Articles Posted in Litigation Process

If a plaintiff or a defendant loses a case in a Tennessee Circuit or Chancery Court and has a complaint about the way the trial was conducted or the end result of the trial or the judge’s ruling on post-trial motions, he or she can appeal.

In Tennessee, the first appeal is to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  An appeal to the Court of Appeals is an appeal as a matter of right.  That is, you have the automatic right to this appeal and do not have to have permission of any court to appeal

The Court of Appeals does not hear from witnesses. Rather, it looks at the transcript of the testimony given in the trial court, reviews the exhibits, and determines whether there were any errors than mandate a different result than reached in the trial court. The Court of Appeals can affirm the result reached in the trial court, order a new trial, and sometimes it can outright dismiss a case won by a plaintiff in the trial court.  

The Tennessee Supreme Court does not have to review any personal injury case or wrongful death case.  If a litigant is unsuccessful in the Court of Appeals, he or she can ask the Tennessee Supreme Court to consider the case, but the Court has absolute discretion over whether it will hear the case.

What are the odds that the Court will hear any personal injury or wrongful death case?  Here are the numbers:  For the year ended June 30, 2011, the Court was asked to consider 952 civil cases.  Civil cases include personal injury cases include personal injury and wrongful death cases, divorce cases, contract cases, and all other types of cases other than criminal cases.  How many cases did the Court accept?  54.  So,  in general the odds are about 1 in 19.

The Court looks for cases of important public interest and cases where the three divisions of the Court of Appeals have differing views on the law.  The Court rarely takes cases where the only complaint is that the jury reached the wrong result.  The Court lacks the resources to accept the appeal of all of the cases it would like to hear.

People who filed lawsuits in Tennessee may be hit with up to $10,000 in payment of a defendant’s attorney’s fees and costs if their lawsuit is dismissed on a motion to dismiss.

A motion to dismiss is a paper filed by a defendant to a lawsuit who seeks to dismiss a case before a trial or before any discovery.  If the motion to dismiss is granted, the person filing the lawsuit may have to pay up to $10,000 in attorney’s fees and other costs incurred by the defendant in the defense of the case.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, but there is no doubt that the legislation increased the risk to Tennesseans who hire inexperienced lawyers to represent them in personal injury, wrongful death, or any other type of lawsuit in Tennessee.

Interested in Nashville jury verdicts ?  Here are the latest statistics from jury verdicts in all types of personal injury and wrongful death cases in Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee for July, 2012.

There was one fraud case tried to a jury  in July, and the defendant won the case.

And there was one medical malpractice case tried to a jury . My memory is that this case was tried twice before.  This time, the plaintiff (a brain-damaged child) won $13,623,00).  This is one of only two patient victories in medical malpractice cases tried in Nashville in 2012.

One of the most frequent questions the lawyers of our firm are asked by our clients is whether their Tennessee personal injury or wrongful death case will settle.

We explain that an insurance company for the at-fault party may not settle at all.  In Tennessee the insurance company does not have a duty to settle your case and in fact does not even owe you a duty to fairly evaluate your case.   The insurance company can settle a case, or not settle a case, on whatever timetable it chooses.  The only thing that can force an insurance company to think seriously about settlement is an approaching trial date, which is why our firm, after giving an insurance company a reasonable time to settle a case, will file a lawsuit and ask the court for the quickest trial date we can obtain under all the circumstances.

However,  if the insurance company wants to settle the case it needs to have information/  At an absolute minimum, the company needs the accident report, medical records and bills, perhaps some of previous medical records, proof of lost wages from an employer, and an understanding of how the injuries have impacted the injured person.  To the extent there is a claim for permanent injury, future medical expenses, future loss of earning capacity, or other damages, the insurance company will need proof of that.

People who have been injured in car or truck accidents and seek the services of a Tennessee personal injury lawyer frequently want to know if their medical history will explored by the insurance company of the person who caused their injuries.

The answer to that question is simple:  it depends.  

First, the nature and extent of the inquiry that is made into a person’s medical history is dependent on the nature of the injuries claimed.  If you broke your arm in a car accident and it healed without much difficulty and with no long-term impact on your life, the insurance company will only want to confirm that you have not broken that arm in the past.  Indeed, it may not even do that, since such information would probably be in the treating doctor"s records or visible on x-ray.

A summons is a court form that orders the person named in it to appear in court.  A summons is usually thought of as the document that accompanies a complaint – the document by which one person describes the basis for a lawsuit against another.

The summons is delivered with the complaint and requires that the person sued answer or otherwise respond to the complaint within thirty days.  If no timely response is filed to the lawsuit, the court can determine that the person who filed the lawsuit has won the lawsuit. 

A summons of a different type is also used to require people to appear in court to serve on a jury.  This is called a juror summons.