Court Rulings

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville terminated the employment of Appellant, a tenured faculty member. Appellant appealed his termination to an administrative hearing officer pursuant to the Tennessee Uniform Administrative Procedures Act. Following a contested hearing, the hearing officer upheld the University's termination of Appellant. Appellant then petitioned the chancery court to reverse the decision of the hearing officer. The chancery court upheld the hearing officer's decision to affirm the termination of Appellant's employment and tenure. Discerning no error, we affirm the judgment of the chancery court.

Trial court's determination that claimant did not meet his burden to establish that he had asbestosis for workers' compensation claim affirmed.

I concur, reluctantly, with the entirety of the opinion of the Court. I concur because this is the result mandated by statute and case law. I do so reluctantly because this case is the latest in a long line of healthcare liability actions dismissed on technical grounds since the enactment of the sections of the Health Care Liability Act governing pre-suit notice adopted by our General Assembly in 2008. This Court has seen healthcare liability case after case brought by Tennessee citizens dismissed without any determination of whether the case has any merit.

Appellant alleges intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hiring, supervision, and retention against a University and its employees. The trial court granted Appellees' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Discerning no error, we affirm.

The father in this post-divorce dispute challenges the trial court's determinations regarding his child support arrearage, medical insurance premiums, credits against the arrearage, and attorney fees. Finding no merit to father's arguments, we affirm the trial court's decision.

This appeal arose from a divorce action filed by the husband. The parties entered into a mediation agreement in December 2014, wherein the parties agreed, inter alia, that the husband would pay to the wife $1,200 per month in alimony, that the husband's alimony obligation would cease if the wife were cohabitating with a person of the opposite sex, and that the wife would be designated as the primary residential parent for the parties' minor child. Following execution of the mediation agreement, the husband's employment hours were decreased by his employer. The wife subsequently filed a "Motion to Restore Payment Agreement," in which she alleged that the husband had failed to adhere to his financial responsibilities pursuant to the mediation agreement. The husband thereafter filed a response to the wife's motion, alleging that a material change in circumstance had occurred subsequent to the mediation agreement. The trial court entered a judgment on February 25, 2016, enforcing the mediation agreement but determining, due to the husband's decrease in income, that a material change in circumstance had occurred since the mediation agreement was entered into by the parties. The trial court further found that the wife had been cohabitating with a person of the opposite sex. Nonetheless, the trial court determined that the wife remained the economically disadvantaged spouse following the divorce and reduced the husband's alimony responsibility to $500 per month. The trial court further determined that it was in the best interest of the child for the wife to be the primary residential parent of the child. The husband subsequently filed a motion to alter or amend the trial court's judgment and a motion to terminate his alimony obligation, both of which were denied by the trial court. Husband timely appealed. Having determined that the trial court erred by failing to cease Husband's alimony responsibility, in compliance with the enforced mediation agreement, upon its finding

contested case hearing, Whistleblower Act

The Defendant, Johnny Lorenzo Wade, was convicted by a jury of one count of first degree premeditated murder two counts of first degree felony murder two counts of especially aggravated robbery, a Class A felony one count of attempted first degree murder, a Class A felony and one count of aggravated assault, a Class C felony. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39-12-101, -13-102, -13-202, -13-403. The trial court merged one of the first degree felony murder convictions into the first degree premeditated murder conviction and the aggravated assault conviction into the attempted first degree murder conviction. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court imposed a total effective sentence of life imprisonment plus forty years. On appeal, the Defendant contends (1)that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions (2) that the trial court erred in denying his suppression motion alleging that the seizure of his cell phone was illegal (3) that the trial court erred by admitting a video taken from his cell phone because it was not relevant and its probative value was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice (4) that the trial court erred in admitting the statement of a co-defendant under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule (5) that the trial court erred by allowing a witness to identify an item of evidence without personal knowledge of the item (6) that the trial court erred in allowing an employee of the Defendant's cell phone provider to testify as an expert witness on the operation of the provider's cellular network (7) that the trial court erred in allowing a police investigator to testify as a lay witness about "the plotting and pinging of the Defendant's cellular telephone records" and (8) that the trial court abused its discretion by imposing partial consecutive sentences because such sentences "were excessive." Following our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.