OPINION GARY R. WADE, JUSTICE. An elected council member of the City of LaFollette filed a declaratory judgment action alleging that three other members of the council had violated the terms of the Open Meetings Act in the process of adopting a resolution to increase the pay of various city employees. The trial court, after a hearing, granted a temporary restraining order, restricting implementation of the pay raises until the City complied with the procedural requirements of the City Charter....
OPINION JANICE M. HOLDER, JUSTICE. Disciplinary Counsel of the Board of Professional Responsibility filed a petition for discipline against attorney F. Chris Cawood for alleged violations of Rules of Professional Conduct. After Disciplinary Counsel's presentation of evidence, the Hearing Panel dismissed the petition. The Board of Professional Responsibility appealed to the chancery court, which affirmed the Hearing Panel's dismissal. The Board appealed the decision of the chancery court to...
OPINION GARY R. WADE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., filed a separate opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. An elected council member of the City of LaFollette filed a declaratory judgment action alleging that three other members of the council had violated the terms of the Open Meetings Act in the process of adopting a resolution to increase the pay of...
OPINION JANICE M. HOLDER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., and GARY R. WADE, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. Disciplinary Counsel of the Board of Professional Responsibility filed a petition for discipline against attorney F. Chris Cawood for alleged violations of Rules of Professional Conduct. After Disciplinary Counsel's presentation of evidence, the Hearing Panel dismissed the petition. The Board of Professional Responsibility...
OPINION CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, GARY R. WADE, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. The defendant, a convicted violent sexual offender, was released on parole in 2006. He registered pursuant to the Tennessee Sexual Offender and Violent Sexual Offender Registration, Verification, and Tracking Act of 2004 1 ("the Registration Act"), listing a primary address in Bedford County and a secondary address in Rutherford...
OPINION GARY R. WADE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. Kevin L. Holt, injured in an automobile accident in Arkansas, was first taken by ambulance to an Arkansas hospital and then transported to the Regional Medical Center in Memphis, where he incurred $33,823.02 in expenses. Shelby County Health Care Corporation, the operator of the Regional Medical Center, filed affidavits for a...
OPINION GARY R. WADE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. This litigation involves a claim of medical malpractice against the two defendants, a physician and the corporation operating his clinical practice, alleging negligence in the prescription of a drug. The trial court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on grounds that the suit was barred by the one-year statute...
OPINION SHARON G. LEE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which, CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, GARY R. WADE, and WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., JJ., joined. The issue presented in this interlocutory appeal is whether the plaintiff's suit for damages was timely filed. The plaintiff and the defendant were involved in a traffic accident on November 4, 2006. Within a year of the accident, on November 2, 2007, the plaintiff filed a civil warrant with the general sessions court clerk...
OPINION SHARON G. LEE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, and GARY R. WADE, JJ., joined. WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., not participating. In this medical negligence case, we review a jury verdict against a hospital based on the hospital's failure to enforce its policies and procedures in patient care. Tennessee law has long recognized that a hospital has a duty to its patients to exercise that degree of care, skill, and diligence used by...
OPINION WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, GARY R. WADE, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. This appeal involves a defendant who bound up two victims, doused them with kerosene, and then set them on fire because one of the victims had refused to loan him ten dollars to buy beer. One of the victims lost his life in the ensuing fire. A McMinn County grand jury indicted the defendant for first degree murder, attempted...
OPINION SHARON G. LEE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., CORNELIA A. CLARK, GARY R. WADE, and WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., JJ., joined. This capital case involves the 1988 rape, murder, robbery, and kidnapping of a thrift store employee in Cleveland, Tennessee. A Bradley County jury convicted the defendant of premeditated murder, felony murder, two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of aggravated rape, and two counts of aggravated kidnapping....
OPINION WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., CORNELIA A. CLARK, GARY R. WADE, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. This appeal involves an intoxicated driver who was stopped after a law enforcement officer saw what he believed to be a broken taillight on the driver's automobile. In his prosecution for driving under the influence in the Circuit Court for Carroll County, the driver asserted that the taillight did not provide the officer with...
OPINION JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, GARY R. WADE, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. We granted appeal in this case to address whether parties may modify by agreement the scope of judicial review of an arbitrator's award. We hold that judicial review of arbitration awards is governed by the Tennessee Uniform Arbitration Act ("TUAA"). As such, the provision in the parties' arbitration agreement purporting to expand...
OPINION JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, GARY R. WADE, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. We granted appeal in this case to determine the trial court's scope of review of the parties' arbitration award. After thoroughly reviewing the record, we conclude that the parties entered into binding arbitration governed by the Tennessee Uniform Arbitration Act ("TUAA") and reaffirm our holding in Pugh's Lawn Landscape Co., Inc....
OPINION CORNELIA A. CLARK, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., and GARY R. WADE, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. The defendant was convicted by a jury of the first degree murders of Renee Jordan, Jerry Hopper, and David Gordon, and the attempted first degree murders of James Goff and Larry Taylor, as well as leaving the scene of an accident. The jury sentenced the defendant to death for each of the first degree murders. The trial...
OPINION CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, GARY R. WADE, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. The appellant, death-row inmate Billy Ray Irick, challenges the trial court's order of August 20, 2010, finding that he is presently competent to be executed according to the standards enunciated in Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 127 S.Ct. 2842 , 168 L.Ed.2d 662 (2007), Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 , 106 S.Ct. 2595,...
OPINION JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GARY R. WADE, J. joined. CORNELIA A. CLARK, J., filed a separate opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., joined. SHARON G. LEE, J., not participating. The employer discharged the employee three days after he rejected an offer to settle his workers' compensation claim, and the employee brought a retaliatory discharge action against the employer. The trial court...
OPINION JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, GARY R. WADE, WILLIAM C. KOCH, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ. joined. In this capital case, the defendant, Joel Richard Schmeiderer, was convicted of first degree premeditated murder in connection with the strangling death of a fellow inmate. The jury imposed a sentence of death for the murder based on two aggravating circumstances. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. On automatic appeal pursuant to...
OPINION CORNELIA A. CLARK, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., and GARY R. WADE, WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. We accepted this case to determine whether, under Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-16-503(a)(1), the proof required to convict the defendant of tampering with evidence is sufficient where the "thing" destroyed during the course of an investigation is not specifically identified. On the facts of this case, we hold that...
OPINION 1 WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., CORNELIA A. CLARK, GARY R. WADE, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. This appeal involves the application of the one-year statute of limitations in Tenn. Code Ann. 29-16-124 (2000) to a temporary regulatory taking claim. The developer of a residential subdivision in Wilson County filed suit in the Circuit Court for Wilson County against the City of Lebanon and others alleging that the city'...
