November 1–7, 2025

• Parties are engaged in bitter divorce.  During the divorce proceedings, Husband is criminally convicted of raping Wife, which is relevant to the divorce proceedings.  Trial court judge touches on the issue and makes various adverse credibility assessments against Husband during the divorce proceedings, which Husband claims on appeal (without having filed a motion to recuse below) merited sua sponte recusal.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “Assessing credibility and making findings of fact are part of the trial court’s role, and Husband has not identified any prejudgment by the trial court. Such statements or questions by the trial court do not evidence any impropriety and lack of partiality on the part of the trial court.”  So we affirm.
• Scrub Tech reports (to her employer, the police, and a state administrative body) Surgeon’s alleged verbal and physical abuse of her during surgical proceeding.  Surgeon then sues her.  Scrub Tech files Tennessee Public Participation Act Petition, which trial court grants.  Surgeon appeals.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: At step one, “[f]or purposes of considering whether [Scrub Tech] has made her prima facie showing, the evidence is considered in a light most favorable to [Scrub Tech]. In other words, for purposes of considering whether [Scrub Tech] has made her prima facie case, her assertions are true, not false.”  And at step two, Surgeon “offered conclusory assertions, not facts or evidence, in support of his contention that he suffered injury to his business relationships.”  Similarly, Surgeon “offers only a conclusory assertion that his reputation was harmed as a result of [Scrub Tech’s] statements about his conduct in the operating room.”  And because damages are a necessary element of Surgeon’s claims, the trial court’s order granting Scrub Tech’s TPPA Petition is affirmed.
• Plaintiffs win jury verdict in car accident case.  Defendant does not file a motion for new trial afterward.  Even so, Defendant presents exclusively evidentiary issues on appeal.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “This Court has held that where a pre-trial motion relates to the admission or exclusion of evidence, a motion for new trial is required to preserve the issue on appeal. . . . Because Appellant failed to file a motion for new trial, all of the issues he raised in this appeal are waived.  We therefore conclude that [Defendant]’s appeal had no reasonable chance of success. As such, we award [Plaintiffs] their reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred in defending this appeal.”
• Father (pro se) pursues appeal of criminal contempt conviction that arises from his assertedly willful failure to provide, in contravention of court order, Mother with the current address where Father and the Parties’ child reside.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: Father’s brief is grossly deficient on the only point in controversy, so we affirm.  We also award frivolous appeal fees, given that “[s]ome of the more common circumstances in which this court has found an appeal to be frivolous are cases in which the argument advanced on appeal was dependent upon the facts but where the appellant failed to provide a transcript or Rule 24 statement of the evidence.”  [Editorial note: Your Summarist has significant concerns about awarding frivolous appeal fees in criminal cases, which really ought not be a thing.  It’s also unclear why Father didn’t get counsel given the risk of actual incarceration.]
• Litigant moves to recuse trial court judge because the judge lives in the same neighborhood as a potential expert witness in the case.  Trial court judge denies the motion to recuse, and Litigant files accelerated interlocutory appeal.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “[T]he only connection between [Potential Expert Witness] and the trial judge is that they live in the same neighborhood and the trial judge had previously declined to preside over a different matter when [Potential Expert Witness]t was a self-represented party. There is no evidence that the trial judge has a personal or even professional relationship with [Potential Expert Witness]. Respectfully, this minimal contact is not sufficient to create an appearance of impropriety or indicate the trial judge would have a bias in favor of [Potential Expert Witness].”  So we affirm.
• Nursing Facility moves to compel arbitration in wrongful death case, which Plaintiff (Decedent’s next-of-kin) opposes.  But the Arbitration Agreement alleged to have been signed by Decedent is undated, misspells Decedent’s name, and was not witnessed by anyone, so the trial court denies Nursing Facility’s motion due to Nursing Facility’s failure to prove that the Arbitration Agreement is authentic.  Nursing Facility appeals.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “A writing standing alone is not evidence; it must be accompanied by competent proof of some sort from which [a factfinder] can infer that it is authentic and that it was executed or written by the party by whom it purports to be written or executed[.]”  And because the trial court’s judgment excluding the Arbitration Agreement for insufficient evidence of authenticity was within its discretion, we affirm.
• Grandmother loans $147,000 to her Grandson to help with his restaurant business.  Grandson doesn’t pay her back, though, so she sues and wins a default judgment (back in 2012).  Grandmother later dies, and after a Trustee is substituted and tries to collect the judgment, Grandson moves to set aside the default.  The trial court denies the motion, and Grandson appeals.  Tennessee Court of Appeals:  So, upon our review, we actually agree with Grandson that the default judgment was entered too quickly.  But that was ages ago, which matters because “a motion to set aside a final judgment must be made within a reasonable time unless the judgment is void, and more than a decade passed before [Grandson] filed his motion to set aside the default judgment[.]”  Beyond that, Grandson treated the judgment as valid over an extended time period, which separately precludes relief.  So we affirm.

Firm Updates

Congratulations to Horwitz Law, PLLC clients Tanisha Hansen and Shilo Turner!  After Ms. Hansen and Ms. Turner were sued in a heinous SLAPP-suit filed by a misbehaving Daycare, the trial court granted their TPPA Petition to dismiss the Daycare’s claims.  And that comes with a cost—$32,500.00 in fees and expenses, to be exact—for which the Daycare is now liable.  (Three cheers for the Tennessee Public Participation Act, without which our work would be impossible.)