Court Rulings

In this post-divorce dispute, the wife challenges the trial court's determination that she was in contempt of the divorce decree for failing to return certain personal property to the husband. We find no error in the trial court's contempt ruling or in its denial of the wife's motion for Rule 60 relief. Therefore, we affirm the trial court's decision in all respects.

Summary judgment employer intentional tort R.C. 2745.01 negligence negligence per se.

This appeal requires us to interpret provisions in the Prompt Pay Act, Tennessee Code Annotated sections 66-34-101 to -704, regarding retainage withheld on construction projects. The Prompt Pay Act requires the party withholding retainage—a percentage of total payment withheld as incentive for satisfactory completion of work—to deposit the funds into a separate, interest-bearing escrow account. Failure to do so results in a penalty of $300 per day. In this case, both parties agree the subcontractor's retainage was not placed into an interest-bearing escrow account, and the retainage was not timely remitted to the subcontractor. Three years after completing its work on the contract, the subcontractor sued the contractor for unpaid retainage plus amounts due under the Prompt Pay Act. The contractor soon tendered the retainage consequently, only the statutory penalty is at issue in this appeal. Tennessee Code Annotated section 66-34-104(c) states that, for persons required to deposit retainage into a separate interest-bearing escrow account, the penalty is assessed "per day for each and every day" retainage is not so deposited. Consonant with the statute's language, its objective, the wrong the Prompt Pay Act seeks to prevent, and the purpose it seeks to accomplish, we hold that the $300 per day penalty is assessed each day retainage is not deposited in a statutorily-compliant escrow account. Consequently, while the subcontractor's claim for the statutory penalty is subject to the one-year statute of limitations, if the subcontractor can establish that the contractor was required to deposit the retainage into an escrow account, the subcontractor is not precluded from recovering the penalty assessed each day during the period commencing 365 days before the complaint was filed. Accordingly, we reverse in part the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the contractor and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.

This case is one of two companion cases issued today. The first case is set forth in Commerce Park Realty, LLC v. HR2-A Corp., No. 19-468-A., in which certain defendants appealed a Superior Court declaration that a series of loans made by those defendants carrying interest rates ranging from 23 percent to 36 percent per annum were usurious and null and void. This case is a cross-appeal filed by certain plaintiffs seeking review of secondary determinations made by the Superior Court that coincided with the finding that the loans were usurious. On appeal, the plaintiffs assigned four claims of error: (1) the trial justice erred in concluding that they were not entitled to disgorgement payments on certain usurious loans under G.L. 1956 § 6-26-4(c) (2) the trial justice erred in dismissing their claims for punitive damages concerning certain usurious loans (3) the trial justice erred in allowing defendants to seek and obtain summary judgment on counts that were previously stayed and (4) the trial justice misapplied the statute of limitations to plaintiffs' claims for criminal usury under G.L. 1956 § 9-1-2. The Supreme Court held that, under the clear and unambiguous language set forth in § 6-26-4(c), these plaintiffs were not entitled to disgorgement payments because they did not make a payment on the usurious loan. Next, the Court determined that, because these plaintiffs did not meet the requirements set forth in § 6-26-4(c) to recover disgorgement payments, their claims for punitive damages failed as a matter of law. The Supreme Court then concluded that, although the trial justice's ruling on the stayed counts may not have been the best practice, any potential procedural error was harmless in consideration of practicality and judicial economy because a reversal of the trial justice's decision on those counts would only result in undue delay and expense in litigating legally unsustainable claims. Lastly, the Supreme Court held that these plaintiffs' claims under § 9-