In this case, plaintiff Moran Industries, Inc. sued defendants Mr. Transmission of Chattanooga, Inc., Rodney Randall, and others for breach of a long-term franchise agreement and for trademark infringement under the Lanham Act after the franchisee ceased operations and allegedly transferred assets to a competing business using the same marks. Defendants MTC and Rodney Randall moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) to dismiss the portion of the breach claim seeking recovery of lost future royalties and marketing fund payments. The court denied the motion, holding that the amended complaint's allegations—that the franchisee abandoned the agreement and transferred the business without proper termination—were sufficient to state a plausible claim for lost profits under Tennessee law at the pleading stage. The court reasoned that more factual development was needed to assess proximate cause and the circumstances of termination, and that existing case law did not categorically bar such damages where abandonment is alleged.
This case is a consolidated appeal from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Chapter 11 proceeding of U.S. Insurance Group, LLC, addressing competing claims by two banks to a perfected security interest in the debtor's book of business, consisting of customer files, renewals, expirations, and related insurance commissions. The district court affirmed the bankruptcy court's sua sponte award of summary judgment to Cornerstone Community Bank, holding that Cornerstone held priority over Cohutta Banking Company. The court reasoned that Cornerstone's 2006 UCC financing statement, which described collateral as "all accounts" and all records relating to them, satisfied Tennessee's lenient UCC standards under Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-9-108 to perfect a lien on the book of business and provide adequate notice to subsequent creditors, while Cohutta's later statement covering general intangibles did not take precedence.
This case involves consolidated appeals from a bankruptcy court's order authorizing Chapter 11 debtors to repay a 2009 debtor-in-possession loan from proceeds of a court-approved asset sale to Xerxes. Pre-petition lenders BNP and Black Diamond objected to the repayment, but the bankruptcy court overruled the objections after an evidentiary hearing and granted the motion. The district court dismissed the appeals on multiple grounds, including statutory mootness under 11 U.S.C. § 363(m), equitable mootness, impermissible collateral attack on the sale order, and failure to join a necessary party, while also affirming the bankruptcy court's order on the merits after de novo review of legal conclusions and clear-error review of factual findings.
This case concerns a dispute over whether Acuity Mutual Insurance Company must pay fire loss benefits under Policy L82005 to Darrell Frye and his wife Lafonne Frye after a 2009 fire damaged a building and daycare business operated by Lafonne. Acuity filed for a declaratory judgment that it owed no coverage because only Darrell was a named insured and because of alleged misrepresentations about a mortgage lien on the property, while the Fryes counterclaimed to reform the policy to add Lafonne as an insured and to recover property damage, business income loss, bad-faith penalties, and punitive damages. The court denied Acuity's motion for summary judgment, concluding that genuine issues of material fact existed regarding the insured's statements in the proof-of-loss form and whether knowledge of the mortgage held by the insurance agent Sunbelt could be imputed to Acuity. The court also denied the defendants' motion to strike Acuity's supplemental filings as unnecessary and non-prejudicial.
In this case, plaintiff Patricia Arbuckle sued the City of Chattanooga and two police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law, alleging that officers entered and searched her home without a warrant or consent in the early morning hours of March 13, 2006, while investigating a report of an intoxicated driver, and pointed guns at her during the encounter. The court addressed cross-motions for summary judgment on claims including Fourth Amendment violations, negligence, assault and battery, trespass, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court granted summary judgment and dismissed claims against the City, official-capacity claims against the officers, unlawful seizure claims, and most state-law claims, finding no genuine issues of material fact or insufficient evidence. It denied summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment unlawful search claims and state-law trespass claims against the officers in their individual capacities, determining that factual disputes existed regarding consent and the scope of the entry. The court reasoned that the record did not conclusively establish consent or exigent circumstances justifying the warrantless entry and that material facts remained in dispute on those specific issues.
In Robinson v. T-Mobile, former employee Rachel Robinson sued T-Mobile alleging interference with her FMLA rights and retaliation through termination after taking intermittent FMLA leave to care for her seriously ill mother, along with a claim under the Tennessee Disability Act for discrimination based on her mother's perceived disability. T-Mobile moved for summary judgment on all claims. The court denied the motion in part, finding genuine issues of material fact on the FMLA interference and retaliation claims regarding notice of requirements and whether termination was pretextual, but granted the motion on the THA claim because that statute does not cover discrimination based on a family member's disability.
