Day on Torts

October 21, 2014

Orders on Motions for Summary Judgment – Rubber-Stamping Not Allowed

This summer the Tennessee Supreme Court offered guidance on what a trial court must do when granting or denying a motion for summary judgment under Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.04. Despite the longstanding practice of many courts to have a prevailing party draft and submit a proposed order, the Court emphatically expressed that the record must show that an order granting or denying summary judgment was the product of the trial court’s “independent judgment.”

In Smith v. UHS of Lakeside, Inc., No. W2011-02405-SC-R11-CV (Tenn. July 15, 2014), plaintiff’s complaint listed multiple causes of action related to the alleged improper assessment and resulting delayed treatment of decedent. During lengthy pre-trial litigation, defendant moved for summary judgment as to all of plaintiff’s claims. After a hearing, the trial court ruled in favor of plaintiff on some claims and defendant on two claims. After orally announcing the direction of the ruling, the trial court stated: “As far as a basis for the ruling, I’m going to let [defendant’s counsel] make those…the motions in which you were successful, you’ll prepare the order and the rationale for the Court’s ruling.”

Plaintiff later filed an amended complaint, and defendant again filed a motion for summary judgment as to all claims. This time the trial court granted defendant’s motion in total and stated, “I’m directing the defendant to prepare the order and to establish the rationale for the court’s ruling in quite specific detail[.]” Both orders submitted by defendant and signed and entered by the trial court were highly detailed, essentially adopting all of defendant’s arguments from its brief. After the entry of each order, plaintiff objected to the orders arguing that the orders contained rulings and findings that the trial court did not actually make.

October 20, 2014

Strip Club Murderer Loses Appeal

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

The case of Jernigan v. Hunter, No. M2013-01860-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 30, 2014) begins in January 2006, when John Jernigan was stabbed and beaten to death by two men, a father and son, inside a Nashville strip club. Father pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in his criminal proceeding, and son pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated assault.

Thereafter, Jernigan’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against father and son, both of whom defended themselves during a bench trial. The trial court found that Jernigan’s parents had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that father had directly and intentionally contributed to Jernigan’s death by stabbing him multiple times. However, due to conflicting evidence, the trial court ruled that parents did not prove that the son had caused or contributed to Jernigan’s death. Accordingly, the court awarded Jernigan’s parents $250,000 in damages against the father and dismissed the son. The father appealed and represented himself again.

The appellate court’s opinion classified father’s arguments on appeal into three categories: evidentiary issues, legal issues, and issues first raised on appeal.

October 16, 2014

NEJM Study on Defensive Medicine

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

From the American Association for Justice:

The New England Journal of Medicine published a new study on the effects of tort reform on emergency room department treatments. The researchers examined Medicare emergency room fee-for-service claims data from 1997-2011 in Texas, Georgia and South Carolina, all of which changed their emergency care liability standard from negligence to gross negligence. They found that such reforms did not change doctors’ testing behaviors and that "physicians are less motivated by legal risk than they believe themselves to be."

"We did not find evidence that these reforms decreased practice intensity, as measured by the rate of the use of advanced imaging, by the rate of hospital admission, or in two of three cases, by average charges. Although there was a small reduction in charges in one of the three states (Georgia), our results in aggregate suggest that these strongly protective laws caused little (if any) change in practice intensity among physicians caring for Medicare patients in emergency departments."

October 11, 2014

Recent Tennessee Jury Verdicts

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

Here are the verdicts collected by the October, 2014 Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter:

Health Care Liability – epidural steroid injection with back injury – June 27, 2014 – defense verdict in state court in Davidson County
Abuse of Process – photographer arrested – August 22, 2014 – defense verdict in federal court in Hamilton County
Pedestrian – child pedestrian hit by car – May 14, 2014 – defense verdict in state court in Shelby County
Car Wreck – disk herniation – February 14, 2014 – $50,313 in state court in Knox County
Pedestrian – adult pedestrian hit by car in crosswalk – April 16, 2014 – defense verdict (50-50 fault allocation) in Davidson County
Car Wreck – soft tissue injuries – April 15, 2014 – $3600 in state court in Shelby County
Excessive Force by Police – facial injuries – August 29, 2014 – defense verdict in federal court in Davidson County
Car Wreck – soft tissue injuries – March 13, 2014 – defense verdict in state court in Hamilton County
Car Wreck – soft tissue injuries – August 16, 2014 – $15,000 verdict in state court in Davidson County
Sip and Fall – wrist and knee injuries – August 14, 2014 – defense verdict in federal Court in Greenville
Car Wreck – soft tissue injuries – May 22, 2014 – defense verdict in Shelby County
Car Wreck – knee injury and low back pain – May 14, 2014 – $12,940 verdict in state court Davidson County ($40,000 offer of judgment rejected)

Full details on each of these jury verdicts can be obtained from the Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter.

October 10, 2014

Trial Court’s Evidentiary Rulings Given Great Deference on Appeal

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

In Bilbrey v. Parks, No. E2013-02808-COA-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 29, 2014), a negligence case arising from a car accident, the Court of Appeals recently addressed two evidentiary issues. Plaintiff, her aunt, and her boyfriend were in plaintiff’s car when it ran out of gas. The car was pushed onto the side of the road, though not completely off of it. While the boyfriend and aunt had gone to get gas, defendant came along and collided with plaintiff’s car. The incident occurred at night. Plaintiff brought a negligence action against defendant, and defendant counterclaimed asserting plaintiff’s negligence. At trial, the jury found both plaintiff and defendant to be 50% at fault. Subsequently, plaintiff appealed two evidentiary rulings made by the trial court.

First, plaintiff asserted that the trial court should not have allowed the boyfriend’s deposition to be read into evidence by defendant. Plaintiff pointed out that defendant had not subpoenaed boyfriend within the timing specified by local rules, and more importantly, that the evidence presented to show that boyfriend was unavailable by being more than 100 miles from the courthouse was insufficient. The unavailability evidence was fraught with layers of hearsay, and boyfriends’“unknown, unproven, and in dispute.”’s deposition should not have been admitted, it was a harmless error, as the deposition testimony was “almost entirely consistent with, and cumulative to, that of”’s deposition and the in-court testimony of other witnesses did not result in the admission of the deposition being prejudicial to plaintiff.

Second, plaintiff objected to the testimony of a state trooper who listened to a voice mail from plaintiff to her boyfriend on plaintiff’s phone when he arrived at the scene. According to his testimony, plaintiff told her boyfriend on that message that the emergency lights had either gone out or were going low. In affirming the trial court’s decision to allow the trooper to testify regarding the voicemail, the Court addressed three major points. One, plaintiff and her boyfriend had both testified that the phones containing this message were either lost or destroyed. Defendant, therefore, could rely on Tenn. R. Evid. 1004 and did not have to produce the original recording. Two, although the trooper had never heard plaintiff’s voice prior to listening to the voicemail, he spoke with her soon thereafter and testified that he recognized the voices as the same. The Court found that this was enough to satisfy the voice identification requirements of Tenn. R. Evid. 901. Three, plaintiff asserted that this statement did not fall under the party-opponent admission exception to the hearsay rule as it was not a statement against plaintiff’s interest. The Court rejected this argument, noting that any statements by a party, whether against that party’s interest or not, may be used by the opposing party. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

September 22, 2014

Tennessee Made-Whole Doctrine

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

The Belmont Law Review published an article I wrote about the made-whole doctrine in its inaugural issue. Here is a description of the article.

This Article proposes the adoption of the “Modified Made-Whole Doctrine Proposal." Part I begins by explaining the roots of the law of subrogation rights and its current jurisprudential inconsistencies. It also explores the relationship between such subrogation rights and the made-whole doctrine in the context of Tennessee tort law as well as how this doctrine would be applied in Tennessee today. Part II briefly outlines some of the general questions regarding Tennessee’s current application of the made-whole doctrine, particularly the unresolved issues surrounding the impact of comparative fault on subrogation rights. These are questions which the author’s suggested Proposal is designed to directly address. The detailed framework of this Proposal, including its five fundamental Principles and their underpinning rules, are set forth at length in Part III. Finally, Part IV concludes by analyzing the practical application of this Proposal throughout the various stages of the litigation process and offers guidance to judges, attorneys, and litigants alike as to how such subrogation disputes can be equitably resolved. In sum, the Modified Made-Whole Doctrine Proposal is meant to provide for the efficient, just application of the made-whole doctrine to subrogation interests with respect to Tennessee’s law of comparative fault.

It is available for download here:

September 19, 2014

Defamation and Public Figures in Tennessee

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

The recent opinion in Byrge v. Campfield, et al., No. E2013-01223-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 8, 2014) serves as a good reminder of Tennessee defamation law involving a public figure.

In October 2008, Stacey Campfield, then a Republican State Representative for Tennessee’s 18^th District, posted on his political blog an entry about the 36^th State House District race featuring Democrat Roger Byrge. Campfield’s blog entry alleged that Byrge had a drug-related arrest record. The blog post stated, in part:

Word is a similar mail piece has gone out exposing Byrges multiple separate drug arrests. Including arrests for possession and drug dealing. (I hear the mug shots are gold).

September 17, 2014

Tolling Agreements, The Savings Statute and Tennessee Law

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

The Tennessee Court of Appeals recently issued an important decision regarding the interplay between the savings statute and tolling agreements. The facts of Circle C Const., LLC v. Hilson, M2013-02330-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. App. Jul. 29, 2014), are a bit convoluted but critical to understanding the case.

Plaintiff had a judgment entered against it by a trial court. While appealing the judgment, Plaintiff entered a tolling agreement on a potential legal malpractice claim against Defendant, who was Plaintiff’s attorney in the underlying case. The tolling agreement specified the date that the statute of limitations would run – one year from the trial court’s judgment – but gave Plaintiff until 120 days after an appellate ruling in order to file any legal malpractice claim. In pertinent part, the tolling agreement stated, “[i]f Plaintiff desires to assert claims for professional negligence, it must do so on or before” 120 days after the appellate court issued its opinion.

After the tolling agreement was entered, things get strange:

September 15, 2014

Claim Washed Down the Drain By Tennessee Statute of Repose and Lack of Constructive Notice

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

Tthis is a premise liability case arising from the collapse of a bench in a handicap shower at the defendant’s hotel. Upon checking into their handicap room at the Holiday Inn Express, the Parkers noticed the bench in the handicap shower appeared to be loose. The brackets were pulled away from the wall a bit and the bench itself was shaky when pressed on. The Parkers reported the problem, and the hotel’s maintenance man tightened the bolts. Both the maintenance man and the Parkers testified the tightening of the bolts on the bracket appeared to fix the problem as the bench was no longer wobbly and the brackets were flush with the wall.

The next morning, Mr. Parker transferred himself from his wheelchair on to the shower bench. Approximately 10 minutes into his shower, the bench collapsed and Mr. Parker struck the floor. Ultimately, Mr. Parker was diagnosed with compression fractures at T-7, T-8 and T-9. Mr. Parker also alleged that as a result of the fall and his spinal injuries that he suffered more frequent and more severe pressure sores, urinary tract infections and bladder pain.

The Parkers filed suit against Holiday Inn Express. The hotel answered and alleged the comparative fault of D & S Builders. D & S Builders had constructed the hotel and had installed the shower benches in the handicap rooms of the hotel. D & S Builders was dismissed due to the four year statute of repose for negligent construction claims. In this case, the certificate of occupancy had been issued on July 31, 2006 and suit was not filed until May of 2011.

September 11, 2014

When is a Summons and Complaint “Unclaimed” Under Tennessee Law?

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

The Tennessee Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion dealing with a circumstance when service of process was designed “unclaimed” by the U.S. Postal Service. In Goodman v. Ocunmola, No. E2014-00045-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 4, 2014), wife sued husband for divorce and served husband with a summons and complaint through the Tennessee Secretary of State because husband lived in Kentucky. The Postal Service attempted to deliver the summons and complaint, sent via certified mail, on three separate occasions before returning the certified mail as “unclaimed.” Wife moved for and was granted a default judgment when husband failed to appear and respond to the complaint.

About a month later, husband moved to set aside the default judgment entered against him, arguing that wife intentionally failed to include husband’s apartment number on the address label for the process server (i.e., the Postal Service), with the goal of obtaining a default judgment due to husband’s failure to respond to the complaint. Husband claimed he found out about the default judgment when he discovered a letter from wife’s attorney in the trash bin by his mailbox, which he assumed was thrown away because its address label also did not include husband’s apartment number. The trial court denied husband’s request to set aside the default judgment, and husband appealed.

The appellate record didn’t include a transcript or statement of the evidence, which the court initially noted had “frustrated” its review of husband’s appeal. As for the merits of the appeal, the court observed that Tenn. R. Civ. P. 4.05 states “the United States Postal Service notation that a properly addressed registered or certified letter is “unclaimed,” or other similar notation, is sufficient evidence of the defendant’s refusal to accept delivery.” Unfortunately for husband’s appeal, the limited record was basically reduced to the fact that after making three attempts to serve the summons and complaint, the Postal Service declared the certified mail as “unclaimed.” Contrary to husband’s suggestion that the lack of an apartment number inhibited service of process, the certified mail containing the summons and complaint was not found in a trash can near the mailbox (like the letter from wife’s attorney) or returned as undeliverable because the address was insufficient. Instead the notice contained the husband’s correct name and correct apartment complex address, and the “unclaimed” designation by the Postal Service was sufficient to effectuate proper service. Accordingly, the court of appeals held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying husband’s motion to set aside the default judgment.