking her probation and ordering her to serve her original six-year sentence in confinement. Upon our review of the record, the parties’ briefs, and the applicable law, we affirm revocation of the defendant’s probation but reverse the trial court’s imposition of the original sentence and remand for the trial court to make findings concerning the consequence imposed for the revocation in accordance with State v. Dagnan, 641 S.W.3d 751, 753 (Tenn. 2022).

The petitioner, Joe G. Manley, appeals the denial of his post-conviction petition, arguing the post-conviction court erred in finding he received the effective assistance of counsel. After our review of the record, briefs, and applicable law, we affirm the denial of the petition.

This appeal arises from a legal malpractice action filed by Terry J. Lee (“Plaintiff”) on July 11, 2024, against several attorneys who represented him at various times and in different aspects of his defense of a multi-count indictment and the appeal of his 2020 conviction on all counts, including kidnapping. Plaintiff asserted a cause of action for legal malpractice against the defendants, claiming that they “failed to investigate plaintiff’s [criminal] case to know that the court [Williamson County Criminal Court] did not have territorial jurisdiction to prosecute him on the kidnapping charge.” Plaintiff was convicted in 2020 and the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction on all grounds effective January 26, 2023, when mandate issued. See State v. Lee, No. M2021-01084-CCA-R3-CD, 2022 WL 16843485 (Tenn. Crim. App. Nov. 10, 2022). After noting that the statute of limitations for legal malpractice claims, codified in Tennessee Code Annotated § 28-3- 104(c)(1), requires that the action be filed “within one (1) year after the cause of action accrued,” and that the claims accrued more than one year prior to the commencement of this action, the trial court dismissed the complaint as time barred. Plaintiff contends that this was error. Finding no error, we affirm.

Appellant, as personal guarantor for a third party, signed a credit agreement with appellee. After obtaining a default judgment against the third party in a separate lawsuit, appellee filed suit in the general sessions court to collect the judgment from appellant as the third party’s guarantor. Appellee obtained a default judgment against appellant, and appellant appealed to the circuit court. Appellant did not respond to appellee’s request for admissions. Appellee moved for summary judgment, arguing that appellant’s failure to respond to the request for admissions deemed them admitted and the admissions provided the basis for the undisputed material facts in support of the motion. Appellant failed to respond to the motion for summary judgment, and the trial court granted it. Appellant appeals. Discerning no error, we affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment, and award appellee damages for frivolous appeal, including appellate attorney’s fees.

This is a healthcare liability/wrongful death case. Appellees, healthcare providers, alleged that appellant abused the discovery process in failing to make her expert available for deposition within the time set by the trial court’s scheduling order. Appellant moved for amendment of the scheduling order and for continuance of the trial date. The trial court denied appellant’s motions and granted appellees’ motion to exclude appellant’s expert. The exclusion of appellant’s expert resulted in the trial court granting appellees’ motion for summary judgment, thus dismissing appellant’s lawsuit. Under the circumstances, the trial court’s exclusion of appellant’s expert (and the resulting dismissal of her lawsuit) was too harsh a punishment. Vacated and remanded.