June 7–June 13, 2025
- HOA sues Homeowners for operating short-term rentals that HOA contends are prohibited by the Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions that govern the properties. Trial court: Both parties’ competing interpretations of the CC&Rs are reasonable, so Homeowners win. Tennessee Court of Appeals: Affirmed. The Tennessee Supreme Court recently held that, “because restrictive covenants are in derogation of the right of free use and enjoyment of property, they are strictly construed and should not be extended to any activity not clearly and expressly prohibited by their plain terms.” Here, the applicable CC&Rs are ambiguous as to whether short-term rentals are verboten. Thus, they do not clearly and expressly prohibit short-term rentals, which ends the inquiry.
- Pro Se Litigant challenges an adverse arbitration award arising from a construction contract that contains a fee-shifting provision. [Editorial note: Really bad idea.] Pro Se Litigant’s claim is that the award was “fundamentally irrational.” Trial court: You know, I actually see some real problems with the arbitrator’s ruling, but the law “only allows setting aside or vacating an arbitrator’s award in extremely narrow circumstances that do not apply in this case[,]” so the award is confirmed. Tennessee Court of Appeals: Exactly right. “[W]e are not permitted to consider the merits of an arbitration award, even in instances where the award is based on factual errors,” and Pro Se Litigant “has failed on appeal to assert any statutory ground for vacatur[.]” So the trial court’s judgment confirming the award is affirmed, and Construction Company is awarded its attorney’s fees on appeal under the fee-shifting provision of the parties’ contract. Construction Company doesn’t get its attorney’s fees for the trial-level litigation, though, because Construction Company cited the wrong provision for fee-shifting below (thus waiving the winning basis for securing its attorney’s fees), and we treat this sort of thing very strictly.
- Spat between neighbors develops into Order of Protection litigation after one neighbor accuses the other of “cutting a barbed-wire fence, destroying a privacy fence, and cutting trees,” and trespassing on and “record[ing] [her] in her yard.” Trial court issues an order of protection, and the losing neighbor (representing herself pro se) appeals. Tennessee Court of Appeals (in Memorandum Opinion): Due to massive briefing deficiencies—most prominently, the absence of a Statement of the Issues, but also other things that annoy us, like Pro Se Appellant’s “repeated mis-identification of the parties and inconsistent use of personal pronouns”—we dismiss this appeal for failure to comply with briefing rules.
- Trial court orders fee-shifting in connection with a lawsuit that arises from a lease with a purchase option for real property. Party to whom fees are shifted appeals. Tennessee Court of Appeals (in a Memorandum Opinion): “[T]he trial court did not make any explicit finding that Plaintiffs defaulted on the lease or that the lease was terminated,” which is the only way fees could have been awarded under the contract, so the trial court’s fee-shifting order is vacated. No error in failing to adjudicated a tortious interference with business dealings claim, either, given that it wasn’t included in the Plaintiffs’ Complaint or tried by consent.
Firm Updates
Three boos for the Sixth Circuit. At almost exactly the same time that District Attorney Jason Lawson—whose jurisdiction encompasses CoreCivic’s Trousdale Turner Correctional Center—called for the State of Tennessee to take control of the chronically understaffed hellhole, the Sixth Circuit ruled that the public doesn’t get to see some of the documents on which Lawson is basing that assessment. According to the Sixth Circuit, because the case in which the documents were produced concluded with a “triumphant settlement,” Horwitz Law, PLLC client Lakenya McGhee-Twilley—who was seeking to expose the documents—lacks standing to continue pursuing transparency associated with them, even though the Middle District of Tennessee for some reason obviously continues to violate straightforward sealing law in basically every CoreCivic case. Concurrence: “The district court’s failure to address or rule upon this matter is, in many ways, contrary to the principles underlying our public records access case law.”
