October 11–17, 2025

  • Attorney sues Client for unpaid legal fees resulting from an appeal in which Attorney represented Client successfully.  The trial court rules that no further fees are due beyond what Client has already paid because any further amount would be unreasonable under Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(a).  Tennessee Court of Appeals: Attorney “clearly overbilled” Client, including through the use of “a particularly troubling practice.”  It also seems obvious that Attorney (despite the successful outcome) barely did any work in a case that was unusually simple; he “wrote one appellate brief, the substance of which was only sixteen pages long[,]” and “[o]f those sixteen substantive pages, three to four pages consisted of long block quotes from case law or the trial transcript.”  So we affirm the trial court’s judgment, including with some useful analysis concerning the second factor of the reasonableness rule (“the likelihood, if apparent to the client, that the acceptance of the particular employment will preclude other employment by the lawyer”) and the seventh (“the experience, reputation, and ability of the lawyer or lawyers performing the services”).  [Editorial note: The Parties, the trial court, and the Court of Appeals also appear to have assumed that this breach of contract dispute is governed entirely by 1.5(a)’s reasonableness factors, though it is not clear to your Summarist that that is correct.  In related contexts, for example, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has emphasized that “conduct violating the Rules of Professional Conduct does not necessarily ‘constitute actionable malpractice.’” See Lazy Seven Coal Sales, Inc. v. Stone & Hinds, P.C., 813 S.W.2d 400, 404 n.3 (Tenn. 1991) (quoting Outpost Solar, LLC v. Henry, Henry & Underwood, P.C., No. M2019-00416-COA-R3-CV, 2021 WL 1027110, at *5 (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 17, 2021)).  So it does not necessarily follow that the Rule 1.5(a) inquiry and the breach of contract inquiry are the same.]
  • Custodian—who has a fiduciary duty to act for the benefit of two minor children—sells property without having it appraised, hiring a real estate agent, or listing the property for sale on the open market.  Afterward, the children’s Mother sues Custodian for breach of fiduciary duty.  The trial court rules that Mother did not meet her burden, and Mother appeals.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “The custodian reviewed an appraisal published by the county’s property assessor and then sold the property for a price slightly exceeding the listed value.”  Apart from that, Custodian was trying to sell the property quickly for the benefit of the children and was trying to save the children money on fees and commission.  So while Custodian’s approach perhaps was not ideal, we affirm the trial court’s determination that Custodian did not breach a fiduciary duty here.
  • On July 13, 2023, Plaintiff (who is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair) is injured when exiting a van, allegedly because of the van driver’s negligence.  On July 16, 2024, Plaintiff files suit.  Plaintiff’s suit alleges incorrectly that July 22, 2023 was the date of the incident.  Once it becomes clear that that is not true, trial court dismisses the Plaintiff’s claim on statute of limitations grounds over Plaintiff’s (ridiculous, unsupported, and contradicted-by-video-footage) claim that she did not discovery her injuries until several days later due to her paralysis.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “[T]he video footage of the accident and the driver’s contemporaneous report match Plaintiff’s allegations that she fell directly onto her face when exiting the van, her wheelchair fell on top of her, her ‘leg was bent all the way in,’ she was immediately concerned about something in her lower body being ‘broke,’ and she accused [Defendant’s] driver of ‘not put[t]ing [the lift] all the way on the ground.’ This amounts to inquiry notice of an injury on Plaintiff’s part.”  So Plaintiff’s untimely filed lawsuit is time-barred.
  • Pro se Pastors file motion to recuse Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles based on her “order that they serve the Board; her holding their motions in abeyance pending service; her threatening to hold them in contempt should they not follow court orders; her ordering them to remain in the courtroom on July 9, 2025, to receive service of [an opposing litigant’s] filing; her excluding them as parties in favor of [another litigant]; and her accepting an untimely filing per the local rules[.]”  The trial court denies the motion, and Pastors file accelerated interlocutory appeal of the trial court’s order denying their motion to recuse.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “Whether Chancellor Myles is correct or not in her interpretation of the law is beside the point in this Rule 10B appeal. Any alleged errors may be appealed later, but they are not proper grounds for recusal.”
  • Pro se Inmate who is incarcerated at a TDOC facility files unverified petition for certiorari seeking to appeal a prison disciplinary ruling.  The trial court dismisses the petition for want of subject-matter jurisdiction, and Inmate appeals.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: “The Tennessee Constitution mandates that a writ of certiorari be supported by an oath or affirmation,” and “[t]his very issue has been decided by this court in several cases involving almost identical facts.”  So the petition was “fatally deficient” due to the verification defect and the trial court’s judgment is affirmed.
  • In a domestic case, pro se Appellant files accelerated interlocutory appeal of trial court order denying his motion to recuse.  Tennessee Court of Appeals: Appellant’s “assertion that denial of his request for clinical records amounted to a violation of the Brady doctrine was both incorrect, as this is not a criminal case to which Brady is applicable, and not a proper basis for recusal[,]” so we affirm the trial court’s order.

Firm Updates

New case!  During basically every academic discussion about the First Amendment, speakers wax poetic about the fact that the American judicial system does not tolerate prior restraints.  That always comes as something of a surprise to your Summarist, who sees one issued in Tennessee at least once each year.  So Horwitz Law, PLLC is on the case to overturn this especially egregious prior restraint censoring a statement quoting the City of Athens’ mayor, and the Tennessee Court of Appeals has now ordered the State to answer.