George F. McCanless

This case involved a dispute over whether parent corporations could vote their majority shares in a subsidiary to elect the subsidiary's board of directors, where five of the six directors overlapped between the entities, under Tennessee Code Section 48-708(2) which bars a corporation from voting shares it controls directly or indirectly. The minority shareholders challenged the parents' votes at the 1973 annual meeting, leading to competing board elections, and the Chancery Court ruled that the parents could validly vote their shares. On appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the statute did not apply because the subsidiary did not control or own the parents' shares, there was no circular ownership allowing self-perpetuation, and state law expressly authorizes corporations to vote shares they hold in others.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case was a taxpayer lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Tennessee Housing Development Agency Act of 1973, which created a state agency to issue bonds and notes to increase the supply of housing for lower- and moderate-income residents by addressing shortages in mortgage funds. The plaintiff sought a declaratory judgment that the Act violated several provisions of the Tennessee Constitution and an injunction preventing the agency from selling its obligations. The court upheld the Act as constitutional, adopting the Chancellor's opinion that it was a valid exercise of the state's police power for a public purpose. The core reasoning was that the legislation addressed legitimate public concerns such as housing shortages, unemployment in construction, and urban blight; that any use of state credit served a public rather than private purpose; and that property tax exemptions for the agency were permissible because it performed a public function.

business & regulatorypropertytaxes

In Wheeler v. Glens Falls Insurance Company, a workers' compensation case, an Oak Ridge policeman sustained a back injury from a slip and fall on an icy street during employment, which aggravated degenerative arthritis and caused severe pain. The employee, who had a prior history of alcoholism, cirrhosis, and pancreatitis, increased his drinking to relieve the pain, leading to rapid worsening of his liver condition and death from acute necrotizing pancreatitis, pneumonia, and cirrhosis. The trial court awarded maximum benefits to the widow, and the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed, holding that material evidence supported the finding that the work injury was the proximate cause of death and that the defendants had not sufficiently proven willful misconduct to bar recovery under the statute.

labor & employment

This case arose from a 1971 multi-vehicle collision on an interstate highway involving a City of Memphis ambulance responding to an emergency call, in which three sisters and their driver were injured; the injured parties and a spouse sued the city and ambulance driver for negligence. The trial court denied the city's motions for directed verdict based on governmental immunity, the jury awarded $57,000 in damages, and the Court of Appeals affirmed on the ground that operating the ambulance service was a proprietary rather than governmental function. On certiorari, the Tennessee Supreme Court addressed whether the service was governmental or proprietary under longstanding precedent, observing that the new Governmental Tort Liability Act did not apply retroactively, that each case turns on its facts including purpose and operation, and that charging fees alone does not convert the function to proprietary.

torts & liability

This case involved the interpretation of a will provision restricting the sale of the testator's homeplace by his six children. The plaintiffs, twenty-two living descendants, sought a court determination on whether the children could pass good title when selling the property to defendant Joe Marshall Alexander, a grandchild of the testator. The court decided that the term "heirs" in the will referred to all lineal descendants, not merely the children, and affirmed the Chancellor's ruling confirming the validity of the sale. The core reasoning was that the testator's deliberate use of different terms—"children" for the initial devisees and "heirs" for potential buyers—demonstrated an intent to include broader lineal descendants, consistent with Tennessee precedents prioritizing the testator's overall intention in will construction.

propertyfamily law

The case involved a challenge to Chapter 192 of the Public Acts of 1973, a Tennessee law prescribing the death penalty for first-degree murder and making related changes to homicide and rape statutes. The Criminal Court of Davidson County held the law unconstitutional under the state constitution, and the Supreme Court affirmed on appeal. The court reasoned that the act violated Article II, Section 17 of the Tennessee Constitution by embracing more than one subject not fully expressed in its title, which only referenced amending Title 39 for the death penalty for murder in the first degree, while the body included expansions of first-degree murder categories, new sentencing procedures, and changes to rape penalties that were not adequately noticed. The objects of the act were deemed too interrelated to sever any invalid portions while leaving a complete, enforceable statute.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a defendant convicted of burglary in state court following the dismissal of identical charges in city court, where the double jeopardy defense under Waller v. Florida was unavailable at the time of the original trial and post-conviction hearing but later became retroactive. The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the post-conviction petition to the trial court to take evidence on whether the city court proceedings had placed the defendant in jeopardy. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the remand, ruling that appellate courts have statutory authority under T.C.A. Section 27-329 and related rules to order further evidence when the record is inadequate for justice, especially for newly available constitutional claims, consistent with post-conviction procedures that permit assertion of previously unavailable grounds.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

This case involved two juveniles charged with assault with intent to commit robbery in juvenile court, where they were found not guilty. The State appealed under a Tennessee statute allowing appeals from juvenile court dispositions, but the circuit court dismissed the appeal, ruling the statute unconstitutional. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the statute violates double jeopardy protections because juvenile proceedings can result in loss of liberty, making them subject to constitutional safeguards against being tried twice for the same offense. The court reasoned that an acquittal in juvenile court bars further proceedings on the same charges, as a de novo trial would place the juveniles in jeopardy again.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

This case concerned a restrictive covenant between adjacent property owners in Shelby County that prohibited subdividing their tracts into parcels smaller than two and one-half acres or erecting houses with less than 2,500 square feet of floor area, and provided a right of first refusal under certain conditions. The plaintiff sought to enforce the covenant to block the sale of the adjacent tract to a church planning to build a private school and to compel specific performance of his claimed option rights. The Chancery Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, and the Supreme Court affirmed. The court held that Tennessee law requires strict construction of restrictive covenants, the covenant's language did not prohibit the proposed use or sale absent subdivision or small-home construction, and there was no ambiguity warranting consideration of extrinsic evidence.

property

This case involved a plaintiff injured when her Ford Falcon collided with a stopped vehicle on a wet road, causing her upper body to strike a sharp plastic emblem protruding from the steering wheel hub padding. She sued the manufacturer and sellers for damages under strict products liability, alleging the design was defective. The trial court dismissed the complaint on grounds that the plaintiff's conduct was the sole proximate cause, but the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed and remanded for trial. The court held that whether the design was in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A, and whether contributory negligence or assumption of risk applied, were jury questions, and that liability could extend to enhanced injuries from the second impact caused by the defect.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case concerns a Georgia divorce judgment from 1963 that set child support at $150 per month for two minor children; after the father relocated to Tennessee and became unreachable by Georgia courts, the mother filed suit in Tennessee Chancery Court seeking an increase due to rising living costs and the father's higher income. The trial court raised support to $225 monthly with automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments and extended payments until age 21. The Tennessee Supreme Court held that the Chancery Court had personal jurisdiction over the defendant and subject-matter jurisdiction to modify the out-of-state support order, because Georgia law permits modification on changed circumstances but lacks power to serve a nonresident, and Tennessee statutes authorize revision of support decrees. The court affirmed the increase but struck the prospective automatic adjustments as speculative and limited ongoing payments to the children's minority, ending at age 18 under Tennessee law.

family lawprocedure

The case involved Doyle Franklin Earls, who was convicted in criminal court of second-degree murder. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction, finding that a search warrant was invalid under constitutional standards and that the defendant's consent to the search was not voluntary because it was given under color of the invalid warrant, rendering seized evidence inadmissible. The Tennessee Supreme Court granted certiorari and held that while the search warrant was indeed invalid due to insufficient underlying facts showing probable cause, the defendant's explicit statements inviting officers to search his premises constituted clear and voluntary consent independent of the warrant. The court therefore reversed the intermediate appellate decision and reinstated the trial court's judgment, allowing the evidence obtained during the search.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Ovid Abrams, a convict transferred to the Madison County Workhouse after a criminal conviction, who was required to perform labor for the county highway department, including repairing tires, and who suffered severe injuries when a tire exploded. He sought workers' compensation benefits, but the trial court denied them on the grounds that he was not an employee of the highway department and that his work was not voluntary. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Abrams was not an "employee" under the state's Workmen's Compensation Law because that statute defines an employee as someone working under a contract of hire, which a prisoner cannot form when labor is mandatory. The court noted that Tennessee law requires workhouse inmates to work or face punishment such as solitary confinement, making any arrangement non-contractual, and adopted the general rule that convicts performing required work during imprisonment are not covered by workers' compensation statutes.

criminal lawlabor & employment

This case concerned a quo warranto action to resolve competing claims to a vacant seat on the Tennessee Supreme Court following the death of Judge Larry Creson. One claimant, Thomas F. Turley, Jr., was appointed by the Governor under a 1971 statute establishing an appellate court nominating commission, while the other, Robert L. Taylor, claimed the office based on write-in votes cast in the August 1972 general election. The Chancellor ruled that neither was entitled to the position and declined to address the statute's constitutionality. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Tennessee held that the statute's appointment mechanism could not override the state constitution's requirement that Supreme Court judges be elected by qualified voters, rendering both the gubernatorial appointment and the write-in election ineffective to fill the vacancy.

electionsprocedure

The case concerned a dispute between Ohio Casualty Insurance Co. and Travelers Indemnity Co. over liability for settlements paid after an automobile accident in Tennessee. Ohio Casualty insured the vehicle owner and Travelers insured the driver; both policies were issued in Kentucky and included conflicting "other insurance" provisions. After Ohio Casualty settled the claims and sought contribution or proration from Travelers, the parties stipulated that Kentucky law would bar recovery while Tennessee law would require proration. The Tennessee Supreme Court held that Kentucky law governed because the policies were made and delivered there. It applied the established Tennessee conflict-of-laws rule that the construction and validity of a contract are determined by the law of the place where the contract was formed.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved a wrongful death malpractice suit filed by Robert Hixson against three doctors, including appellant Dr. Joe Stickley, for the death of his wife. After settling with two doctors and executing releases that included broad language covering all potentially liable parties, Hixson dismissed those claims and pursued the suit against Stickley alone. Stickley moved to dismiss based on the releases, and after the court considered evidence outside the pleadings, Hixson was permitted to take a voluntary nonsuit over Stickley's objection. On appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that the motion was not a Rule 12.02(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim but instead raised the affirmative defense of release, which must be pleaded in an answer rather than by motion; therefore, the motion was not converted to one for summary judgment and did not bar the nonsuit under Rule 41. The court affirmed the trial court's allowance of the voluntary nonsuit.

proceduretorts & liability

The case involved four defendants, including Stephen Gaskin, who were convicted in Lewis County Circuit Court of manufacturing marijuana in violation of Tennessee's Drug Control Law (Chapter 163 of the Public Acts of 1971), receiving sentences of one to three years in prison. The defendants, members of a religious group that cultivated and used marijuana for meditation and prayer, appealed on constitutional grounds, claiming violations of the First Amendment's free exercise of religion clause, the Ninth Amendment's right to privacy, the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection and due process clauses. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, rejecting all claims by relying on precedents such as Reynolds v. United States, finding the punishment not excessive, and upholding the legislature's classification of marijuana as a valid exercise of its police power to protect public health and morals.

criminal lawreligious liberty

In Bowen v. State, the petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by a Tennessee trial court, with the conviction and sentence affirmed on appeal. Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia holding that the death penalty as applied violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Tennessee Governor commuted Bowen's sentence to 99 years' imprisonment. The Tennessee Supreme Court held that the Furman ruling did not automatically void the prior judgment, which remained valid until its death penalty portion was addressed through state processes or commutation. The court reasoned that a commutation substitutes a lesser punishment that has the same legal effect as an original sentence, rendering the modified term constitutionally permissible without requiring retroactive invalidation of the underlying judgment. It therefore affirmed the Criminal Court's judgment as commuted.

criminal lawfederal power

The case involved a dispute over whether Travelers Insurance Company was obligated to pay for the removal of metal screws from Philip Atchley's leg under an accident insurance policy that covered reasonable medical expenses incurred within one year of the accident, up to $2,000. Atchley had incurred $1,213.45 in expenses within the year, including implantation of the screws, which required later removal at a cost of $495.65 after the year expired; the insurer refused payment for the removal. The Circuit Court awarded Atchley the amount, and the Supreme Court of Tennessee affirmed, reasoning that the necessity and liability for the removal became fixed when the screws were implanted within the one-year period, making the expense "incurred" at that time even though the procedure occurred later.

healthcarebusiness & regulatory

The case concerned whether Tennessee's statute criminalizing participation in lotteries, including pyramid clubs and similar chain schemes, was unconstitutionally vague under due process standards. Defendants were indicted for soliciting memberships in "Dare to Be Great," a motivational course program alleged to operate as a pyramid scheme. The trial court quashed the indictments, but the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed, holding that the statute was valid because it used ordinary terms that provide fair warning of prohibited conduct when measured by common understanding and practices. The court reasoned that statutes should be construed to effect their purpose and that the language was sufficiently definite without requiring impossible precision.

criminal lawbusiness & regulatory