APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

The Trial dismissed plaintiffs’ causes of action for personal injury on the basis that the statute of limitations had run before the action was properly brought, pursuant to Rule 3, T.R.C.P.

We granted permission to appeal under Tenn. R. App. P. 11 to Howard E. King, the appellant, in order to address the constitutionality of Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-201(b)(2) (Supp. 1994),1 which requires trial courts to instruct juries regarding parole and release eligibility when a jury instruction on the sentencing range is requested by either party. Because we find that the statute does not violate the separation of powers doctrine or deprive the appellant of his due process right to a fair trial, we conclude that the statute, as applied under the circumstances of this case, is constitutional.

This case involves the possession of real estate after foreclosure proceedings. After a bench trial, the trial court determined that Appellees were entitled to possession of the real estate in question. We affirm.

This suit was initiated by Plaintiff-Appellant, Wendell Goodwin, against Defendants-Appellees, Pittsburgh Corning Corporation, Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation, and a number of  other Defendants, seeking damages because of an illness Mr. Goodwin contracted -- specifically a stomach cancer known as peritoneal mesothelioma -- resulting from his occupational exposure to asbestos products manufactured and distributed by the Defendants, including Pittsburgh Corning and Owens-Corning. The Trial Court, in sresonse to the answers supplied by the jury through special interrogatories hereinafter set out, entered a judgment in favor of the Defendants because the Plaintiff's claim was barred by the applicable statute of repose, T.C. A . 29 -28 -103(a).

This case arose out of a petition for order of contempt filed in this Court by the Board of Professional Responsibility against John Mark Hancock. The petition alleged that Hancock violated an order of suspension previously entered by this Court by failing to comply with Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 9, § 18, which requires a suspended attorney to notify clients of an order of suspension, move for withdrawal from pending cases, provide notice to adverse attorneys when clients have not obtained substitute counsel, and refrain from taking new cases.

The appellant, David L. Hathaway, appeals as of right his conviction in the Criminal Court of Pickett County. After a bench trial, he was convicted of driving under the influence of an intoxicant (“D.U.I.”) and was sentenced to a suspended term of six (6) months and one (1) hour in the county jail. The trial court revoked appellant’s driver’s license for one (1) year and ordered him to serve forty eight (48) hours in jail. Appellant was also ordered to pay a $350 fine.

On appeal, the appellant challenges the admissibility of the results of his breathalyser examination and the sufficiency of the convicting evidence. After a review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. 

Twenty former employees of “HealthTrust,” a ____________ sued  HealthTrust and its “successor in interest,” Columbia Health Care Corporation, to recover share of stock (or the value thereof) which they had  purchased with earned bonuses and for the value of shares of stock due some of the plaintiffs due them upon discharge. Two of the plaintiffs nonsuited, leaving eighteen.

C.L.H. has filed a timely Tenn. R. App. P. 39 petition for rehearing and a Tenn. R. App. P. 14 motion to consider post-judgment facts. She asserts that our original opinion filed on June 12, 1998 misapprehends material facts with regard to her more recent self-improvement efforts, and she offers new evidence regarding her educational attainments and the stability of her living environment.

The appellant, Edward Shane Rust, was indicted by a Coffee County Grand Jury for the offenses of arson of personal property and reckless endangerment. Following a jury trial, the appellant was found guilty of arson of personal property, a class E felony, and received a two year sentence in the Department of Correction. The appellant was found not guilty of reckless endangerment. In this appeal as of right, the appellant contends:

I. The evidence is insufficient to support a conviction for arson of personal property;
II. The sentence imposed by the trial court is excessive; and
III. The trial court should have granted an alternative sentence.

After a review of the evidence, we affirm the appellant’s conviction for arson of personal property.

I concur in Judge Todd’s opinion affirming the grant of summary judgment to the defendants. I write separately simply to emphasize the following points:

First, the bonus plan allowed the plaintiffs to purchase shares of the company at a price below the market price. When the plaintiffs left the company before the shares fully vested, they did not forfeit their investment; they simply lost the difference between what they had invested and the market value of the shares. The difference in the purchase price and the market value is what this controversy is about.

Twenty former employees of “HealthTrust,” a ____________ sued HealthTrust and its “successor in interest,” Columbia Health Care Corporation, to recover share of stock (or the value thereof) which they had purchased with earned bonuses and for the value of shares of stock due some of the plaintiffs due them upon discharge. Two of the plaintiffs nonsuited, leaving eighteen.

This is a post-divorce decree proceeding to adjust the amount of periodic alimony. The wife has appealed from the judgment of the Trial Court increasing the alimony from $1,000 per month to $1,350 per month.

This is a child support case. The Chancery Court of Wilson County set the mother’s obligation of support at $723.00 per month. The mother appeals and asserts that the evidence preponderates against the trial court’s finding. We affirm the judgment below.

The question in this case is whether a purchaser of mortgaged property, who pays off the mortgage, takes an assignment of the note and deed of trust, and subsequently releases the deed of trust, can then sue the original mortgagee on the note. The Chancery Court of Davidson County dismissed the action. We affirm.

Mary Ardelle Gower died on August 11, 1995 in Wayne County, Tennessee at the age of 73. Her will was offered for probate by William Steven Jones, the executor therein named and the sole beneficiary of the will.

The defendant, James Allen Gooch, Sr., a/k/a “Angie Foot,” appeals as of right from his conviction upon a guilty plea in the Sumner County Criminal Court for the sale of under one-half gram of cocaine, a Class C felony. The defendant was charged with two counts of selling less than one-half gram of cocaine, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Pursuant to an agreement, the defendant entered a guilty plea to one count of selling less than one-half gram of cocaine, and the remaining charges were dismissed. The defendant was sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to five years in the custody of the Department of Correction. The trial court also imposed a two-thousand-dollar fine. The defendant contends that the trial court erred by failing to consider a sentence other than confinement by the Department
of Correction. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

This is an appeal by defendants/appellants, Earl and Carl Poss, from a decision of the chancery court in a boundary dispute. It is the Posses contention that the chancery court erred when it approved the survey  entered into evidence by the plaintiffs/appellees, Lionel and Nancy Lulow.  The diagram below, while not drawn to scale, depicts the layout of the relevant tracts of land.  Reference to this diagram will be helpful in understanding the following facts.

The captioned appellant is a prisoner in the punitive custody of the Tennessee Department of Correction. On February 19, 1997, he filed in the Trial Court a petition for declaratory judgment alleging that on November 16, 1996, he filed with the Department a petition for a declaratory order correcting an erroneous entry showing two life sentences which have been merged.

This petition under Rule 12, Tenn. R. App. Proc., to review a rate making order of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority presents a host of procedural and substantive issues. We affirm the agency order.

Property owners alleged in a petition for common law certiorari that the city of Decherd acted arbitrarily and capriciously in refusing to rezone their property from residential to commercial. The Chancery Court of Franklin County dismissed the petition. We affirm.

This appeal involves another chapter in a lingering, acrimonious dispute between two Nashville lawyers stemming from a failed settlement of a case in federal court. After one of the lawyers abandoned his third-party complaint against the other lawyer for fraudulent misrepresentation, the other lawyer filed a malicious prosecution action in the Circuit Court for Davidson County. When the trial court dismissed the complaint on the ground that it was premature, the prevailing lawyer sought Tenn. R. Civ. P. 11 sanctions against the lawyer whose malicious prosecution claim had been dismissed. The trial court declined to grant sanctions, and the lawyer seeking sanctions has appealed. We have determined that the record supports the trial court’s decision not to award sanctions and, therefore, affirm the trial court’s decision.

The defendant was indicted, charged, and convicted of burglary and sentenced as a career offender to twelve years imprisonment. In this appeal as of right, the defendant argues the evidence was insufficient to support a conviction for burglary since the State failed to prove intent to commit theft. Finding no merit in the defendant’s argument, we affirm.

This appeal involves a dispute over a real estate commission on four retail properties in Memphis. After a former client leased these properties, a real estate broker filed suit in the Chancery Court for Davidson County seeking a commission from its former client and the lessors of the four properties. The trial court granted the former client’s motion for summary judgment and, following a bench trial, dismissed the broker’s claims against the four lessors. On this appeal, the broker asserts that the trial court erred by granting his former client’s summary judgment motion and that the evidence preponderates against the trial court’s dismissal of his claims against the four lessors. We have determined that the trial court properly granted the summary judgment motion and that the evidence does not preponderate against the trial court’s judgment in favor of the four lessors.