Month: October 2018

New Court of Appeals Opinion Reminds Litigants to Plead Facts by Affidavit under Rule 56.06

Disclaimer: I read a lot of appellate opinions that might be, but aren’t always, relevant to something I’m working on. Sometimes, I’ll find a blurb on an issue of law that’s useful.

And, then, as you’ve seen before, I’ll post that blurb here, for my later use. (And, I guess, yours.)

I’ve just read yesterday’s opinion in Bank of America v. Calvin Dee Aycock, issued by the Tennessee Court of Appeals on a detainer action that followed an eviction. The pro se defendants lost in Shelby County General Sessions Court, and then appealed the possessory judgment to Circuit Court. The bank filed a Motion for Summary Judgment under Rule 56.

Ultimately, the Court noted the lee-way that pro se litigants get in proceedings, but the Court found their responses to the bank’s properly supported motion to be deficiency. In short, the defendants didn’t specify and demonstrate material facts in opposition to the bank’s motion.

The Court wrote that:

When a properly supported motion for summary judgment is made, “the nonmoving party ‘may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of [its] pleading,’ but must respond, and by affidavits or one of the other means provided in [Rule 56 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure], ‘set forth specific facts’ at the summary judgment stage ‘showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.’” [Rye v. Women’s Care Center of Memphis, MPLLC, 477 S.W.3d 235, 265 (Tenn. 2015)] (quoting Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.06). Summary judgment “shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.04.

That’s the blurb.

When you oppose a Rule 56 motion for summary judgment, you have limited options in response to the moving party’s facts, under Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.03. One of those is to “demonstrate that the fact is disputed.” Under Rule 56.06, that means you have to provide those facts via affidavit or some other admissible testimony.

General Contractors, Subcontractors, Subs, and All Those Other Terms

Old habits die hard.

Growing up in Memphis, I knew our local college as “Memphis State.” Then, in 1994, the name changed to “University of Memphis.” But, guess what everybody still calls it? Memphis State.

In 2007, Tennessee’s mechanic’s lien statutes were drastically overhauled. Lots of things changed, but one of the most noticeable was in terminology.

Before 2007, everybody made distinctions between “general contractors” (i.e. those contractors who have a direct contractual relationship with the owner of the real property) and “subcontractors” (those contractors who do not have a direct contract with the owner).

After 2007, those terms changed. Now, the terms are “prime contractor” and “remote contractor.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-11-101 (12) and (14) provide those definitions.

The difference in rights is significant.

A prime contractor has a lien that lasts a one year after the work is finished or materials are furnished and  that lien doesn’t require any special demand or lien to be recorded in order to preserve those rights (warning: this is a drastic oversimplification).

A remote contractor has more hoops to jump through and limitations on its lien rights. Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-11-115 describes those “hoops,” which include a requirement to serve a notice of non-payment to all parties (See Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-11-145) and to record a Notice of Lien (See Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-11-112).

So, in the end, just because everybody talks about general contractors and their subs, don’t  think that the change in the laws was purely cosmetic.

 

New Banks Opening in Tennessee is Great News for Creditor Lawyers

Nashville is a hot market right now.  One statistic I’ve seen says that anywhere from 70 to 100 new people move to the Nashville area every day.

And, it’s not just people. It’s also businesses. And banks. Today, the Nashville Business Journal reports that JPMorgan Chase is opening its first standalone branch in Nashville. Earlier this year, PNC Bank announced its own expansion into the Nashville market.

This great news for bank lawyers in Nashville, since more banks means more loans for lawyers to work on (both good and bad loans–we’ll take either).

And, it is particularly good news for Tennessee creditor rights lawyers when a national bank moves into Tennessee. As I mentioned a few years ago, it introduces new assets into Tennessee for garnishments and bank levies.

Like I said in that March 2018 post:

What if the debtor has all his assets in that foreign state, but he banks at a national bank with offices all over the country? And what if that bank has a branch in Tennessee? The answer is that you can levy on that bank account.

So, I say “Welcome” to all these new banks coming to Tennessee.

Good Article on Tennessee’s Post-Foreclosure Deficiency Statute

This month’s Tennessee Bar Association Journal has a good article on the new post-foreclosure deficiency statute, Tenn. Code Ann. § 35-5-118, titled “Deficiency Judgments after Foreclosure Sales.”

The article provides a detailed review of the cases construing that very ambiguous statute, which was enacted in 2010 and became effective September 1, 2010. Here’s what I wrote about the new law, back in 2010.

As you’ll recall, I litigated and won the first ever case construing the new law, in December 2012. My case was the GreenBank v. Sterling Ventures case, which is analyzed in the article.

If you’re a banker, a bank lawyer, or a defense lawyer helping some borrower clients, be sure to look at this article. It’s a weird law, and, as the last few paragraphs of the article suggest, there’s still a lot of things that are unknown/unclear about how Tennessee courts are going to apply it in the future.