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…
Where defendant admitted liability for a car accident but denied that the accident caused plaintiff’s alleged injuries, a jury verdict for defendant was affirmed where there was material evidence showing that the accident was minor, evidence showed plaintiff had a history of back and/or neck pain, and plaintiff’s expert witness…
An award for future medical expenses in a personal injury claim under Tennessee law may be appropriate even where the plaintiff does not establish with “absolute certainty” that the future treatment will be pursued, as the standard for such an award is “reasonable certainty.” In Kirby v. Memphis Light Gas…
Under the discovery rule, a plaintiff’s cause of action for property damage may “not necessarily accrue at the moment they knew they had sustained injury.” Instead, the statute of limitations will not begin to run until they “knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care and diligence should have known,…
In cases involving damages to real property, the general “measure of damages will be the cost of repair[.]” If a defendant wants to argue that diminution in value is a more appropriate measure of damages, he or she has to burden of proving the difference in value from before and…
In Henderson v. The Vanderbilt University, No. M2016-01876-COA-R9-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 31, 2017), the Court of Appeals overturned summary judgment on a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim, holding that “the alleged failure of the defendant hospital to provide care to the plaintiffs’ daughter, despite repeated assurances from the…
Tennessee’s personal injury and wrongful death jury trials and judgment amounts continue at historic lows. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, only 396 personal injury and wrongful death cases went to trial. Of those 396 trials, only 190 were jury trials – the rest (206) were non-jury trials.…
While a surviving spouse typically has the superior right to bring a wrongful death suit, there are certain exceptions to that rule. In Nelson v. Myres, No. M2015-01857-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 18, 2017), the Court held that a suit filed by the deceased’s daughter rather than her husband could…
In Kempson v. Casey, No. E2015-02184-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 2, 2016), the Court of Appeals vacated a jury’s finding of no damages for a plaintiff who presented uncontroverted expert proof regarding injuries he alleged to have sustained in a car accident. Plaintiff was rear-ended by defendant when he was…
In Hamilton v. Holderman, No. M2015-02302-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 27, 2015), the Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed a damages award in a conversion case. In the underlying dispute, plaintiffs had rented a furnished house and barn to defendants, which the defendants argued they had orally agreed to buy. Plaintiffs…