Heun Kim, et al. v. State of Tennessee

This matter is before the court for a second time. Plaintiffs filed a negligence suit in the Tennessee Claims Commission against the State of Tennessee after their six-year-old son fell from the fifth-floor balcony of the state-owned and -operated Paris Landing State Park Inn. Plaintiffs alleged that the State was negligent in two respects: 1) in allowing their son to gain access to an unoccupied guest room and the attached balcony, and 2) in maintaining balcony railings that were shorter in height than was required by applicable building codes. Following a bench trial, the Tennessee Claims Commissioner concluded that the Plaintiffs failed to establish that the State’s negligence was the proximate cause of their son’s injuries. Plaintiffs appealed to this Court, and we held that the Commissioner’s conclusions of law were deficient and vacated and remanded the case for further consideration. On remand, the Commissioner entered a supplemental order that included additional conclusions of law as to both claims for negligence, and, again, determined that the Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of proving that the Inn’s acts were the proximate cause of their son’s fall and dismissed the claim in its entirety. Plaintiffs again appeal. We affirm the Commissioner’s holding that Plaintiffs failed to establish that the negligence of the Inn was the proximate cause of their son’s injuries.