July 19–25, 2025

  • Driver wraps her car around a pole, ends up in a ditch.  After troopers respond, an open bottle of Tito’s is found in Driver’s glove compartment, she exhibits multiple signs of impairment, one officer says she smells of alcohol, and she volunteers that she took a bunch of prescription painkillers, several of which cause drowsiness.  Out of “compassion,” the freshman Tennessee Highway Patrol Trooper who is in charge of the crash investigation physically prevents another trooper from gaining access to the Driver and lets Driver go without administering a field sobriety test.  The THP then fires the new Trooper, citing serious neglect of duty.  New Trooper: I was fired because I’m Russian, and a woman, and old.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: You very clearly were not.  “[New Trooper] has not, in either her briefing to this court or in the trial court, submitted evidence of an individual outside of her protected classes who also committed a ‘serious’ infraction such as her alleged first infraction but received more favorable treatment,” which is fatal to her claim of unlawful discrimination.
  • Pro se Homeowners seek to void the foreclosure sale of their home, claiming that the foreclosing bank did not advertise the sale as they had claimed they had/were required to do.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: Maybe yes, maybe no (seems like no), but because Homeowners failed to establish proper service of process, their claim was properly dismissed for improper service (which is a jurisdictional defect).
  • Plaintiffs sue Defendant Trustee.  They specifically seek to remove Defendant as a Trust’s Trustee and to hold Defendant liable for breach of fiduciary duty and conversion.  During the litigation, Defendant is ordered repeatedly to provide an accounting of the Trust’s assets, and he repeatedly does not do so.  As a result, the trial court strikes the Defendant’s defenses and effectively grants Plaintiffs a default judgment as a sanction.  Defendant appeals.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: No abuse of discretion here; Defendant very obviously failed to do what he was ordered to do and he makes arguments on appeal that “lack[] credibility,” so we not only affirm, but grant Plaintiffs their appellate attorney’s fees.
  • Man seeks out barbecue during a snowstorm.  While climbing the steps to the barbecue joint, he slips on ice and injures himself.  He then sues the restaurant for negligence and loses.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “[T]his Court has declined to impose a duty on owners or occupiers of property ‘to continuously remove snow or ice in the middle of an ongoing winter storm[,]’” and we aren’t going to start now.  So the trial court’s dismissal is affirmed for lack of duty.  [Editorial note: That holding makes sense, but it seems like there should at least be a duty to salt one’s steps if you’re open to the public and it starts snowing?  Idk.]
  • Pro Se Litigant creates massive headache for a huge number of judges by filing serial recusal motions and then demanding that the appellate judges who are adjudicating Pro Se Litigant’s appeals of the trial court’s denial of his motions to recuse themselves, too.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: In this accelerated interlocutory appeal of the trial court’s order denying the sixth such recusal motion, Pro Se Litigant failed to comply with the mandatory rules that govern such appeals (namely, by failing to include a copy of his motion).  And his arguments are meritless otherwise, too.  So the trial court’s denial is affirmed.
  • Pro Se Litigant initiates third appeal in a declaratory judgment case with a tortured procedural history.  This particular appeal is from the trial court’s order denying Pro Se Litigant’s motion to intervene (which he filed some eight years after learning of the proceeding and after the judgment was final and appealed), as well as the trial court’s order sanctioning him under Rule 11.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: Timeliness is a requirement of a motion to intervene, and the attempted intervention here was grossly untimely, so the trial court’s ruling denying intervention is affirmed.  But “the trial court failed to make sufficient findings in its order pursuant to the requirements of Rule 11.03(3),” having simply stated that the Rule 11 motion was granted, so “we vacate the award of sanctions and remand this matter to the trial court for the limited purpose of allowing the trial court to make the appropriate findings concerning its adjudication of the Rule 11 motion.”  We also address a claim for appellate sanctions under Tennessee Court of Appeals Rule 17.01 (the appellate version of Rule 11, which your Summarist thinks has never been considered since the Tennessee Court of Appeals adopted it two years ago), and we deny it for failure to comply with the rule’s safe harbor requirement (though it was baseless on its merits, too).
  • Dispute that your Summarist does not entirely understand that involves a $10,000 paint job for a fence spirals into litigation between a Tennessee-based Plaintiff and Florida Defendants.  The trial court dismisses the Plaintiff’s complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the Plaintiff appeals.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: The Florida Defendants had a ton of contacts with Tennessee—which is more than adequate to qualify as “sufficient minimum contacts” for personal jurisdiction purposes—and there is nothing unfair about litigating the suit in Tennessee, so we reverse the trial court’s personal jurisdiction ruling and remand for further proceedings.

Firm Updates

New cert. petition!  Earlier this year, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that vanity plates are secretly the government’s speech.  But that’s wrong, so Horwitz Law, PLLC client Leah Gilliam is headed to Washington, where she will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to set things straight.  Read her petition for a writ of certiorari here.

New case!  The Bartlett Muslim Society would like to build a mosque on property it owns and developed for that purpose—something churches in the area have had no difficulty doing.  But the City of Bartlett would prefer to be sued than grant the Special Use Permit necessary to begin construction.  Because RLUIPA prohibits that sort of thing, Horwitz Law, PLLC (which is partnering with the Tennessee ACLU on the case) is happy to oblige them.

Also, congratulations, again, to Horwitz Law, PLLC clients Rachel Welty and State Rep. Aftyn Behn!  Last year, they won a preliminary injunction enjoining the “recruit[ing]” provision of Tennessee’s so-called “abortion trafficking” statute, which the State of Tennessee then appealed.  But the State was too slow, and its recent final judgment loss in the district court moots its initial appeal, the Sixth Circuit has ruled.  So the State’s appeal is dismissed.