Evidence

March 12, 2026

Plaintiff needed expert testimony to support claim that mold in vehicle caused personal injury

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. She took the vehicle to the defendant dealership several times for repairs, but the leak continued. Four years later, she began experiencing health problems, “including a chronic cough, joint pain, left foot and shoulder pain, anxiety, a nodule in her lung, and heart palpitations.” At this time, she discovered that mold had grown in her SUV.

The plaintiff filed this suit for personal injuries and property damages against the dealership based on its negligent repair of the leak. The plaintiff asserted that the mold was caused by the faulty repairs, and the mold in turn caused her health issues.

March 10, 2026

Summary judgment for Kroger store in Tennessee snow and ice case reversed

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

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 premises liability case.

In Jones v. Kroger Limited Partnership I, No. M2024-01417-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 6, 2026), the plaintiff slipped and fell in the parking lot at defendant grocery store after a snow storm. The area had received heavy accumulations of snow and ice a couple of days prior to the incident, but no snow or ice had fallen on the morning of the plaintiff’s injury. Portions of the parking lot and sidewalk had been cleared, but areas of snow and ice remained. Plaintiff entered the store without incident, but when returning to his car by a slightly different route, he fell and was injured. This premises liability suit followed.

The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiff could not prove that they breached a duty because the “parking lot had been scraped to provide a safe path to enter and exit the store.” In support of this motion, they submitted a low-quality security video that showed the plaintiff walking from his car into the store without issue. They also argued that the plaintiff was 50% or more at fault for his injuries because, rather than taking the exact same route back to his car, the plaintiff walked a different route when exiting the store. The plaintiff responded with expert testimony regarding how much de-icing material should have been used on the parking lot, which was significantly more than was actually used by the defendants.

January 6, 2025

HCLA (Medical Malpractice) summary judgment based on cancellation rule affirmed.

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

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 plaintiff filed an HCLA claim alleging that the defendant psychiatrist had engaged in improper, sexualized conduct directed toward the plaintiff. When his claim was filed, the plaintiff relied on Expert 1, but Expert 1 dropped out of the case after depositions.

The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, asserting that without Expert 1 plaintiff could not prove his case. The plaintiff requested more time to identify a new expert, which the trial court granted. The plaintiff then disclosed Expert 2. In Expert 2’s affidavit, she stated that the plaintiff suffered damages as a result of the defendant’s conduct. During her deposition, however, she testified that you would expect damages and that they were possible, but that she “didn’t go into damages. I just basically put that you would expect damages, damages can be reignited.”

September 1, 2023

New Article Published Discussing Tennessee’s “Colleague Privilege”

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

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 standard,” and that this holding “stands regardless of any supervisory relationship between the providers.”

June 21, 2023

Defendant physician cannot be compelled to give expert opinion of other healthcare provider’s care.

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

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 (Tenn. May 23, 2023), plaintiff filed a healthcare liability action against multiple defendants, including the midwife who was overseeing her birth and the midwife’s supervising physician, Dr. Seeber. Plaintiff suffered permanent brain damage and was severely debilitated by injuries received during the birth. During the supervising physician’s deposition, plaintiff’s counsel questioned him about what his expectations of the midwife would be in hypothetical situations, when the mother’s condition became concerning, and other questions related to the standard of care for the midwife, all of which the physician’s attorney instructed him not to answer.

Plaintiff filed a “motion to compel Dr. Seeber to testify concerning [the midwife’s] performance prior to his arrival,” which the trial court denied. The Court of Appeals, however, reversed the trial court and ruled that “the trial court erred by refusing to order Dr. Seeber to answer the questions at issue in his deposition.” In this appeal to the Supreme Court, the judgment of the trial court denying the motion to compel was affirmed.

June 14, 2022

The Tennessee Missing Witness Rule

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

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. Francis, 669 S.W.2d 85, 88 (Tenn. 1984). The missing witness rule may apply when the evidence shows that a witness who was not called to testify knew about material facts, had a relationship with the party “that would naturally incline the witness to favor the party,” and the witness was available to the process of the court. Id. (quoting Delk v. State, 590 S.W.2d 435, 440 (Tenn. 1979)). In civil trials, this rule applies when the missing witness is also a party—with knowledge of material facts, naturally favorable testimony, and availability to judicial process. See Runnells v. Rogers, 596 S.W.2d 87, 90–91 (Tenn. 1980); W. Union Tel. Co. v. Lamb, 203 S.W. 752, 753 (Tenn. 1918).

The logic of this common law principle stems from the commonsense inference that “[a] party’s intentional efforts to keep evidence from the fact-finder” is reasonably “interpreted as an implied admission of weakness in that party’s case.” Robert H. Stier, Jr., Revisiting the Missing Witness Inference—Quieting the Loud Voice from the Empty Chair, 44 Md. L. Rev. 137, 140 (1985). This “inference, which Wigmore calls ‘one of the simplest in human experience,’” id. (quoting 2 John Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law § 278, at 133 (J. Chadbourne rev. ed. 1979)), is well-grounded in Tennessee law. Yet we have applied it with due caution for the “several dangers inherent” in its operation, such as adding false weight or significance to testimony that a court has not heard. See Francis, 669 S.W.2d at 89. Thus, we strictly construe the missing witness rule and its elements. Id.

February 7, 2022

Involuntary dismissal affirmed when video showed that defendant’s car was visible when plaintiff pulled onto roadway.

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

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. City of Algood, Tennessee, No. M2020-01063-COA-R3-CV, 2022 WL 150854 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 18, 2022), plaintiff was driving his vehicle with his wife in the passenger seat. When he pulled onto the road, attempting to cross two lanes of traffic and a turning lane, his vehicle was struck by a police cruiser driven by Officer Ferguson, who was employed by defendant city.

Plaintiff filed this negligence suit and defendant counterclaimed, also raising the defense of comparative fault. During a bench trial, the evidence showed that the police cruiser was in the left lane and had just passed a black car that was traveling in the right lane. Security camera video showed, however, that at the time plaintiff began pulling out, the cruiser was visible on the straight road. Evidence also showed that the cruiser was traveling at least 60 miles per hour while the speed limit was 40 miles per hour, and that the officer did not brake until a short time before impact. Plaintiff’s wife testified that she was talking to plaintiff when he pulled onto the road, and that shortly before this she had told him to put on his seatbelt.

January 16, 2020

How to Authenticate A Facebook Post.

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

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 State claimed he had sent. The State used a search warrant to obtain the records from Facebook, which also provided a certification of authenticity. Nichols argues that the State did not sufficiently authenticate that the messages were sent by him.