Although Tennessee appellate decisions are readily available, information about how those decisions will affect businesses, legal practice, and people in the state is scarce. We are pleased to introduce our new blog to help fill that information gap — Tennessee Appellate Review. By providing commentary and insights on federal and state appellate news and developments in Tennessee, we aim to make the Tennessee Appellate Review blog a helpful resource for our clients and the Tennessee legal community. Bradley’s Tennessee Appellate Team has extensive experience handling hundreds of appeals in fed ..read more

It used to be fairly simply to share a secret with a federal court in Tennessee by filing a sensitive document “under seal.” It isn’t anymore. The courts don’t care about keeping your secrets, at least not as much as they care about preserving public access to the courts. Before a recent trio of Sixth Circuit opinions, a motion to file sensitive business information “under seal” might only involve a single page or even a single sentence citing an agreement between the parties. When used in moderation (and even when not used in moderation), those perfunctory motions were routinely granted by th ..read more

A seemingly routine Sixth Circuit appeal involving the interpretation of the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act statute (ERISA) recently sparked an interesting debate between two Circuit Judges — Amul Thapar and Jane Stranch — on the use of “corpus linguistics” in statutory interpretation. In Wilson v. Safelite Group, Inc., the court affirmed summary judgment for the defendant employer on federal preemption grounds. But, as explained below, the decision is noteworthy less for the result and Judge Stranch’s majority opinion than for the two separate concurrences from Judges Thapar ..read more

Given the progress of modern society, including the use of motor vehicles, cell phones, and infrared technology, few constitutional amendments have evolved as fully and as rapidly as the Fourth Amendment. Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit further defined the parameters of the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, ruling that the common municipal practice of chalking tires violates the Fourth Amendment. In Taylor v. City of Saginaw, the court considered the plaintiff’s challenge under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the city and its employee, who chal ..read more

The Sixth Circuit recently issued a divided opinion holding that Tennessee’s statutory cap on punitive damages, Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-39-104, is unconstitutional.  What makes the case interesting is that the court decided the issue solely under the Tennessee Constitution.  The majority opinion, authored by Judge Clay and joined by Judge Stranch, held that the cap violates the right to a trial by jury as provided in Article I, Section 6 of the Tennessee Constitution.  The dissenting opinion by Judge Larsen argued that, for purposes of the appeal, the issue should have been certified to the Tenne ..read more

The Tennessee Supreme Court overruled three decades of precedent in Athlon Sports Communications, Inc. v. Duggan, giving trial courts broad discretion in the method used to determine the “fair value” of shares in “dissenters’ rights” actions. When a closely held Tennessee corporation seeks to undergo a structural change such as a merger, dissenting minority shareholders are afforded a statutory “appraisal remedy” pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 48-23-101, et seq.  This “dissenters’ rights” statute allows dissenting shareholders to escape the involuntarily altered investment with the “fa ..read more

What’s the first thing that judges and law clerks read in an appellate brief?  The certificate of interested parties, the table of contents, and the table of authorities are matters of form, and, while important, they don’t convey a message.  But a well-written issue statement can frame the narrative, preview the argument, and persuade the reader before a drop of ink is spilled on true substance.  Practitioners in state and federal courts alike would be wise to devote significant time and energy to the issue statement, beginning with choosing which form to use.  The deep-issue statement should ..read more

Last month the Tennessee Supreme Court, in Dedmon v. Steelman, affirmed the long-standing collateral source rule in personal injury cases. As long as an injured plaintiff can establish that the medical expenses they incurred were reasonable and necessary for their treatment, the full amount of the charges from the medical providers can be accepted into evidence. Defendants cannot challenge the reasonableness of these medical expenses with evidence of the actual (discounted) amounts paid to medical providers by the plaintiff’s insurance provider. Defendants sought to extend the Court’s decision ..read more

The Sixth Circuit became the third court of appeals to reject the “alternative citizenship” theory of diversity under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).  In Roberts v. Mars Petcare US, Inc., a putative class of Tennessee citizens sued Mars Petcare in Tennessee state court.  Mars Petcare removed the case to federal court, relying on diversity jurisdiction under CAFA, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d), which provides for federal jurisdiction over class actions involving at least 100 class members, with $5 million or more at stake, and in which “any member of a class of plaintiffs is a citizen of a State di ..read more

It is clear by now that the federal courts in Tennessee are not a safe place for most sensitive business information. Legitimate trade secrets are safe. Well-established privileges (e.g., attorney-client privilege) still apply. And the courts still respect statutory requirements to protect things like personal health information. But unless your sensitive business information is a matter of national security, a recent series of Sixth Circuit opinions means you cannot expect to get or keep a broad seal covering documents in the courts’ records. Now that Tennessee’s federal courts cannot keep yo ..read more