Sheila Brown v. Rico Roland

This appeal involves the amount of damages a plaintiff may seek on a de novo appeal from a general sessions court to a circuit court. The plaintiff filed suit in the Davidson County General Sessions Court seeking damages sustained in an automobile accident. She also notified her uninsured/underinsured motorist carrier of her suit. After deciding that her damages exceeded the general sessions court’s jurisdictional limit, the plaintiff requested the general sessions court to dismiss her suit. The general sessions court obliged, and the plaintiff perfected a de novo appeal to the Circuit Court for Davidson County. After the plaintiff accepted the defendant’s $25,000 settlement offer, the plaintiff’s insurance carrier moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s underinsured motorist claim because her settlement with the defendant equaled the amount of damages she had sought in general sessions court. The trial court granted the insurance company’s motion to dismiss because the plaintiff failed to file an amended complaint increasing the amount of her damages claim. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court. Brown v. Roland, No. M2009-01885-COA-R3-CV, 2010 WL 3732169 (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 23, 2010). The plaintiff filed a Tenn. R. App. P. 11 application for permission to appeal, asserting that she was not limited to the amount of damages she sought in general sessions court after she perfected a de novo appeal to the circuit court. We disagree and affirm the judgments of the trial court and the Court of Appeals.