A surviving spouse has the ability to obtain an elective share (see prior post describing the details of an elective share under Tennessee law) of a decedent’s property by filing a notice with the court. The surviving spouse is required to file a petition for an elective share within nine months after the date of […]
Sometimes an individual who has a life insurance policy dies at the same time as a beneficiary. Obviously, this does not happen very often, but it does happen on occasion. Most often, when this occurs, it is simply just impossible to determine who actually died first. In Tennessee, we have a statute that addresses this […]
Tennessee law is clear that any person, firm or corporation who misrepresents that they are a licensed contractor is subject to significant penalties. It is also against Tennessee law to act in the capacity of a “contractor” in Tennessee when one is not properly licensed. Specifically, T.C.A. § 62-6-136 discusses this issue in subsection (A) […]
A very important Tennessee Court of Appeals opinion was issued on June 2, 2016. In this case, Jean Dedmon v. Debbie Steelman, No. W2015-01462-COA-R9-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 2, 2016), the Court discussed whether the amount an insurance company actually pays for medical services in a personal injury action, is, as a matter of law, […]
Sometimes, two individuals who own a bank account as joint tenants with right of survivorship or tenants by the entirety, die at the same time. In this situation, the question is, what happens to the money in those accounts? Normally, joint tenant accounts with Right of Survivorship immediately pass to the surviving individual on the […]
A recent Tennessee Court of Appeals decision, Hilda Willis v. McDonalds Restaurants of Tennessee, Inc., No. E2015-00615-COA-R3-CV, 2015 WL 9426271 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2015), involved a slip and fall at a McDonald’s in Tennessee and it provided an interesting issue. In this case the plaintiff was maneuvering around the area where drinks were served at […]
One of the most common ways that Tennessee Wills are contested is based on the theory of “undue influence”. This is a broad category where a will can be contested based on the theory that the person benefitting from the Will exhibited influence over the decedent in an inappropriate manner. One example would be where […]
A recent Tennessee Court of Appeals decision dealt with an interesting dog bite case question. In Moore v. Gaut, 2015 WL 9584389 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2015) the plaintiff was bitten by the defendant’s Great Dane dog while the dog was in the Defendant’s own fenced in back yard. The plaintiff was actually on the other […]
Tennessee has long had a doctrine of spoliation of evidence which allows the trial court to draw negative inferences or even provide dismissal against a party who destroys evidence. Historically, Tennessee courts have required the presence of actual intentional misconduct to invoke the doctrine of spoliation of evidence particularly when providing the remedy of a […]
The Tennessee Supreme Court recently handed down a very important medical malpractice decision in Adam Ellithorpe v. Janet Weismark, 2015 WL 5853873 (Tenn. 2015). In this new decision, the Tennessee Supreme Court considered whether its prior opinion of Estate of French v. Stratford House, 333 S.W.3d 546 (Tenn. 2011) was overruled by legislation found in […]
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