Day on Torts
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.
The defendant sent interrogatories to the plaintiff asking her to identify her experts and their opinions, as well as the grounds for their opinions. In response, the plaintiff provided her experts’ names and contact information, but she failed to identify any facts or opinions to which they would testify. The defendant moved for summary judgment, which the trial court at first denied, allowing the plaintiff to amend her complaint instead. Three and a half years later, the defendant renewed its motion for summary judgment as to the personal injury claims. The defendant argued that the plaintiff could not prove causation, as she had not disclosed any expert testimony, which would be necessary to satisfy this element of her claim. The trial court agreed and granted the defendant summary judgment on the personal injury claim, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
In its brief analysis, the Court pointed out that the plaintiff “acknowledge[d] that expert opinion evidence is generally necessary to establish the cause of a medical condition.” (internal citation omitted). Despite the plaintiff’s arguments otherwise, the defendant had made a properly supported motion for summary judgment. The plaintiff’s interrogatory responses demonstrated that she “lacked the expert opinion evidence needed for her personal injury claim.” (internal citation omitted). The plaintiff’s response to the motion included her personal affidavit and a report about the finding of mold in her vehicle, which the Court noted was “substantively inadmissible.” This response was insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact on the element of causation.
Because the plaintiff did not have the necessary expert proof to show causation, summary judgment was affirmed.
This short opinion is a reminder that a plaintiff must have evidence to support her claim of causation of a medical condition at the summary judgment stage. The Court gave plaintiff more than enough time to gather this necessary evidence.
This opinion was released eleven months after oral arguments.