The July 19 in-person Elder Law Forum features a session dedicated to an overview of different types of conservatorships. Lead by TBA Elder Law Section Chair Drew Clements and Immediate Past Chair John Toy, the presentation will detail the various conservatorship options available under Title 34, the relevant procedures for each option and when each is most appropriate for your client. Other topics at the forum include litigation, office management, ethics for elder law attorneys and assisting clients suffering from dementia. Learn more about the forum and register here.

The TBA Administrative Law Section announced recent Belmont University College of Law graduate Corine A. Stark as the winner of the 2023-2024 TBA Administrative Law Section Writing Competition. The judges felt that Stark’s essay, "At the Intersection of Major Questions," was both timely and captured the spirit of the competition. Vanderbilt University Law School student Madeline Knight's essay, "Securing the Volunteer State: A Legal Blueprint for Cyber Resilience in Tennessee," was selected as a runner-up. The section’s executive council would like to thank both Stark and Knight for their thoughtful and impressive entries.

Stark graduated with honors from Belmont University College of Law May 2024 and plans to sit for the July 2024 Tennessee bar exam. During her tenure at Belmont, Stark served as executive notes editor (2023-2024) and associate editor (2022-2023) on the Belmont Law Review. As a member of the Board of Advocates, she competed twice on Belmont Law’s National Moot Court Competition team. Stark looks forward to joining Butler Snow LLP’s Commercial Litigation practice group in the fall of 2024.

A preview of Stark's winning submission, “At the Intersection of Major Questions,” can be found below, including a link to the full text. 

TBA Elder Law Section Executive Council Delegate Barbara Moss will host an upcoming discussion on legal and financial planning for clients suffering from Alzheimer’s on July 23 at 1:30 p.m. CDT at the Williamson County Main Public Library in Franklin. She will talk about how to put plans in place, list essential documents and describe how to find local resources. This serves as a companion piece to a session at this year’s TBA Elder Law Forum, which features Dr. David Hutchings examining how to best assist clients suffering from dementia. The Williamson Herald has more information regarding the library event. Learn more and register for the Elder Law Forum using this link.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has held that a defamation and false light suit filed by Bill Charles against Donna McQueen must be dismissed under the Tennessee Public Participation Act (TPPA), the state's version of an anti-SLAPP statute. Charles was the president of the Durham Farms homeowners’ association in Hendersonville and a consultant for Freehold Communities, the company that developed the community. In 2020, residents petitioned local officials and some, including McQueen, wrote negative Google reviews on Freehold's Nashville regional office webpage, hoping to stop a proposed "rental-only" unit section of the community. Charles sued McQueen over the review, asserting claims for defamation and false light.

Brian Kelsey, former Republican state senator from Germantown, will not be allowed to rescind his guilty plea for campaign finance violations, upholding his 21-month prison sentence. The Tennessee Journal reports that two judges on a three-judge panel on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Kelsey’s attorney had not properly objected to an alleged breach of the plea agreement when a federal prosecutor agreed that the former lawmaker could face an enhanced sentence for perjuring himself when he tried to revoke his guilty plea. The third judge said the objection had been properly preserved, but found that the government did not breach its obligations under the plea agreement.

This appeal, arising from a land dispute, concerns the trial court’s dismissal of several claims against multiple parties pursuant to motions to dismiss filed under Rule 12.02(6) of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. Although the terms of an “Agreed Final Order” reflected that the Appellants waived their right to appeal any issue regarding two of the parties in this case, the same order also signaled that nothing prevented the Appellants from appealing matters involving two other individual parties. Through the present appeal, the Appellants challenge the dismissal of their claims against these other individual parties. Although we largely affirm the trial court’s dismissal order, we reverse in part. Specifically, we hold that, on account of certain allegations that were pled pertaining to the cutting of trees on the Appellants’ property, the wholesale dismissal of one of the individual parties was improper.

In May, the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD) sent a letter to guardians and families of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who live in state-run homes, informing them that the homes would be decommissioned for adults and repurposed to house children in custody of the Department of Children's Services (DCS). According to child advocates, DCS is now placing children with no known disability diagnoses for months at a time in those group homes to await evaluations for potential disabilities or mental health issues that, in some instances, they do not have. Advocates explain that while a child is living in a group home awaiting an evaluation, efforts to find a foster home halt, adding they are especially concerned that the normal safeguards for adults or children placed in group homes have been set aside for children in DCS custody. The Tennessee Lookout has the story.

SUTTON, Chief Judge. When Stanley Dickson sold the assets of one of his businesses, he asked his IT administrator to create email accounts for the buyers to use and permitted the employees of the two companies to use the accounts. Several months after the deal closed, the relationship between the parties soured and the parties tried to unwind the deal. In the interim, the IT administrator preserved some of the emails from those accounts for the ensuing litigation. At stake is whether the IT administrator’s search of the buyers’ email accounts violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or Stored Communications Act. It did not. When the IT administrator entered his own credentials to search the email accounts that he managed, he did not intentionally act without authorization and he did not intentionally exceed his authorization.

Tyrone E. Murphy, Petitioner, appeals from the Hamilton County Circuit Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his convictions for first degree premeditated murder and tampering with evidence. Petitioner contends that the post-conviction court erred in denying relief based upon his claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Based on our review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Defendant, Jaylon Lebron Hill, appeals his Hamilton County Criminal Court convictions for second degree murder, attempted second degree murder, reckless endangerment, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, for which he received an effective sentence of 23 years’ incarceration. On appeal, Defendant challenges the sufficiency of the convicting evidence and the trial court’s instructions to the jury. Finding no error, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.