APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

Westside Health & Racquet Club, Inc. (“Westside”) filed this action against Jefferson Financial Services, Inc. (“ Jefferson”). Westside’s theory of its claim -- which theory was adopted by the trial court -- is that Westside’s transfer to Jefferson, over time, of some 495 installment sales
contracts was, in each case, part and parcel of a usurious loan made by Jefferson to Westside, rather than a sale of the contract. The trial court awarded Westside damages of $68,519.71 for usurious interest, which was enhanced by a further award of pre-judgment interest pursuant to T.C.A. § 47-14-123 (1995)1. Jefferson appeals, raising several issues. The issue that we will focus on can be stated thusly: Does the Retail Installment Sales Act, T.C.A. § 47-11-101, et seq., (“ the Act”) operate to exempt the dealings between these parties from Tennessee’s usury statutes?

On December 1, 1999, the State of Tennessee on behalf of the appellants Judge James Beasley, Judge Robert T. Dwyer and Mark Glankler, filed a Rule 10 T.R.A.P. application for Page 1 extraordinary appeal. Specifically, the State sought to set aside the trial court’s order denying the State’s motion to quash the subpoenas served on the aforementioned appellants.

This case concerns a claim filed by SunTrust Bank, Nashville, N.A.(hereinafter SunTrust) against the estate of Effie S. Hooker, the second wife of famed Middle Tennessee lawyer John J. Hooker, Sr. Mr. Hooker died on Christmas Eve of 1970, leaving the majority of his estate to his widow. According to the prevailing probate practice of the day, a portion of Mr. Hooker’s estate was placed
in a trust for the benefit of Mrs. Hooker during her life, the remainder to the children of Mr. Hooker’s first marriage.

This case concerns the burden placed on a commercial landlord in mitigating damages caused by a commercial tenant’s abandonment of the leased property. Although our courts heretofore have required a landlord who suffers breach to use reasonable commercial methods to reduce his damages, this tenant-in-breach would read two additional duties into those reasonable commercial methods. First, the tenant would require that the abandoned property be marketed specially and apart from the landlord’s other commercial space inventory. Second, the landlord would be required to market the property at the original contract rental rather than its going market value. Under the facts as established in the record and according to the common law of this jurisdiction, we disagree.

This appeal involves a state prisoner’s efforts to be paroled from an eight-year sentence for aggravated child abuse. After the Tennessee Board of Paroles declined to parole him, the prisoner filed a certiorari petition in the Chancery Court for Davidson County seeking judicial review of the Board’s decision. The trial court dismissed the petition on the grounds that it was not timely filed. We affirm the trial court in accordance with Tenn. Ct. App. R. 10(b).1

This appeal involves a state prisoner’s efforts to obtain judicial review of a disciplinary action taken by the Nashville Community Service Center. After the Commissioner of Correction upheld the finding that he been drinking while on work release, the prisoner filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the Circuit Court for Davidson County. The trial court clerk refused to file the petition and required the prisoner to file a second petition because the pauper’s oath accompanying the first petition was not on the proper form and had not been notarized. Thereafter, the trial court granted the Department of Correction’s motion to dismiss the second petition because it was not timely filed. We have determined that the trial court clerk exceeded his authority when he declined to accept and file the prisoner’ petition and, therefore, that the trial court erred by dismissing the petition.

This is a constitutional challenge to an Act of the legislature regulating the possession and sale of animals. Owners, dealers, and licensed propagators of various wildlife species challenged the Act on grounds that it is vague, overbroad, and a burden on interstate commerce. The Chancery Court of Davidson County rejected the constitutional challenge. We affirm the decision on the vagueness and overbreadth charge. We think, however, that there are disputed facts bearing on the question of whether parts of the Act impermissibly burden interstate commerce. We, therefore,  remand for further proceedings on that issue.