Legal commentary from a Tennessee commercial litigation attorney
Sometimes I use this blog as a notepad for obscure legal theories that I’m going to use later. Like this one, on the “economic loss doctrine.” If you have a plaintiff who sues you both for breach of contract damages and for tort damages arising out of the same transaction, you may be able to … Continue reading “Economic Loss Doctrine Prevents Double-Dipping in Damages”
My law firm recently met with a public relations group, who gave us the pitch on all the things they could do for us, including beefing up our presence on LinkedIn, posting special interest stories on our corporate Facebook page, and more Twitter updates. After this week of front page stories and national press, I’m … Continue reading “341: Lawyers Doing Good Matters”
If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you’ve know all about Tennessee’s wrongful lien statute, Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-21-108. It’s a fairly new statute, enacted on May 21, 2018, and I’ve called it the scariest statute I’ve seen. That’s because the statute imposes broad (and automatic) penalties on lien claimants who lose a … Continue reading “Tennessee Legislature overreacted when they repealed Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-21-108.”
As lawyers, the business model is fairly simple: We sell our time, multiplied by our hourly rates. This creates a huge disconnect between clients and lawyers. All clients want their matters resolved in their favor, but also quickly, smartly, and cost-efficiently (that’s a nice way to say for as little legal fees as possible). On … Continue reading “New Court of Appeals Opinion provides good statement of doctrine of Res Judicata”
Hassling Poor People, Who Happen to be Your Own Employees. When the economy hit rock bottom in 2009 or so, all kinds of doctors, lawyers, private schools hired me to collect their debts. Many had never dealt with bad debt before, or the awful circumstances that lead to defaults. They just saw the bad debt … Continue reading “341 Meeting: Suing Your Own Employees; Public Schools; Urgent Political Spam”
Welcome to the “341 Meeting,” at 3:41pm (well, today, I’m posting at 11:41, just to get it out here). This will be a regular series of posts (on Thursdays, at 3:41) that will be longer, but made up of smaller, semi-relevant items about local legal issues. A lot of you (about 1,000) “subscribe” here and get … Continue reading “341 Meeting Recap: Thoughts on Hell’s Half Acre; Beware When Judges are too Nice; Karaoke Happy Hour; Sue the Collector.com”
The Nashville Bankruptcy Bar got some exciting news from the United States Supreme Court recently, as the Big Court granted certiorari to consider a novel issue of law: Whether an order denying a motion for relief from the automatic stay is a “final order” under 28 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1). For you real law nerds out there, … Continue reading “Everybody Loves “It City”: United States Supreme Court to hear dispute over land deal in The Nations in November.”
Sure, one of the best deals in distressed real estate is to buy property at a county tax sale, where you can purchase a property–basically–at an opening bid that is generally the past due taxes. But, that strategy has a number of down-sides. The biggest is the taxpayer / property owner’s ability to “redeem” the … Continue reading “Tax Sale Buyers Beware: Your property could be Redeemed”
The Tennessee Supreme Court issued a new opinion today, which is notable for a few different reasons. First, it discusses a legal dispute over The Braxton, which was a luxury high-rise condo building in Ashland City, Tennessee, and which is considered by some to be one of the first big development “fails” of Great Recession Nashville. … Continue reading “Tennessee Supreme Court provides deep analysis on elements of “novation””
The Tennessee Court of Appeals issued an opinion yesterday in a collection case, which has some really useful analysis on the reasonableness of attorney’s fees. This is an issue near and dear to my heart. A full copy of the opinion, Tennessee Farmers Cooperative v. Ted Rains, M201801097COAR3CV, 2019 WL 3229686 (Tenn. App. July 18, … Continue reading “Tennessee Court of Appeals shows analysis on “reasonable” attorney fees.”
