Where plaintiff and defendant gave differing versions of a car accident, the photographs of the vehicles could be interpreted to support defendant’s version of events, and the jury appeared to credit defendant by finding plaintiff 60% at fault, the Court of Appeals affirmed the jury’s verdict and the trial…
Day on Torts
No misrepresentation based on acreage where accurate plat was public record.
Where the correct acreage of a piece of real property was contained on a publicly recorded plat, plaintiffs could not maintain a cause of action for misrepresentation or concealment based on the seller or realtor stating that the property was larger than it actually was. In Archer v. The Home…
Sanctions based on HCLA Certificate of Good Faith Denied
Where defendant pharmacists alleged comparative fault against a doctor and filed a certificate of good faith that complied with all the necessary requirements of the statute, the trial court’s decision to deny sanctions based on the allegation that the “certificate of good faith was supported by the written statement of…
Pharmacist not qualified to give causation testimony in medically complex HCLA case.
Where plaintiff’s pharmacist expert was deemed incompetent to offer necessary causation testimony against the pharmacy defendants in an HCLA suit based on his inability to rule out possible causes of death in a complex medical case, summary judgment for those defendants was affirmed. In Kidd v. Dickerson, No. M2018-01133-COA-R3-CV (Tenn.…
New trial affirmed where defendant shifted blame after failing to plead comparative fault.
Where the defendant in an HCLA case did not plead comparative fault, but during his testimony at trial stated that the reason he failed to take certain actions was because the nurses never notified him of the patient’s chest pain, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in ruling…
Noneconomic damages cap should be applied to each plaintiff separately in personal injury cases.
When an HCLA plaintiff was awarded a verdict for her health care liability claims and her husband was awarded damages for loss of consortium, the trial court correctly considered the plaintiffs separately for the purpose of applying the statutory cap on noneconomic damages. FIRST PUBLISHED IN JUNE 2020. SEE UPDATE…
Nursing home arbitration agreement signed by patient’s daughter not enforceable.
Where a daughter signed admission paperwork for her mother upon the mother’s admission to a nursing home, but the mother was mentally competent and did not give the daughter authority to sign the paperwork, an arbitration agreement included in the paperwork was unenforceable. In Manley v. Humboldt Nursing Home, Inc.,…
Unconscionable fee-splitting provision in arbitration agreement could be severed from agreement as a whole.
Although a fee-splitting provision in an arbitration agreement was unconscionable based on the plaintiff’s financial situation, the Court of Appeals ruled that the fee-splitting provision was severable and that defendant’s motion to compel arbitration should have been granted. In Stokes v. Allenbrooke Nursing and Rehabilitation Center LLC, No. W2019-01983-COA-R3-CV (Tenn.…
Website comment deemed to not constitute notice for relation back purposes.
Where a plaintiff named the wrong defendant in a premises liability suit, but claimed that the proper defendant had notice of the lawsuit due to a correspondence she had sent on its website stating that she had been in contact with her legal team, the proper defendant did not have…
Justice Programs On-Demand Seminars Now Live
Tennessee Justice Programs has released it Fall 2020 on-demand video seminar CLE programs. Former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Penny White, former Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Joe Riley, and I started Justice Programs almost 20 years ago. The seminar program is designed for civil trial practitioners who are interested in…