May 3–May 9, 2025
- Dog Owners own two dogs. Those dogs previously attacked an employee of the facility where Dog Owners boarded them. So Dog Owners are told that their dogs cannot be boarded at that facility anymore, and they switch boarding facilities. Sadly, while boarded at the new facility (where the dogs spend roughly half the year because Dog Owners are frequently out of town), dogs attack Employee, causing her to suffer “countless bite wounds to her arms, legs, and other parts of her body” that required her “to undergo emergency surgery” and also resulted in her being “covered in scars” and experiencing “incredibly painful” nerve damage, swelling in her feet, and debilitating posttraumatic stress. Employee then sues Dog Owners and the Facility under both Tennessee’s Dog Bite Statute, Tennessee Code Annotated section 44-8-413, and Tennessee common law. Trial court dismisses the Dog Owners from the case on the ground that the dogs were under control of the Facility at the time, and it dismisses the Facility under “the ‘exclusive remedy rule’” of the Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Act.” Employee appeals. Tennessee Court of Appeals, in one of the most thoughtful opinions of the year: Tennessee’s Dog Bite Statute defines “owner” in a way that is much different from its standard use. Under the statute’s definition, the Facility was the “owner” of the dogs because it “regularly harbor[ed], ke[pt], or exercise[d] control over” them. Tennessee’s Dog Bite Statute also restricts ownership to “a person who, at the time of the damage caused to another, regularly harbors, keeps, or exercises control over the dog[.]” That means that Dog Owners were not the owners of the dogs for purposes of Tennessee’s Dog Bite Statute, and the claim against them was properly dismissed. However, “where a dog injures a person on the property of someone other than the dog’s legal owner, a finding that the legal owner is not subject to liability under [] Tenn. Code Ann. § 44-8-413(a) does not abrogate a claimant’s common law negligence claim against the dog’s legal owner when the legal owner knew of the dog’s vicious propensities.” So while Employee’s statutory claim against Dog Owners fails, Employee’s common law negligence claim against Dog Owners should not have been dismissed and can proceed on remand. [Editorial note: This is an especially excellent opinion that was made possible by superb lawyering on all three sides of the case, all of which won something important.]
- Woman’s estate files Tennessee Health Care Liability Act (medical malpractice) claims against medical providers, asserting that their negligence caused Woman’s death. Alas, Woman’s pre-suit notice leaves some important “unchecked blanks” on her HIPAA authorizations, resulting in the trial court dismissing her Complaint. Woman appeals. Tennessee Court of Appeals: “[T]he authorizations at issue were incomplete as they did not properly identify those providers permitted to disclose and receive Ms. Murphy’s medical records. This was apparent on the face of the document, as the unchecked blank spaces rendered the document uninformative and ineffective.” And for the as-yet-unremedied reasons your summarist wrote about in the Nashville Bar Journal a decade ago, that error triggers a fatal booby trap that results in Woman’s Complaint becoming time-barred. Thus, the HCLA’s pre-suit notice requirements snag another plaintiff and result in her presumptively valid claims being dismissed on procedural grounds.
- HOA, which opposes a proposed development, and Developer sue one another over whether an express easement exists on a particular plat of land and, if it does, whether the Developer’s proposed use of the easement overburdens it. The trial court grants summary judgment to the Developer, and the HOA appeals. Tennessee Court of Appeals: “Having reviewed the foregoing conveyances, we affirm the trial court’s conclusion that the [Developer’s] Property has an express easement appurtenant across the Disputed Property.” Further, “the HOA focused on [Developer’s] intended development plan—rather than [Developer’s] intended use of the Easement—when arguing that [Developer’s] anticipated use would overburden the Disputed Property[,]” which is not the relevant question. And because “the HOA failed to present any evidence concerning [Developer’s] anticipated use of the Easement,” we affirm the trial court’s holding that the easement would not be overburdened by the proposed development.
Firm Updates
New Rule 11 Application! Does Tennessee law permit defamation plaintiffs to prevail when they don’t prove any reputational harm? Can plaintiffs who fail to prove defamation prevail on redundant false light claims? Is there really broader hostility to gun crimes than DUIs, and does making a trivial mistake in interpreting another state’s criminal statute support a finding of recklessness? We say no, and we’ve asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to say no, too.
