Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts

Appellant appeals the trial court’s order affirming the award of an arbitrator.  Appellant filed suit against its former employee, the Appellee, alleging breach of contract for violation of certain provisions of the employee handbook, which also contained an arbitration clause.  Because the handbook does not constitute an enforceable employment contract, the trial court erred in ordering the parties to arbitrate and in affirming the arbitrator’s award.  Reversed and remanded.

This appeal concerns a divorce. Melanie Miller Hollis (“Wife”) sued Charles Myers Hollis, Jr. (“Husband”) for divorce in the Chancery Court for Bradley County (“the Trial Court”). After a trial, the Trial Court granted Husband a divorce based upon Wife’s inappropriate marital conduct. The Trial Court also divided the marital estate and awarded Wife alimony and child support. Wife appeals, arguing that the Trial Court erred by failing to classify and value as part of the marital estate Husband’s “book of business” from his job as a financial advisor at UBS, a financial services firm. Husband raises separate issues regarding child support, alimony, and the division of the marital estate. Discerning no abuse of discretion or other reversible error, we affirm the judgment of the Trial Court in its entirety. We also remand for the Trial Court to determine and enter an award to Wife of her reasonable attorney’s fees incurred on appeal, but only as they relate to issues of child support and alimony.

The plaintiff appeals the trial court’s order granting the defendants’ motions for summary judgment and dismissing the plaintiff’s claims for breach of contract, wrongful foreclosure, injunctive relief, and declaratory relief. Having determined that the plaintiff has waived arguments related to his breach of contract claim, we review solely the trial court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s claim for wrongful foreclosure. We conclude that the defendants did not strictly comply with the notice requirements of the deed of trust, vacate the portion of the trial court’s order granting summary judgment to the defendants with respect to the plaintiff’s wrongful foreclosure claim, and set aside the foreclosure sale. We affirm the trial court’s order with respect to the plaintiff’s breach of contract claim. We decline to award the defendants damages pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 27-1- 122.

This case involves a church property dispute.  The plaintiffs are trustees of a local church congregation who were attempting to establish their congregation as separate from the church’s national governing body and from a local congregation, with which the plaintiffs had previously been joined, that desired to remain affiliated with the national church body.  Naming as defendants the national body and trustees of the congregation desiring to remain with the national body, the plaintiffs sought, inter alia, declaratory judgment that real property upon which the local church building was located belonged to their congregation and was not held in trust for the national body as the national body’s written policy dictated.  The defendants filed motions for summary judgment, asserting in part that pursuant to our Supreme Court’s decision in Church of God in Christ, Inc. v. L. M. Haley Ministries, Inc. 531 S.W.3d 146 (Tenn. 2017), the national body’s written policy governed ownership of the property, which had therefore been held in trust for the national body.  Following a hearing, the trial court determined that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine precluded the court’s hearing any claims except the property dispute and that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment declaring the national body as the owner of the property and associated personalty and the congregation aligned with the national body as entitled to use and possession of the property and associated personalty.  Upon the plaintiffs’ appeal to this Court and motion to the trial court for a stay, the trial court granted a stay of the judgment pending appeal and entered an order, inter alia, directing the plaintiffs to pay expenses related to the property while the stay remained in effect.  The defendants filed a Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 7(a) motion seeking review of the trial court’s stay order, which this Court denied.  The plaintiffs subsequently filed a motion to supplement the record with their response to the Rule 7(a) motion, which, upon limited remand, was granted by the trial court.  The defendants then filed a motion requesting that this Court strike the references to the supplemented materials in the plaintiffs’ principal brief and disregard post-judgment facts in the supplemented materials.  Discerning no reversible error in the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants, we affirm the trial court’s summary judgment order in its entirety.  However, because the supplemented materials included documents not reviewed by the trial court at the summary judgment stage, we grant the defendants’ motion to disregard the supplemental materials and strike the plaintiffs’ references to them.  We deny the defendants’ request for attorney’s fees and costs incurred on appeal. 

This appeal arises from Appellant/Mother’s January 2020 petition to modify the visitation provisions in an agreed parenting plan entered by the juvenile court in December 2017.  Following proceedings before a juvenile court magistrate, Mother filed a timely request for a de novo hearing by the judge pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 37-1-107(d).  In lieu of an evidentiary hearing, the juvenile court considered the matter on the parties’ briefs and argument of counsel.  The court determined it could not make factual findings without conducting a de novo trial and advised the parties that, in lieu of a hearing, a direct appeal to this Court was “a remedy for either party.”  Mother did not set a hearing, and the juvenile court affirmed the magistrate’s findings of fact and conclusions of law.  Mother appeals.  We vacate the juvenile court’s order and remand this matter for a de novo hearing before the juvenile court judge.  

This appeal involves a petition to terminate parental rights.  The juvenile court found by clear and convincing evidence that four grounds for termination as to the mother were proven: (1) abandonment by failure to visit; (2) persistent conditions; (3) substantial noncompliance with a permanency plan; and (4) failure to manifest an ability and willingness to assume custody or financial responsibility.  The juvenile court also found that termination was in the best interests of the child.  The mother appeals.  We affirm.

In this appeal arising out of a negligence action, the plaintiff died while the litigation was pending, and no motion for substitution of the plaintiff was filed within the ninety-day period following the filing of the suggestion of death as required by Tenn. R. Civ. P. 25.01. After the defendant filed a motion to dismiss, the plaintiff’s counsel filed a motion to enlarge the time, pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 6.02. The trial court found no excusable neglect warranting enlargement of the ninety-day period and dismissed the action pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 25.01. The plaintiff appealed the trial court’s denial of its motion to enlarge and the dismissal of the suit. Discerning no error, we affirm.

W. Neal McBrayer, J., concurring.

This is an appeal from the chancery court’s grant of summary judgment to the plaintiffs, elected officials who serve on the Metropolitan Nashville Board of Public Education (“the Board”).  In response to the motion for summary judgment, the defendants, the Board and Metro’s former director of schools, Dr. Shawn Joseph, relied on arguments they made in unsuccessful motions to dismiss.  Although the majority reviews and rejects the defendants’ arguments that the plaintiffs lacked standing and that their claims were not ripe, the court does not review the grant of summary judgment.  I agree with the court’s conclusions on both standing and ripeness.  But I write separately because the scope of the court’s review was too narrow.

An interstate motor carrier appeals a $35,777.00 judgment. Because the judgment does not resolve all of the claims between all of the parties, we dismiss the appeal for lack of a final judgment.

This is an expedited appeal pursuant to Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 10B.  Based on the Appellant’s failure to comply with the requirements of Rule 10B, we dismiss the appeal.

This appeal involves a petition to terminate parental rights and for adoption.  The chancery court found by clear and convincing evidence that a ground for termination was proven and that termination was in the best interests of the child.  The mother appeals.  We vacate and remand.

In this appeal, the parties have stipulated that the trial court erred in awarding the appellee attorney’s fees incurred in an earlier appeal under Tennessee Code Annotated section 20- 12-119(c)(1). So we reverse.