A plaintiff who claimed personal injuries based on mold which grew in her car due to negligent repairs needed expert proof on the issue of causation. In Mullis v. SAI Chattanooga N, LLC, No. E2024-00443-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025), the plaintiff noticed that her SUV roof was leaking.…
A low-quality security camera video that failed to show the plaintiff walking anywhere obviously covered with snow, or show that the parking lot was definitively safe, was not enough to support the trial court’s grant of summary judgment or finding of comparative fault by plaintiff in this snow and ice…
Because an HCLA (Medical Malpractice) plaintiff is required to prove the elements of his claim through expert testimony, summary judgment was affirmed after the trial court applied the cancellation rule to plaintiff’s expert’s conflicting testimony regarding damages. In Simmons v. Islam, No. M2023-01698-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 3, 2024), the…
The Tennessee Bar Journal has just published my article, “Tennessee Supreme Court Creates the “Colleague Privilege.” The article discusses the implications of a brand-new privilege which provides that “a defendant healthcare provider cannot be compelled to provide expert opinion testimony about another defendant provider’s standard of care or deviation from that…
In a recent HCLA case, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that “a defendant healthcare provider cannot be compelled to provide expert opinion testimony about another defendant provider’s standard of care or deviation from that standard.” In Borngne ex rel. Hyter v. Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority, — S.W.3d —, No. E2020-00158-SC-R11-CV…
What you need to know about Tennessee’s “Missing Witness Rule:” Tennessee’s law of evidence recognizes the common law rule that a party “may comment upon the failure . . . to call an available and material witness whose testimony would ordinarily be expected to favor” the opposing party. State v.…
Where security camera footage showed that plaintiff pulled onto the road when defendant’s approaching vehicle was clearly visible, plaintiff was at least 50% at fault for the resulting car accident, despite the fact that defendant was going at least twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. In Cryer v.…
How do you authenticate a Facebook account? A Georgia court affirmed a prosecutor’s successful efforts to have excerpts of a criminal defendant’s Facebook account admitted into the evidence. The defendant (Nichols) claimed that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting Facebook records that included several private messages that the…