APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

Following a bench trial, the Hamilton County Chancery Court determined that Appellants had converted the assets of a
check-cashing business, to the detriment of the majority shareholder, Appellee. Appellants argue that the trial court erred in a 2011 decision to grant Appellee partial summary judgment and to prohibit Appellants from raising any claims or defenses based on the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act at trial. Because we have determined that the trial court’s 2011 grant of summary judgment to Appellee was erroneous, the decision of the trial court is vacated and remanded.

A Shelby County jury convicted the Defendant, Jasper Lee Vick, of one count of especially aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, and one count of sexual battery. The trial court merged his convictions for aggravated kidnapping into his conviction for especially aggravated kidnapping and sentenced the Petitioner, as a Range II offender, to an effective sentence of forty years of incarceration. After multiple appeals and remands, this court ordered that the Defendant be sentenced as a Range I offender and reduced his sentence to twenty-six years. State v. Vick, 242 S.W.3d 792, 795 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2007). The Defendant filed this, his second Rule 36.1 motion to correct an illegal sentence, and asked the trial court to credit him for pretrial jail credits. The trial court denied the Defendant’s motion, finding that his judgments appeared correct. On appeal, the Defendant maintains that he has not been awarded the proper amount of jail credits. After review, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

Defendant, Abbie Leann Welch, entered a Walmart store and stole merchandise after she had received notification that she was banned from all Walmart properties. Defendant was convicted at a bench trial of one count of misdemeanor theft and one count of burglary. On appeal, Defendant argues that the burglary conviction should be dismissed because the burglary statute, Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-14-402, does not apply to entry into buildings open to the public. Upon our review, we hold that the burglary statute is not unconstitutionally vague and affirm the judgments of the trial court.

I write separately in this case to note my concerns and to reiterate that “burglary is a serious offense with serious consequences. . . . [It] is no petty crime.” State v. Office of the Public Defender ex rel. Muqqddin, 285 P.3d 622, 636 (N.M. 2012). The facts are simple and not in dispute. The Defendant, who previously had been banned from a retail store, entered the same retail store and shoplifted several clothing items valued under $100. Minutes later, the Defendant’s friends returned the stolen items in exchange for a store gift card or credit. This factual scenario is ordinarily prosecuted as a criminal trespass and shoplifting/theft, both misdemeanor offenses with a penalty of no more than eleven months and twenty-nine days. See, e.g., State v. Constance Elaine Archer, No. M2012-00154-CCA-R3-CD, 2012 WL 5188079, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. Oct. 19, 2012). Remarkably, the Defendant here was charged with and convicted of theft by shoplifting as described above and burglary, a felony with a penalty of two to twelve years imprisonment.

The Petitioner, Morris Rucker, appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court’s summary denial of his petition requesting DNA analysis of evidence pursuant to the Post-Conviction DNA Analysis Act of 2001. Based upon the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

The Defendant, Marico Vales, was convicted by a Shelby County Criminal Court jury of first degree felony murder and especially aggravated robbery. See T.C.A. §§ 39-13-202 (2018) (first degree murder); 39-13-403 (2018) (especially aggravated robbery). The trial court sentenced the Defendant to concurrent terms of life imprisonment and twenty-five years. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Wendy Sterling Weinert, a former City of Sevierville police officer, brought this retaliatory discharge action against her former employer pursuant to the Tennessee Public Protection Act (TPPA), Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-304 (Supp. 2018). She alleged that she was discharged solely because of her whistleblowing activities of reporting an alleged incident of excessive force and alleged sexual harassment by other officers. The trial court granted summary judgment, holding that plaintiff could not establish that her termination was solely caused because of her whistleblowing activities, as required by the TPPA. We affirm.

This appeal involves a petition for contempt of court for willful failure to pay child support related to one child. In June 2014, the mother filed a petition for contempt, alleging that the father had not paid his child support obligation as previously ordered by the trial court. Following a hearing in July 2014, the trial court magistrate found the father to be in civil contempt of court for willful refusal to pay child support and ordered the father to make a $2,600.00 “purge” payment, which the father did. Upon the father’s request, the trial court special judge conducted a rehearing in August 2016, again finding the father to be in civil contempt of court for willful refusal to pay child support. The trial court ordered a purge payment in the amount of $8,525.00, reflecting a child support arrearage that had accrued since the initial contempt hearing. Father has appealed. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm.

The Defendant, Sommer Leininger, appeals as of right, from the Maury County Circuit Court’s revocation of her diversionary sentence and order of six months’ incarceration for her conviction for reckless aggravated assault. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-102. The Defendant contends that (1) the trial court abused its discretion by ordering her to serve six months of split confinement instead of probation and (2) the trial court improperly restricted her ability to accumulate good behavior credits while incarcerated. Following our review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court in part but reverse and remand the case for entry of a corrected judgment removing the trial court’s restriction on the Defendant’s ability to accumulate good behavior credits.

We granted permission to appeal in this breach-of-contract case to address the use of extrinsic evidence in the interpretation of contracts. Tennessee judges have long used extrinsic evidence of the context and circumstances at the time the parties entered into the contract to facilitate interpretation of contractual terms in accord with the parties’ intent. However, the written words are the lodestar of contract interpretation, and Tennessee courts have rejected firmly any notion that courts may disregard the written text and make a new contract for parties under the guise of interpretation. Tennessee has consistently enforced the parol evidence rule to prohibit the use of evidence of precontract negotiations in order to vary, contradict, or supplement the contractual terms of a fully integrated agreement. Thus, in interpreting a fully integrated contract, extrinsic evidence may be used to put the written terms of the contract into context, but it may not be used to vary, contradict, or supplement the contractual terms in violation of the parol evidence rule. As applied to this case, we hold that the defendant insurance company did not breach the parties’ agreement by modifying renewal commission rates on existing policies, but it did breach the agreement by refusing to pay commissions to the plaintiff agency after their agreement was terminated. In addition, because the indemnity provision in the parties’ agreement does not specifically authorize fee shifting in a suit between the two contracting parties, we hold that the plaintiff agency is not entitled to an award of attorney fees. We further conclude that the alleged systemic commission underpayments in this case were not inherently undiscoverable under any definition of that term. Consequently, even if we were to conclude that the discovery rule applies when the contractual breach is “inherently undiscoverable,” the plaintiff agency’s claim for any underpayments would not qualify under the facts of this case. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

The Petitioner, Adonis Lashawn McLemore, appeals from the denial of post-conviction relief, alleging that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to impeach a witness, to present an alibi witness, and to rebut the State’s expert witness. Upon our review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

The pro se petitioner, Kentrail Sterling, appeals the denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus by the Shelby County Criminal Court, arguing the trial court erred in summarily dismissing the petition as the judgments against him are void for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. After our review, we affirm the summary dismissal of the petition pursuant to Rule 20 of the Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals.

In November 2014, a Shelby County grand jury indicted the defendant, Jacquet Moore, for an aggravated rape committed in 2000. A jury convicted the defendant as charged and he received a sixty-year sentence. On appeal, the defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction and the trial court’s evidentiary rulings prohibiting him from eliciting testimony from witnesses regarding the area of the crime being one “known for prostitution” and from cross-examining the State’s DNA expert on an unidentified individual’s DNA found on the victim’s vaginal swab. Based upon our review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

This is an appeal from an order denying a motion to set aside an order of protection. Because the appellant did not file his notice of appeal within thirty days after entry of the order as required by Tenn. R. App. P. 4(a), we dismiss the appeal.

The Defendant, Joshua Hill, appeals the trial court’s revocation of his probation, arguing that the court should have imposed an alternative sentence rather than ordering him to serve the balance of his original sentence incarcerated and therefore abused its discretion. After thorough review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

A Davidson County grand jury indicted Lesergio Duran Wilson, the defendant, with first degree premeditated murder as a result of the death of David Hurst, the victim. Following trial, the jury returned a guilty verdict, for which the defendant received a life sentence. On appeal, the defendant challenges the trial court’s exclusion of his experts, denial of his motion to recuse the trial court, admission of certain photographic evidence, admission of evidence related to the actions of the victim’s girlfriend following his death, jury instructions regarding the use of deceptive practices by law enforcement, and imposition of a consecutive sentence. Discerning no errors, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Plaintiff siblings appeal the dismissal of their legal malpractice action on the basis of the statute of limitations. Because the trial court did not comply with Henderson v. Bush Bros. & Co., 868 S.W.2d 236 (Tenn. 1993), in ruling on Plaintiffs’ motions to amend their complaints, we vacate the trial court’s judgment and remand for reconsideration.

A Shelby County jury convicted the Defendant, Soncearae Lobbins, of two counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of robbery. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to ten years of incarceration. On appeal, the Defendant claims that: (1) the evidence is insufficient to support her convictions; (2) the trial court erred when it failed to require the State to make a proper election of offenses; (3) the trial court’s jury instructions failed to ensure that the jury’s verdicts were unanimous as to each conviction; and (4) the trial court committed errors during sentencing. After a thorough review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

The Petitioner, Robert Wade, appeals from the Shelby County Criminal Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. The Petitioner contends that his plea agreement was not knowingly and voluntarily entered into because of his trial counsel’s ineffective assistance. Discerning no error, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

This is the second appeal of this case, which involves the destruction of a TimberPro TL735B harvester by electrical fire. In the first appeal, we affirmed the grant of summary judgment for all claims against the defendants except for claims of the breach of the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness against appellee, Woodland Equipment, Inc. (“Woodland”). After the first appeal, the trial court found that Woodland breached the implied warranty of merchantability with respect to the protective plastic covering used to cover the wires that caused the electrical fire. Nonetheless, the trial court did not hold Woodland liable, finding appellant, J.W. Smith, leaving the master switch “on” was the “last precipitating cause” of the fire. The court also determined that if an appellate court was to reverse its findings, the damages Smith would be entitled to would be $330,000 for the harvester, which was determined by subtracting the salvage value of the harvester ($45,000) from the value of the harvester before the fire ($375,000). We conclude that Smith’s failure to turn “off” the master switch was not an intervening cause, and the evidence does not preponderate against the trial court’s prospective award of damages. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

The Petitioner, Mario Johnson, appeals from the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, wherein he challenged his jury convictions for aggravated assault and misdemeanor reckless endangerment. On appeal, the Petitioner alleges that he received ineffective assistance from his attorneys (1) because counsel1 failed to seek a hearing under Tennessee Rule of Evidence 609 to determine which of the Petitioner’s former convictions could have been used against him at trial had he chosen to testify; and (2) because lead counsel failed to present any mitigation witnesses at the sentencing hearing. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

This appeal involves a complaint for damages for breach of an alleged oral agreement to conduct an estate sale. After a bench trial, the trial court awarded Appellee damages for breach of contract, negligent bailment, and violation of the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). For violation of the TCPA, the trial court trebled the compensatory damages awarded Appellee and also awarded attorney’s fees and costs against Appellant. Because the parties did not have a sufficiently definite agreement to be enforceable, we reverse the trial court’s award of damages for breach of contract. We also reverse the trial court’s findings of negligent bailment and violation of the TCPA, which resulted in the award of treble damages and attorney’s fees. We affirm the trial court’s award of the sale proceeds to Appellee.

An employee of Nashville Electric Service (“NES”) was terminated in 2015 due to false and misleading information he provided on his initial application for employment nine years earlier, in 2006. NES did not discover that the information was false until the employee submitted an application for promotion in 2015 and one of his supervisors noticed a discrepancy between the two applications. NES provided the employee with a due process hearing and a hearing by an administrative law judge before the Electric Employees’ Civil Service and Pension Board of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County (“the Board”), which voted to terminate his employment. The employee filed a petition for judicial review of the Board’s decision, which the chancery court affirmed. On appeal to this Court, we affirm the trial court’s judgment upholding the Board’s decision.

Defendant, Mack Transou, seeks appellate review of his motion to reopen his post-conviction petition, which has its origin in the rapes he committed over seventeen years ago. After a review of the filings in this case, we conclude that Defendant failed to meet the procedural requirements for seeking review of the dismissal of his motion and that Defendant’s claims are devoid of merit and frivolous. Therefore, we dismiss the appeal.

The pro se Defendant, James Arthur Johnson, appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court’s summary denial of his motion to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to Rule 36.1 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure. After review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.