Matthew Poliak v. James Adcock

This appeal involves a dispute between a father and his adult daughter's live-in boyfriend. The boyfriend filed a personal injury suit against his girlfriend's father in the Circuit Court for Davidson County after the father assaulted him with a piece of two-by-four. The father admitted that he had assaulted his daughter's boyfriend but asserted the defenses of self-defense, provocation, and defense of property. In response to the boyfriend's motion for partial summary judgment, the trial court determined that the father had failed to produce evidence to substantiate any of these defenses. The father perfected this appeal after the trial court certified its order as final in accordance with Tenn. R. Civ. P. 54.02. We have determined that the trial court was correct when it determined that the father's evidence regarding the circumstances surrounding the assault could not, as a matter of law, support his affirmative defenses. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court.