Over the past few weeks, the Tennessee appellate courts have issued some really useful opinions on creditor-specific issues of law.
As you’ll remember from this post (from 2013!), these opinions have great recaps of the law and can save valuable research time. I’ve literally been sitting at counsel table, furiously researching this site for a citation (this one, about slow pay motions. And also this one about Rule 69.02.)
Some quick hits from the past week:
Statute of Limitations; when a breach of contract cause of action accrues; and the standard of review for a 12.02(6) motion. This case from yesterday, In re Estate of Donald Cowan, No. M2019-01597-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 25, 2020) has a great statement of the law on statutes of limitation, when the clock starts ticking on a claim, and a good recap of the standards in granting a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 12.02(6).
It’s a well written opinion, and a litigant with those issues can literally cut and paste those sections into a brief.
Motions to Intervene under Tenn. Riv. Civ. P. 24. Regions Bank v. The Blumberg Trust, et. al., No. E202000051COAR3CV, 2020 WL 4919783 (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 21, 2020). This opinion, issued on Friday, has a great summary of the statutes and case law on Intervention as of Right and Permissive Intervention in Tennessee under Rule 24.
In that case, the party seeking to intervene was an assignee of the debt and was really only trying to substitute itself as a party, so it’s strange that intervention was even an issue.
In an even stranger twist, the prevailing party (appellee) most definitely submitted the Order Denying the Motion, and the submitted (and entered) trial court order was entirely devoid of factual or legal analysis. As a result, the Court of Appeals refused to rule on the issues on appeal and remanded the case for further proceedings.
My question is this: It was clearly a deficient bare-bones trial court order, but doesn’t the appellant share the responsibility of curating the record? Shouldn’t the appellant have submitted a competing order that had enough substantive details to properly present the issue on appeal?
Just a strange case.
Prejudgment Interest under Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-14-123. The Court of Appeals revisited the case of 101 Constr. Co. v. Hammet, No. M201801321COAR3CV, 2019 WL 5606610, at *7 (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 30, 2019), appeal denied (Mar. 26, 2020), and I can’t tell exactly why, but I appreciated the reminder about this case’s very detailed lesson about the importance of detailed communication in legal fee arrangements.
Also, it has a nearly “cut and paste” perfect discussion of the standards in Tennessee for awarding prejudgment interest under Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-14-123.
Spoiler: Tennessee Courts should always be awarding pre-judgment interest.
Elements to Determine Value of Damages under Quantum Meruit Claims (and who can testify). This is an issue that doesn’t show up in appellate cases often: what type of proof is required to establish the amount of damages in a quantum meruit claim.
The Court of Appeals provided a really good road map last Tuesday, in Blount Mem’l Hosp. v. Glasgow, No. E201900776COAR3CV, 2020 WL 4809951, at *2 (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 18, 2020).
The Plaintiff had an awful contract, so it had to rely on unjust enrichment/quantum meruit to recover the value of the hospital services provided to the Defendant. The Plaintiff presented proof from the “hospital’s financial representative” (not a doctor or service provider) that “she was familiar with the customary charges in the medical industry and that the hospital’s charges for the services were reasonable and customary.”
This knowledge wasn’t gleaned from a survey of the industry or by first hand knowledge of what other hospitals were charging; instead, it was based solely on what Medicare allowed hospitals to pay. (As an added note, though, the Court mentioned that the mere fact that “this is what the hospital usually charges” isn’t good enough proof.)
But, because the proof presented, i.e. that the “medical services were comparable to all hospitals in the area that accepted Medicare patients…,” was presented by a “hospital representative who is familiar with what is reasonable and customary,” the Court found that it was “sufficient to make [a] prima facie case for the reasonable value of the services rendered.” Id. at *3.
Keep this case for those situations where your witness is the controller / bookkeeper, but has no idea how to perform the underlying services. This comes up alot.
Last One: Setting Aside a Judgment Under Rule 60.03. Reese v. Amari, No. M201900329COAR3CV, 2020 WL 4342734 (Tenn. Ct. App. July 28, 2020).
This one is really interesting. A judgment debtor attacked a decades old judgment, arguing that it was a default judgment.
In denying the attack, the Court noted that, even though it was called a “default” judgment, the trial court actually entered the judgment at a trial, which the defendant didn’t attend. So, it wasn’t technically a default judgment, as that is defined under Tenn. R. Civ. P. 55, and wasn’t entitled to the more generous standards to set aside default judgments.
Separately, though, Judge Dinkins’ opinion has a very precise presentation of when a court will set aside a final judgment under Rule 60.02(3).
And, new associates, this comes up far more than you’d imagine.
Creditors Rights 101 