APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

The General SessionsCourt of Wilson County granted the wife a divorce after a six month marriage. The court ordered the marital residence sold and the wife paid $2,000 for her attorney's fees and $10,000 to equalize her equity in the property. After the deductions, the balance of the equity was to be split evenly between the parties.

This is a declaratory judgment action to determine coverage under aninsurance policy. Plaintiff, Wright Jewelers, Inc., appeals from the order of the trial court denying its motion for summary judgment and granting summary judgment to defendant, Firemen's Fund Insurance Company, d/b/a The American Insurance Company.

This appeal involves a suit to recover on a policy of insurance covering employee dishonesty. Plaintiff, Strings & Things in Memphis, Inc., appeals from the judgment of the chancery court in a nonjury trial that dismissed its suit against defendant, State Auto Insurance Companies. The only issue on appeal is whether the evidence preponderates against the findings of the chancellor.

The Defendant, Brenda Fishburn, has appealed from an order denying her motion to set her counterclaim for trial. The motion was filed more than two years after an order had been entered dismissing the counterclaim and approximately 18 months after an agreed compromise decree had been  entered dismissing the claims of all parties to the litigation.

This appeal involves the dismissal of a nine-year-old personal injury action stemming from a collision between a truck and an automobile that was part of a funeral procession. The driver of the automobile and his wife filed suit in the Circuit Court for Davidson County against the owner and driver of the truck. Following two non-suits, the plaintiffs filed their third complaint more than five years after taking their first non-suit. The trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment based on the statute of limitations. The plaintiffs assert on this appeal that the trial court’s decision is inconsistent with the “spirit” of the savings statute as recently construed by the Tennessee Supreme Court. We affirm the summary judgment and also find that this appeal is frivolous. Accordingly, we remand the case for the determination of damages for a frivolous appeal.

This is an appeal by defendants/appellants from the trial court's order granting plaintiff/appellee's motion for summary judgment and the resulting judgment entered in favor of plaintiff/appellee, C.A. Hobbs, Jr., Inc. ("Hobbs").

This appeal involves a divorce that ended a brief, unhappy marriage. Both the husband and the wife sought a divorce in the Chancery Court for Williamson County. The trial court, sitting without a jury, declared the parties divorced and directed the husband to pay certain pre-divorce debts and to continue making pendente lite support payments until the wife received her share of the increase in the parties’ net worth during the marriage. The trial court later ordered the husband to pay the wife an additional $4,405 for the legal expenses she incurred to compel compliance with her discovery requests. The husband insists on this appeal that the trial court should not have required him to assume the debts the wife incurred prior to the divorce or to pay the wife’s discovery-related legal expenses. We have determined that the evidence supports the trial court’s decision on both issues and, therefore, affirm the judgment

This is a proceeding for judicial review of the action of the Metropolitan Council, the elected legislative body of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, in refusing to concur in the action of the Metropolitan Planning Commission approving a "Planned Unit Development." The Trial Court reversed the action, and the City filed notice of its "intention to appeal" which, in the absence of challenge, will be treated as a notice of appeal.

This is a suit to invalidate an annexation ordinance of the City of Murfreesboro. The plaintiff appealed from the dismissal of his suit, although neither party questioned the adequacy of the description of the land to be annexed. On October 26, 1994, this Court filed an opinion pointing out the infirmities of the ordinance and remanded to allow such infirmities to be remedied.

Net Realty Holding Trust ("NET") the owners of commercial property in Hermitage, Tennessee, brought an action to collect rent after the tenants, James and Dorothy Maggart, (doing business as "The Video Place") surrendered the premises. The Davidson County Chancery Court held that NET was estopped from collecting rent through the end of the lease term.

Defendant, City of Lawrenceburg, has appealed from the trial court's finding that the proximate cause of the accident in which plaintiffs suffered injuries and damages was the negligence of the City of Lawrenceburg's agent and employee, Officer George L. Barturen.

In this dispute between plaintiff borrower and defendant lender, the Trial Court entered summary judgment for the defendant and plaintiff has appealed.

In this divorce case the appellant attacks a divorce decree entered nunc pro tunc and also raises issues relating to the property division, alimony, and attorney's fees. The appellee attacks the court's division of property in accordance with an antenuptial agreement. We affirm.

The plaintiff in the trial court claimed title to a disputed area of land by adverse possession. The chancellor found that the disputed property was not within the calls of the plaintiff's deed and that the plaintiff had failed to establish a prescriptive title by twenty years of adverse possession. We affirm.

The Chancery Court of Davidson County granted summary judgment to the Tennessee Jaycees and the other appellees, on the ground that the statute of limitations had passed prior to the filing of the appellants' wrongful death complaint against them. Because we do not find that the discovery rule tolls the statute of limitations under the circumstances of this case, we affirm the trial court.

In this divorce case, the defendant/wife has appealed from that portion of the divorce decree which granted to the plaintiff/husband sole custody of the daughter of the parties, aged 4 1/2 years at the time of judgment, 5 years at the present time.

This is a contract dispute in which the chancellor found that the uncontradicted proof showed that the plaintiff had no cause of action for the acts alleged in the complaint. We reverse on the single ground of estoppel and remand for further proceedings on that issue alone.

In this case the husband has appealed the trial judge's award of $14,750 to the wife as her share of the marital property. The trial judge made the following findings: that the husband's property had increased in value during the marriage in the amount, when added to the value of some property acquired by the parties, of $34,000; that the cattle acquired by the parties had a negative value of $4,500, leaving a net value of $29,500; that the wife had made a contribution to the preservation and appreciation of the property; that the wife had a greater need than the husband; and that the husband had a greater ability to produce income in the future. Taking the net increase in the marital estate of $29,500 the trial judge then awarded half of it to the wife.