Court Rulings

A patient brought a health care liability action against his psychiatrist and the psychiatrist's employer, alleging the psychiatrist engaged in improper sexualized conduct that caused him psychological injury. The patient secured an expert witness in support of his suit, but the expert withdrew following the expert's deposition. The patient obtained a new expert witness. However, relying on the cancellation rule, the trial court determined a conflict existed between the second expert's affidavit and deposition testimony relating to the issue of damages. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendants and also granted the defendants' request for an award of discretionary costs. The patient appeals. We affirm.

CIVIL - civil stalking protection order; R.C. 2903.214; ex parte; harassment and threats; social media; screenshots; hearing before magistrate; objections filed; no transcript of proceedings; trial court adopted magistrate's decision; weight of the evidence; sufficiency of the evidence; Civ.R. 65.1(F); no affidavit filed; appellant cannot challenge factual findings without a transcript or acceptable statement of proceedings; no error.

spousal support, pension, qualified domestic relations order ("QDRO"), termination, unambiguous, magistrate's decision

The plaintiff, Walter L. Bronhard d/b/a Walter L. Bronhard Real Estate, appealed from a Superior Court judgment entered in favor of the defendant, Thayer Street District Management Authority, following the grant of the defendant's motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the hearing justice ignored the plain language of G.L. 1956 § 45-59-22(c), erred in determining that the statute is directory rather than mandatory, and, ultimately, incorrectly granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment as to all claims. The Supreme Court applied the factors set forth in West v. McDonald, 18 A.3d 526 (R.I. 2011), to the facts of the case and agreed with the hearing justice's determination that § 45 59 22(c) is directory. Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that the hearing justice did not err and affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court.

After three days of a Dickson County jury trial, the Defendant, Mendy Powell Neal, who was charged with the first degree premeditated and felony murder of her husband and the aggravated arson of their home, entered a North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 37 (1970), best interest plea to voluntary manslaughter, a Class C felony, in exchange for the dismissal of the felony murder and aggravated arson counts of the presentment and an agreed range of three to four years, with the trial court to determine the length and manner of service of the sentence. At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, the trial court denied the Defendant's request for judicial diversion, determined that she was not a suitable candidate for probation or other alternative sentencing, and sentenced her as a Range I, standard offender to four years at 30% in the Tennessee Department of Correction. Following the denial of what the Defendant styled as a "Motion for New Trial," which the trial court treated as a Rule 35 motion for a reduction in sentence, the Defendant filed an untimely appeal to this court in which she argues that the trial court erred in both the length and manner of service of the sentence. Based on our review, we conclude that the interest of justice does not warrant that the timely notice of appeal requirement be waived for the Defendant's attempt to appeal the trial court's original sentencing determinations. We further conclude that the trial court acted within its discretion by declining to reduce or modify the sentence pursuant to Rule 35 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant appealed from the trial court's denial of his special motion to dismiss filed pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute (§ 52-196a). He claimed that the court, inter alia, erred in determining that his alleged conduct, in connection with an application for a civil protection order and with respect to certain union grievance proceedings, did not relate to an exercise of a protected right in connection with a matter of public concern and, thus, fell outside the scope of § 52-196a. Held: The trial court erred in failing to dismiss all counts of the plaintiffs' underly- ing complaint, with the exception of the statutory and common-law vexatious litigation counts, as they were barred by absolute immunity under the litiga- tion privilege. The trial court erred in concluding that the defendant failed to meet his initial burden of proving that the allegations in the complaint regarding his conduct during the course of the union grievance proceedings implicated the exercise of his constitutional right to petition the government in connec- tion with a matter of public concern, the allegations of the complaint having sufficiently implicated potential and significant issues regarding the hiring practices within a governmental entity. The plaintiffs could not demonstrate probable cause that they would have prevailed on their claims of statutory or common-law vexatious litigation to the extent that those counts were based on the union grievance proceed- ings and, therefore, the special motion to dismiss should have been granted as to those counts. The trial court properly denied the special motion to dismiss with respect to the defendant's efforts to obtain a civil protection order, the defendant's conduct having arisen out of a wholly private dispute between the parties that did not have any appreciable connection to a matter of public concern, thus falling outside the ambit of § 52-196a and its intended protections. In accordance with federal law; see 18 U.S.C. § 2265 (d