January 27–February 2, 2024
- Pro se Claimant files a claim for damages against the State of Tennessee in the Claims Commission. Claimant alleges that, back in 1949, she was a victim of infamous child-trafficker Georgia Tann, who ran “a black market for selling babies” and sold roughly 5,000 Tennessee children for personal profit while employed by the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, a state affiliate. Tennessee Court of Appeals: Claimant’s child abduction claim fails because Tennessee retains immunity “for willful, malicious, or criminal acts by state employees, or for acts on the part of state employees done for personal gain.” And her negligence claim fails, too, because the State retains immunity for “negligence committed by the state in the course of performing licensing or regulatory activities.” In any event, the State of Tennessee could not be sued for money damages at all until 1985, and here, Claimant has alleged her claim arose in 1949. So Georgia Tann and the State officials who abetted her prevail from their fiery graves.
- Husband and Wife decide they want to become ex-Husband and ex-Wife, so they sue each other for divorce. Trial Court: Husband engaged in inappropriate marital conduct by drinking too much and engaging in financial duplicity and chicanery. Further, due to said duplicity, chicanery, and Husband’s much greater earning capacity, Husband loses his shirt when it comes to alimony, child support, and wife’s attorney’s fees. Tennessee Court of Appeals: Husband only loses most of his shirt; he gets some of it back because the trial court overlooked some stuff and did some math wrong.
- Man contests validity of a will, asserting that it was “forged” and inadequately witnessed. Tennessee Court of Appeals, 25 pages later: There’s no evidence of any of that, so the will’s fine.
- Appellants file an accelerated interlocutory appeal of Shelby County trial court order denying their motion to recuse. Tennessee Court of Appeals: But the order itself is not in the appellate record, and Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 10B § 2.03 requires that “a copy of the trial court’s order or opinion ruling on the motion” be included. Thus, because our precedent requires “meticulous compliance with the provisions of Rule 10B[,]” we yeet Appellants’ appeal into the sun.
- Extremely rich divorcing couple fight over the distribution of $44 million marital estate and the ridiculous assets it contains, which span everything from properties (plural) in the Cayman Islands to multiple Range Rovers to a Superfund site encumbered by a $15 million EPA lien. Wife ends up with $5 million in alimony plus over half of the net marital estate, in part based on Husband’s income being pegged at $1.4 million per year despite officially having been recorded as “loans” as part of an apparent tax-avoidance scheme. When the dust settles, Wife makes out well enough that she doesn’t even bother to seek relief regarding an acknowledged $2 million error. Tennessee Court of Appeals, 34 pages later: We affirm virtually everything but reduce Husband’s share by an additional $59,553.99, which can otherwise be described as just over .1% of the amount in controversy.
- Mother of a high school basketball player sues opposing team’s Coach for assault, battery, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and some civil rights violations after (she alleges) the Coach punched her kid in the face, resulting in her “close-up view of her son’s head hitting the bleachers and the resulting injury, including a mouthful of so much blood that she could not see his teeth.” She also sues the School Board for negligent torts related to the same incident. Coach responds that he was merely “raising his arm” and trying to protect his own players. Video confirms that, at the time of the altercation, kid was “punching [one of Coach’s] player[s], who was himself attempting to hit” a player from the opposing team. As a result, based on the video, the trial court rules for Coach on all claims. Tennessee Court of Appeals: “[B]oth the parties and the trial court miss the mark as to what is required by the intent element of battery under Tennessee law,” as Tennessee follows the “single intent” rule, which only requires “an intent to do the act that causes the harm,” rather than intent to cause harm. (Editorial note: The single intent rule makes no sense, and applied literally, it would transform all sorts of purely negligent acts into batteries.). Here, Coach doesn’t dispute his intent to make contact, and the video is inconclusive as to Coach’s intentions, so summary judgment is not appropriate, and this case should be tried based on Coach’s various defenses to the battery and assault claims. Mother’s other claims are either waived, inadequately briefed, or have no hope of success due to Mother’s misunderstanding of relevant doctrine, though, so her Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress claim, her § 1983 “shocks the conscience” claim, and her claims against the School Board all remain dismissed. Based on Mother’s poor briefing, we also take this opportunity to make Tennessee’s already terrible GTLA law worse and “conclude that the Board had immunity from suit under the civil rights exception to the GTLA,” even though Mother has no viable civil rights claims.
- Litigant seeks accelerated interlocutory review of Shelby County trial court’s order denying a motion to recuse. Tennessee Court of Appeals: “Adverse rulings and a litigant’s resultant unhappiness with the rulings, even if the Trial Court’s rulings are erroneous and numerous, are insufficient, without more, to justify recusal.” Moreover, an opposing attorney’s contributions to a judge’s campaign, endorsement of the judge’s candidacy, and friendship with the judge do not require recusal as long as the attorney did not get “actively involved in the judge’s campaign or serve[] in a leadership role.” [Editorial note: Yikes.] Thus, the order denying recusal is affirmed.
- Woman apparently sues every judge in Tennessee’s First Judicial District. As a result, in a different case involving her, all of the judges in Tennessee’s First Judicial District sua sponte recuse to avoid a perceived conflict of interest. Woman then immediately appeals the recusal order for some reason. Tennessee Court of Appeals: We have no jurisdiction to hear this interlocutory appeal, since the judgment below isn’t final, and orders granting recusal are not immediately appealable under Rule 10B.
- Pro se appellant who is unhappy with the judgment issued by Tennessee’s newest Supreme-Court-Justice-To-Be files notice of appeal three days late. Tennessee Court of Appeals: Unless you are new here, you don’t need a summary and you don’t need to click.
- On behalf of Client, Attorney negotiates global settlement of “all matters in controversy in connection with” a matter. Afterward, attorney apparently files lawsuit for Client based on settled claims, which culminates in a multiple-six-figure default judgment. Years later, one of the defendants in the case moves to set aside the default judgment after being contacted by a debt collector. Once the circumstances of what happened become clear, the trial court judge reports Client’s attorney to the BPR. Client, now represented by different counsel: You, the trial court, should recuse, since by reporting my old attorney to the BPR, you prejudged whether I obtained a bogus judgment based on settled claims. Tennessee Court of Appeals: “Disinterestedness does not mean child-like innocence,” and “a prior adverse determination on an issue does not amount to bias or a lack of partiality[,]” so the trial court’s denial of Client’s motion to recuse is affirmed.
- Homeowner repeatedly leaves her garbage can “in an area visible by the public” in violation of a Homeowner’s Association (HOA) Declaration that encumbers her deed. HOA files suit, requesting both an injunction that requires the Homeowner to shape up and an award of attorney’s fees. Homeowner admits the underlying violation but pleads selective enforcement as a defense. Tennessee Court of Appeals: The relevant provision expressly secures the HOA’s right to enforce a claim even if it fails to “enforce the same” upon other owners of property subject to the Declaration. Thus, selective enforcement cannot be raised as a defense here, and the trial court’s order granting the HOA judgment on the pleadings is affirmed. Based on our ticky-tacky technical jurisprudence, though (of which it is hard to imagine a more deserving victim than an HOA), the HOA doesn’t get its attorney’s fees on appeal, since it did not specifically raise the claim in its statement of the issues even if it argued the matter later.
- Buyers enter into agreement with Seller to purchase mobile home parks. Buyers fail to secure financing and keep missing the closing deadline even after repeated extensions, though, so Seller turns around and sells the parks to someone else for more money. Buyers, for some reason, then sue for breach of contract and the return of their earnest money before predictably losing. Tennessee Court of Appeals: “[A] party who commits the first uncured material breach of contract may not recover damages for the other party’s material breach,” which is a fancy way of saying that since you didn’t pay what you owed after Seller demanded you close, you’re SOL.
- Divorcing parties fight over their marital estate. Wife gets Husband’s LLC and LLC property in the divorce, and a final divorce decree is entered on both stipulated grounds and irreconcilable-differences grounds. Tennessee Court of Appeals: We keep telling trial courts that they cannot award LLCs or properties held in LLCs as part of a divorce proceeding. Even so, we apparently have to say at least one more time that a court “does not have jurisdiction over non-party LLCs or their assets, rather only over the parties’ ownership interests in the LLCs themselves.” Thus, only Husband’s interest in the LLC can be awarded, and remand is necessary to sort that out. The divorce also should not have been granted on the ground of irreconcilable differences, both because it was granted on stipulated grounds and because an irreconcilable-differences divorces requires a written agreement for the equitable division of property.
Firm Highlights
A victory for Horwitz Law, PLLC clients Jon Law and Tina Sanders! Last year, Mr. Law and Ms. Sanders were hit with the worst SLAPP-suit that your summarist has ever encountered. In particular, they were sued by three Fayetteville Alderman for posting the Aldermen’s cell phone numbers—which the Aldermen had publicized themselves and used to conduct city business—as part of petitioning campaigns to stop a proposed 50% tax increase and improve the conditions of public parks. For that offense, the Aldermen sued Mr. Law and Ms. Sanders for “invasion of privacy” and pretended to suffer a ridiculous $750,000.00 in damages. Posting an elected official’s cell phone number as part of a petitioning campaign is not highly offensive to a reasonable person, though, and the First Amendment provides a defense here anyway. So, thanks to the Tennessee Public Participation Act, the Aldermen now get to pay Mr. Law and Ms. Sanders for the privilege. Read the Circuit Court for Lincoln County’s order here: https://horwitz.law/wp-
