APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

This appeal involves a constitutional challenge to two Tennessee statutes that are part of Tennessee’s campaign finance law.  Prior to trial, the chancery court granted several motions in limine that effectively excluded all of the testimonial and documentary evidence proffered by the State in defense of the statutes.  With no evidence presented by the State, the trial court concluded that the State failed to meet its burden of proof as to the constitutionality of the two statutes.  Consequently, the trial court held that Tennessee Code Annotated sections 2-10-117 and 2-10-121 violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, section 19 of the Tennessee Constitution.  The State appeals.  The State first argues that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding the State’s evidence.  Additionally, the State argues that the constitutional challenge to one of the statutes has become moot due to a statutory amendment.  Finally, the State argues that the remaining statute is constitutional.  For the following reasons, we affirm and remand for further proceedings.   

A jury convicted the Defendant, Kelley Hufford, of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, first degree premeditated murder, first degree felony murder, two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, three counts of aggravated kidnapping, and tampering with evidence for the abduction and homicide of her boyfriend. On appeal, the Defendant raises only a challenge to the territorial jurisdiction of the court, alleging that the evidence did not establish that the crimes occurred in Tennessee. After a thorough review of the record, we conclude that the evidence established that the trial court had territorial jurisdiction, and we affirm the convictions, remanding for merger of the kidnapping offenses.

This appeal arises from an acrimonious dispute between former friends over real property. William M. Pruitt and his wife Shirley J. Pruitt (“the Pruitts,” or “Mr. Pruitt” and “Mrs. Pruitt”) live in a house next to three parcels of land once owned variously by Mr. Pruitt’s stepfather and mother, both of whom died intestate. J. Philip Harber (“Mr. Harber”), former attorney for the Pruitts, paid Mr. Pruitt’s fellow heirs for quitclaim deeds with the aim of acquiring their interests in the subject parcels. Mr. Harber then filed a petition in the Chancery Court for Anderson County (“the Trial Court”) to determine the interests of the parties and sell the three parcels. The Trial Court found in favor of Mr. Harber and ordered a partition by sale for division. The Pruitts appealed to this Court. On appeal, the Pruitts rely on several theories to argue that Mr. Harber never acquired an interest in the land. The Pruitts argue further that, even if Mr. Harber acquired an interest, the Trial Court should have applied the doctrine of unclean hands to deny him his requested relief because he sued them out of spite. We find and hold, inter alia, that Mr. Pruitt is but one of many heirs to his deceased parents’ land; that the other heirs never lost their interests in the land; and, that the other heirs were at liberty to sell their interests in the land to Mr. Harber, which they did. Although there is considerable evidence that Mr. Harber was motivated by spite in bringing this action, that alone does not compel application of the unclean hands doctrine, particularly as fraud is not alleged. Finding no reversible error, we affirm the judgment of the Trial Court.

In this healthcare liability action, the defendants filed a motion for a qualified protective order allowing them to conduct ex parte interviews with some of the plaintiffs’ treating healthcare providers pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-121(f). After the trial court granted the qualified protective order allowing the interviews, plaintiffs’ counsel wrote a letter to plaintiffs’ treating providers concerning the interviews. The defendants then filed a joint motion for sanctions asserting that the letters sent by plaintiffs’ counsel violated the trial court’s order by attempting to prevent the treating providers from participating in the interviews. The trial court granted monetary sanctions against the plaintiffs and their counsel and ordered plaintiffs’ counsel to send retraction letters to plaintiffs’ treating providers. The plaintiffs appeal. We have determined that the order on appeal is not a final order and, therefore, dismiss the appeal.

Loring Justice and Kim Nelson are the divorced parents of a minor child. They have been in litigation over the child since 2004. This appeal arises from a lawsuit filed by Mr. Justice (plaintiff) against Ms. Nelson, Robert Bodine, and two unidentified coconspirators (defendants). In his original complaint, plaintiff alleged that defendants were liable for: conspiracy to commit the crime of extortion, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and tortious interference with parental rights. Defendants filed motions to dismiss, which the trial court granted. Exactly thirty days later, plaintiff filed an amended complaint. He alleged additional facts and new causes of action, including: fraud, coercion, attempted tortious interference with parental rights, and violations of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. Defendants filed a “response” to the amended complaint. They argued that the court should deny plaintiff leave to amend his original complaint. The court treated defendants’ “response” as a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, which the court then granted. We hold that the court erred when it treated defendants’ “response” as a motion to dismiss the amended complaint. We also hold that the court failed to provide adequate justification for dismissing the amended complaint sua sponte. Accordingly, we vacate the order of dismissal and remand for further proceedings.

Plaintiff Wilmington Savings Fund Society brought this action for foreclosure on property owned by defendants Reginald Hall and Rhonda Hall, requesting that the trial court declare its debt from a loan secured by deed of trust to have priority over debts allegedly owed by the Halls to other named defendants. The trial court granted plaintiff summary judgment and Reginald Hall appealed. Plaintiff argues on appeal that the trial court’s judgment was not final and therefore this Court does not have jurisdiction. We hold that the trial court did not adjudicate all of the claims raised by the parties. Accordingly, this appeal is dismissed for lack of a final judgment.

Appellant appeals the trial court’s order quashing its attachment and garnishments, whereby Appellant sought payment of its judgment from interpleaded funds that were owed to Appellee. Affirmed.

After a trial, a Davidson County jury found Defendant, Brijesh Mukesh Desai, guilty of theft of services valued at $1,000 or more but less than $10,000. The trial court sentenced Defendant as a Range I standard offender to four years in the Tennessee Department of Correction with a release eligibility of thirty percent. On appeal, Defendant argues that his conviction violates his constitutional right not to be imprisoned for a civil debt, that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction, that the indictment was fatally flawed, and that the trial court improperly admitted evidence at trial. After a thorough review of the record and applicable case law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

This appeal concerns a healthcare liability action filed by Jennifer Moore-Pitts and David Pitts ("Plaintiffs") in the Knox County Circuit Court ("Trial Court") against Carl A. Bradley, DDS, MAGD ("Defendant"). Defendant filed a motion to dismiss Plaintiffs' action on the basis of noncompliance with Tennessee Code Annotated § 29-26- 121(a)(2)(E), which requires that pre-suit notice include a HIPAA-compliant medical authorization allowing the healthcare provider receiving the notice to obtain complete medical records from every other provider that is sent a notice.' Approximately forty healthcare providers, including Defendant, received pre-suit notice from Plaintiffs. On the medical authorization provided to Defendant, Plaintiffs left blank the name of the individual or entity authorized to make the disclosure of medical records to Defendant but provided an attachment of the names and addresses of the other providers receiving notice. The Trial Court found that Plaintiffs' medical authorization provided to Defendant was not sufficient to allow Defendant to obtain Ms. Moore-Pitts' s medical records from the other providers who received the pre-suit notice. As such, the Trial Court found that Plaintiffs could not rely on Tennessee Code Annotated § 29-26-121(c) to extend the statute of limitations for 120 days. Because Plaintiffs' action was filed one year and 118 days after the cause of action accrued, the Trial Court determined that Plaintiffs' action was untimely. The Trial Court, therefore, granted Defendant's motion to dismiss. Discerning no error, we affirm the judgment of the Trial Court.

The Petitioner, Roy Anthony Haley, was convicted of theft of property valued at $10,000 or more but less than $60,000, and he was sentenced as a Range III, persistent offender to fifteen years in confinement. Subsequently, he filed a petition for post-conviction relief, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. The post-conviction court denied the petition. The Petitioner appeals, contending that he was denied due process at his post-conviction hearing because he was not afforded the opportunity to call critical witnesses and because the post-conviction court was so biased and prejudiced toward him as to render the hearing unfair. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

In June 2015, a Davidson County Criminal Court jury convicted the Defendant, Becky Jo Burlison, of two counts of aggravated rape of a child, one count of aggravated child abuse, and one count of aggravated child neglect. Later, the trial court granted the Defendant’s motion for new trial on grounds that she had been deprived of the effective assistance of counsel. Prior to the new trial, the Defendant provided notice that she intended to offer expert testimony of her diminished capacity at the time of the offenses. The State moved to exclude the testimony, arguing that the testimony was not admissible because it did not satisfy the requirements established in State v. Hall, 958 S.W.2d 679 (Tenn. 1997). Following a hearing, the trial court denied the State’s motion and deemed the testimony admissible. The trial court and this court granted the State’s application for permission to appeal pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 9. In this interlocutory appeal, the State challenges the trial court’s denial of its motion to exclude expert testimony regarding the Defendant’s mental state at the time of the alleged offenses, reiterating the claim that the evidence does not satisfy the requirements for admission. Because we agree that the proffered evidence does not satisfy the requirements for admission established by Hall and its progeny, we reverse the ruling of the trial court and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Roger Joiner (“Employee”) sustained an injury to his neck while lifting a mailbag in the course of his employment with United Parcel Service, Inc. (“Employer”) on February 26, 2016. Employer provided medical benefits, but subsequently limited those benefits to treatment of the injury at the C6-7 level of Employee’s cervical spine.  Employer refused to authorize treatment and denied benefits for injury at the C5-6 level of Employee’s cervical spine based on the opinion of his treating physician.  After a compensation hearing, the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims (the “trial court”) concluded that the causation opinion of Employee’s medical evaluator overcame the statutory presumption afforded the causation opinion of his treating physician. The trial court determined that Employee was entitled to medical benefits for treatment of his injures at the C5-6 and C6-7 levels and to permanent partial disability benefits based on medical impairment attributable to both levels.  Employer appealed to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, which reversed the trial court’s decision, with one judge concurring in part and dissenting in part.   Employee has appealed that ruling.  The appeal has been referred to the Special Workers’ Compensation Appeals Panel for a hearing and a report of findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 51.  We reverse the decision of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board.

A Henderson County jury convicted the Defendant, Jonathan Blake Hart, of rape of a child and aggravated sexual battery, and the trial court sentenced him to fifty-five years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the Defendant asserts that the trial court erred when it: (1) barred his father from testifying; (2) denied his motion to exclude the medical expert’s conclusion that child sexual abuse had occurred; (3) admitted drawings from the forensic interview; and (4) limited his cross-examination of an investigator. The Defendant also contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions and that his motion for new trial should have been granted on these same grounds. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

This appeal requires us to determine whether the fair report privilege applies to a nonpublic, one-on-one conversation between a newspaper reporter and a detective of a county sheriff’s department, who also served as the public information officer for the sheriff’s department. The plaintiff sued the newspaper alleging that it had published defamatory statements the detective made about the plaintiff during the nonpublic, one-on-one conversation with the reporter. The newspaper moved for summary judgment based on the fair report privilege. The trial court granted the newspaper summary judgment, but the Court of Appeals reversed. We hold that the fair report privilege applies only to public proceedings or official actions of government that have been made public and does not apply to the nonpublic, one-on-one conversation at issue here. On this basis alone we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals reversing the trial court’s decision granting the defendant summary judgment and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.  

The defendant, Adarion C. Morris, appeals the 48-year sentence imposed following the revocation of his community corrections placement, arguing that the trial court was without jurisdiction to impose the new sentence and that the sentence is excessive. Discerning no error, we affirm the revocation of the defendant’s community corrections placement and the sentences imposed following the resentencing.

The Petitioner, Tommy Leroy Bryant, appeals from the Marshall County Circuit Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his three rape of a child convictions, for which he is serving a twenty-five-year sentence. The Petitioner contends that he received the ineffective assistance of trial counsel. We affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

The Defendant, Kayla Danielle Skillern, was convicted by a Wayne County Circuit Court jury of the sale of 0.5 gram or more of methamphetamine. See T.C.A. § 39-17-434 (2018). She received a sentence of ten and one-half years’ confinement. On appeal, she contends that (1) the evidence is insufficient to support her conviction, (2) the trial court erred in denying her motions for a judgment of acquittal, and (3) the trial court erred in admitting video evidence depicting the Defendant arguing with her codefendant in front of a child. We affirm the Defendant’s conviction but remand the case to the trial court for the entry of a corrected judgment.

Plaintiff filed a complaint asserting a health care liability claim against the state and attached a certificate of good faith. The Tennessee Claims Commission found that the certificate of good faith failed to satisfy the requirements of Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26- 122 because it was not specific as to the state health care provider. Despite this finding, the court concluded that the statute was satisfied because the complaint contained the certificate of good faith language and identified the state health care provider. The state then filed this interlocutory appeal. We reverse.

The Defendant, Joan Odell, appeals from her felony conviction for failure to appear, which resulted in a sentence of two years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the Defendant asserts that the evidence is insufficient to support her conviction and challenges the jury instructions. She also contends that the State engaged in purposeful discrimination in striking a prospective juror in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). We conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support the conviction and that there was no reversible error in the instructions. However, the trial court failed to comply with the procedure set forth in Batson by denying the Defendant’s Batson claim based upon the Defendant’s race, and we remand for a hearing on the issue.

The Petitioner, Petr Pompa, appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court’s denial of post-conviction relief from his convictions of two counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and two counts of statutory rape by an authority figure. On appeal, the Petitioner contends that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel based on trial counsel’s failure to: 1) raise in the motion for new trial the admissibility of opinion testimony from a school resource officer; 2) raise in the motion for new trial the admissibility of character testimony provided by a school counselor; and 3) object to the prosecutor’s statements during closing argument. Following a review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

The Petitioner, Nathaniel P. Carson, appeals the trial court’s dismissal of his petition for writ of error coram nobis in which he challenged his 2010 convictions of two counts of first degree felony murder and two counts of especially aggravated robbery. After a review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the coram nobis court.

This is a termination of parental rights case involving four minor children. In October 2017, temporary custody of the children was granted to the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (“DCS”), and the children were placed in foster care. The McMinn County Juvenile Court (“trial court”) subsequently adjudicated the children dependent and neglected in December 2017. DCS filed a petition to terminate the parental rights of the mother and father on December 7, 2018, alleging, as statutory grounds for termination, abandonment by failure to provide a suitable home, abandonment by failure to support, substantial noncompliance with the permanency plans, persistence of the conditions leading to the children’s removal from the parents’ home, and failure to assume custody or financial responsibility for the children.1 Following a bench trial, the trial court granted the petition as to the mother upon finding that DCS had proven by clear and convincing evidence the grounds of (1) persistence of the conditions leading to removal, (2) substantial noncompliance with the permanency plans, and (3) failure to assume custody or financial responsibility for the children.2 The trial court also found clear and convincing evidence that termination of the mother’s parental rights was in the children’s best interest. The mother has appealed. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm.

Petitioner, Danny Santarone, appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. Petitioner argues (1) that he was wrongfully convicted based on the fruits of an unconstitutional search and (2) that he was denied effective assistance of counsel. Following a review of the briefs and the record, we affirm the judgment of the postconviction court.

Petitioner, James Holmes, appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. Petitioner argues that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorneys failed to adequately prepare for Petitioner’s trial and because there was a breakdown in communication between Petitioner and his attorneys. Following a review of the briefs and record, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.