Tennie Martin and Roya Mitchell, et al v. NorFolk Southern Railway Company, et al - Dissenting

CHARLES D. SUSANO, JR., dissenting.
I start with an elementary and bedrock principle of Tennessee jurisprudence: when a party
timely files a complaint in circuit court, alleges facts making out a cause of action, and demands a
jury, that party has a constitutional right to have a jury pass upon the merits of its allegations. Tenn.
Const. Art. I, §6. (“That the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate . . .”). I fully recognize that
a party’s jury demand and its right to pursue its alleged cause of action can be legitimately thwarted
if the party sued can demonstrate, under the rubric of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56, that it is entitled to
summary judgment. Hence, if the material facts pertaining to a defense are not in dispute and if
those facts show conclusively that the defendant is entitled to a judgment, the plaintiff loses its
constitutional right to a jury trial, its case is over, and the defendant goes away with summary
judgment.