The Tennessee Supreme Court has announced that it is going to hear oral argument in a very important case on Wednesday, May 7th, 11:00 a.m. in Knoxville. The case is Tennie Martin et al. v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. et al. (Franks, author) (Susano, dissenting) – E2006-01021-SC-R11-CV. The issues are:…
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit released a decision several months ago that presents a real danger for plaintiff’s lawyers and their clients who seek to rely on T.C.A. Section 20-1-119 to avoid a statute of limitations defense. The Tennessee Bar Journal published my article on…
Should a court ever determine, as a matter of law, that a plaintiff is fifty percent or more at fault? Should it ever do so when there is some evidence of fault of the defendant? Those questions will be explored by the Tennessee Supreme Court in the coming months. The…
The Tennessee Supreme Court decided the Troup case on Friday. Troup is a case involving a third-party tort action arising from an on-the-job injury suffered by the employee of a sub-contractor on a construction site. The Western Section of the Court of Appeals held that it was reversible error not to instruct…
A complaint against the State of Tennessee has just been dismissed because the plaintiff alleged that a state trooper may have committed negligence but did not affirmatively allege that the trooper was negligent. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal stating that it did not state a cause of action. The…
Justice Holder has released on new comparative fault opinion on behalf of the Tennessee Supreme Court. Austin had a one-car accident and sued Fayette County for negligently maintaining the roadway. Fayette County said this in its answer: "the traffic sign in question was not placed there by the Defendant, Fayette…
Under Tennessee law fault cannot be assigned to a plaintiff’s employer but the defendant is permitted to prove and argue that the employer was the cause in fact of the injury. But what if the defendant wants to ask the jury to apportion fault to an entity that is deemed…
A decision released yesterday by the Court of Appeals confuses me greatly. Defendant 1 blamed Nonparty in an answer. Plaintiff sued Nonparty, who then became Defendant 2. Defendant 2 moved to dismiss, saying inter alia that the complaint against it was barred by the statute of repose. Then, according to…
Here is a link to an article I wrote for the Tennessee Bar Journal about a recent opinion discussing T.C.A. Sec. 20-1-119. Go to the link and locate the article and you will find a link to the article in the “Table of Contents” on the left side of the…
The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the failure of a plaintiff to get leave to amend a complaint before adding a nonparty as a defendant to not permit the newly-added party to raise the statute of limitations as a bar. Key to the holding was the fact that…