"A trial court’s personal opinion is not a basis for restricting a person’s constitutional right to free speech," the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled. The ruling is a major and precedent-setting First Amendment victory for Horwitz Law, PLLC client Michael Malone. "There is
Fatal "ambiguities [in the trial court's] orders cannot support a conviction of contempt[,]" and "[t]he determination that the order which was allegedly violated lacked specificity and was ambiguous requires a reversal of the convictions of contempt," the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled. The
A trial court's order denying Horwitz Law, PLLC clients Joshua and Leah Debity's Tennessee Public Participation Act Petition to Dismiss must be vacated, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled. The trial court's "incorporated oral ruling does not indicate why the trial court dismissed
A trial court's order incarcerating and denying bail pending appeal to a defendant who is appealing his contempt convictions must be vacated, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled. The ruling arises under Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 8—a rarely utilized appellate rule governing
In a unanimous panel opinion issued on August 12, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ordered that Horwitz Law, PLLC appellate client Kenneth Mynatt's malicious prosecution and civil conspiracy claims against the United States—maintained under the Federal Tort Claims
In a pair of separate opinions issued today, the Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling by Davidson County Chancery Court Judge Ellen Hobbs Lyle in favor of Plaintiffs Amy Frogge, Fran Bush, and Jill Speering, all represented by Horwitz Law, PLLC. The ruling arose out of a lawsuit
“The determination of whether an offense is eligible for expunction is an obligation entrusted to courts, not the TBI[,]” the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled. Accordingly, “the TBI lacked authority to refuse to comply” with a final and unappealed expungement order that no statute
Bringing a multi-year saga to its likely conclusion, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has unanimously held that a referendum petition filed by an amorphous entity calling itself "4 Good Government" was fatally defective because it illicitly prescribed multiple election dates, rather than complying with
In an opinion issued September 28, 2021, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ordered that Horwitz Law, PLLC appellate client Kenneth Mynatt's malicious prosecution and civil conspiracy claims be reinstated. The Court's unanimous ruling, authored by Judge Thomas R. Frierson, explains that the retirement
In a precedent-setting, unanimous ruling, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has affirmed the first trial court judgment ever issued under the Tennessee Public Participation Act, Tennessee's recently enacted anti-SLAPP statute. The ruling establishes several critical precedents for free speech law in Tennessee, and it