Tag Archives: Separation of Powers

In its most consequential ruling of the year, Tennessee Supreme Court modifies Tennessee’s summary judgment standard, adopts federal “put up or shut up” rule.

Civil Procedure, Tennessee Constitutional Law, ,

By Daniel Horwitz:

Concluding in Rye v. Women’s Care Ctr. of Memphis that the seven-year-old summary judgment standard established by the Tennessee Supreme Court in Hannan v. Alltel Publ’g Co. had proven to be “unworkable” and “functioned in practice to frustrate the purposes for which summary judgment was intended,” the Court has officially overruled Hannan effective immediately.[1]  In its place, the Court “fully embrace[d]” the summary judgment standard that has been used in federal cases since 1986.[2]

The federal summary judgment standard empowers litigants to force their opponents to “put up [evidence] or shut up” before trial.[3]  If, in response to a properly supported motion for summary judgment, the responding (“nonmoving”) party is unable to muster sufficient evidence to demonstrate that there is a genuine dispute of a material fact that requires a trial, then summary judgment must be granted in favor of the moving party.  In contrast, under the prior Hannan standard, several courts had concluded that “it is not enough to rely on the nonmoving party’s lack of proof even . . . after the deadline for discovery ha[s] passed.  Under Hannan, we are required to assume that the nonmoving party may still, by the time of trial, somehow come up with evidence to support [a] claim.”[4]  After determining that this standard was “unworkable and inconsistent with the history and text of Tennessee Rule [of Civil Procedure] 56,”[5] a majority of the Court concluded that Hannan should be overruled.

In all likelihood,[6] the immediate effect of the Court’s decision in Rye will be to increase the number of cases that are decided at the summary judgment stage.  Thus, fewer cases will end up going to trial and being decided by a jury, and litigants are less likely to settle claims.  Helpfully, the Tennessee Supreme Court’s “full[] embrace” of the federal summary judgment standard also harmonizes state and federal civil procedure, and it finally settles an area of law that had created a substantial degree of confusion among both lower courts and the Justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court themselves.[7] Continue reading In its most consequential ruling of the year, Tennessee Supreme Court modifies Tennessee’s summary judgment standard, adopts federal “put up or shut up” rule. →

Tennessee Supreme Court holds that recorded forensic interviews in child sex cases are subject to evidentiary constraints on admitting prior consistent statements, reaffirms rule regarding offers of proof, and breathes life into cumulative error doctrine.

Criminal Procedure, , , , ,

By Daniel A. Horwitz

[Disclosure:  The author filed an Amicus Curiae brief in the case discussed below on behalf of the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (TACDL).  The author’s brief — which primarily addressed the issue discussed in Section B, below — is accessible here.]

Forensic interviews in child sex cases generally are not admissible as substantive evidence in criminal trials, the Supreme Court of Tennessee held in a much-overlooked but vitally important criminal procedure case.  According to the Court’s unanimous opinion in State v. Herron, No. W2012–01195–SC–R11–CD, 2015 WL 1361262 (Tenn. Mar. 26, 2015), forensic interviews in child sex cases are subject to the same evidentiary constraints that generally prohibit admitting “prior consistent statements” during criminal and civil trials.

Furthermore, the Tennessee Supreme Court’s opinion in Herron reaffirms the Court’s prior ruling in State v. Galmore that a defendant generally “is not required to make an offer of proof” in order to prove on appeal that a trial court’s erroneous, adverse ruling on impeachment evidence affected the outcome of his trial.  See State v. Galmore, 994 S.W.2d 120, 125 (Tenn. 1999).

Additionally, by granting the defendant in Herron a new trial on the basis of the combined effect of two separate trial errors, the Court’s decision in Herron has breathed life into the oft-ignored “cumulative error doctrine,” which “embodies the idea that a multiplicity of errors—though individually harmless—may in the aggregate violate a defendant’s due process right to a fair trial.”  State v. Clark, 452 S.W.3d 268, 299 (Tenn. 2014). Continue reading Tennessee Supreme Court holds that recorded forensic interviews in child sex cases are subject to evidentiary constraints on admitting prior consistent statements, reaffirms rule regarding offers of proof, and breathes life into cumulative error doctrine. →