January 11–24, 2025
- Probate court for Shelby County (one of Tennessee’s two most reliably reversed judicial districts) enters a surprise, unexplained, sua sponte order dismissing a conservatorship action. Tennessee Court of Appeals: The trial court’s order is inexplicable, so even though a trial court speaks through its written orders, we have reviewed the transcript in an effort to explic it. But the transcript “provides no better understanding of the trial court’s actions.” And given the absence of “a proper explanation of the trial court’s reasoning in setting aside all orders and dismissing the competing petitions in this case, we cannot conduct meaningful appellate review of the trial court’s actions,” so its order is vacated.
- Tennessee Court of Appeals: In this tidy six-page opinion concerning an appeal of a default divorce judgment, we offer you some important rules (like “if there is any reasonable doubt as to whether [a default] judgment should be set aside, the motion should be granted” and “the testimony of [an] interested party [seeking to set aside a default judgment] must ‘be supported by other disinterested witnesses or corroborating circumstances’”), along with some pithy prose (“Husband was the ‘author of his own misfortune.’”). And after putting them all together, Wife’s default divorce judgment against Husband stands.
- Homeowners purchase their home in the year 2000. A decade later, while renovating the property, they discover three rusted-out 500-gallon storage tanks buried under concrete. After Homeowners remove the tanks, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation learns of them, seizes them, and begins a groundwater contamination investigation. Testing reveals an elevated presence of chemicals associated with petroleum, so the TDEC begins an extensive cleanup process and sends Homeowners the $166,103.65 bill. Homeowners challenge the “cost-recovery order,” lose at the first two stages of the administrative appeal process, then win after seeking judicial review in Tipton County Chancery Court. Tennessee Court of Appeals: Although Tennessee’s Uniform Administrative Procedures Act allows litigants to seek judicial review in the chancery court nearest to them, something called “[t]he Storage Tank Act makes clear that the Davidson County Chancery Court is the sole court with the authority to hear cases involving final orders of” Tennessee’s Solid Waste Disposal Control Board, and this action wasn’t filed there. Thus, everything the Tipton County Chancery Court ruled was void for lack of subject matter jurisdiction; its order is vacated; and this case is remanded with instructions to transfer it to Davidson County Chancery Court.
- Following lengthy and complicated custody proceedings, Father is subject to adverse money judgments that he does not appeal. Later, the judgment creditors seek to execute their money judgments against interpleaded funds to which Father has a claim (apparently through an LLC) on which the trial court had approved a lien. The trial court grants the creditors’ motion to release the interpleaded funds, which Father appeals on the asserted ground that the trial court’s order approving a lien against property owned not by Father, but an LLC, was void. Tennessee Court of Appeals: “‘A judgment is not void . . . because it is or may have been erroneous.’” And because “Father’s argument necessarily depends on additional proof, specifically whether the real property was owned by a limited liability company[,]” the judgment is not void on its face, but is merely voidable. Further, because the availability of interpleader does not depend on the merits of potential claims, the interpleader order was not void, either. So Father loses. We exercise our discretion not to award appellate attorney’s fees, though.
- Father files a petition to establish parentage. In a post-hearing order that features sterling analysis like “We won’t hyphenate. I see no reason to do that. This is his dad. Traditionally, our children take the father’s name, and that will be the case here[,]” the trial court enters a final order establishing Father as the child’s biological father, establishes a permanent parenting plan, changes the child’s surname to Father’s, and sets child support. Mother appeals the permanent parenting plan’s custody provisions permitting Father overnight parenting time, arguing that she was improperly prevented from presenting her case on a host of issues including Father’s opposition to the child receiving certain medical treatment. Tennessee Court of Appeals: Mother really should have made an offer of proof—it’s typically mandatory—but this is the rare case where “the witness’s previous responses, the wording of the question, and other evidence in the case reveal the substance of the excluded testimony,” so we consider her issues. And because the trial court improperly “excluded substantial and relevant evidence” concerning the child’s best interests based strictly on the fact that it could have been introduced at a prior hearing that concerned more limited subject matter, the trial court’s order is vacated.
- Probate court grants beneficiary’s motion for summary judgment in a will contest, finds that the decedent lacked testamentary capacity to execute a will. Grandson—who was the sole beneficiary under the will and who had moved to probate it—appeals. Tennessee Court of Appeals: If you fail to respond to a properly supported motion for summary judgment with evidence (and merely “mentioning” that you have affidavits doesn’t qualify; you actually have to file them and comply with summary judgment requirements), then you are going to lose. And the affidavits were not going to cut it anyhow, since “none of the lay witnesses provided a factual basis for their conclusory opinions” and “[i]t is the factual basis of the opinion—‘the facts detailed’ and ‘the conduct described’ by the lay witnesses—that constitutes evidence.”
- Pro se litigants appeal adverse judgment in boundary line dispute. Tennessee Court of Appeals: But their brief is deficient, so all of their issues are subject to waiver. But wait! We decide, uncharacteristically, to exercise our discretion to waive briefing requirements and consider the issues presented on their merits (nearly all of which we deem waived for failure to present them to the trial court). As to the main issue, though, the trial court weighed the credibility of competing boundary line experts and found one of them to be more credible, and because that is not a decision we are going to disturb, the judgment is affirmed. But we do not award frivolous appeal sanctions, in part because the appellants here are pro se.
- Business dispute that makes your summarist’s head hurt arises under an LLC’s operating agreement. Tennessee Court of Appeals: For reasons that boil down to “even if the statute of limitations to collect a debt has expired, the debt is not released or extinguished—it is merely unenforceable,” one side of the dispute wins. The losing side’s unjust enrichment claim also fails because it’s time-barred by Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-249-407, Tennessee’s business fiduciary duty statute. And the winning side gets it attorney’s fees under the fee-shifting provision of the parties’ operating agreement.
Firm Updates
Congratulations to Horwitz Law, PLLC client Joey Blevins! After seeing his Tennessee Public Participation Act Petition granted in a case where a billionaire developer unsuccessfully sued him for truthfully recounting that the developer’s proposed development sat atop a mountain saturated with abandoned underground coal mines, Mr. Blevins and a co-defendant were awarded over $200,000.00 in legal fees by a Marion County judge last week. A reminder, yet again, that anti-SLAPP statutes work, and that there was little recourse for this kind of abuse before Tennessee enacted a meaningful one.
