APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

Father appeals the trial court’s findings that (1) termination of Father’s parental rights is supported by the grounds of substantial noncompliance with a permanency plan and failure to manifest an ability and willingness to assume custody, and (2) termination is in the children’s best interests. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm.

In this case, we construe the parties’ marital dissolution agreement, as well as Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-5-103(c), which permits attorney fee awards in certain original and post-award proceedings in family law cases involving alimony, child support, child custody, and permanent parenting plans. Here, the former husband filed a post-divorce petition to alter the award of transitional alimony, and after considerable litigation, he nonsuited it. The question on appeal under both the marital dissolution agreement and the statute is whether a trial court may award attorney fees to a former spouse for fees incurred in defending the original award of alimony in post-divorce proceedings, where the petition to modify the award was nonsuited before adjudication on the merits. We hold that it may. Under the marital dissolution agreement, our holding is based on the language of the parties’ agreement. As to the statute, Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-5-103(c) explicitly applies in post-award proceedings to “enforce, alter, change, or modify” an existing decree of alimony, child support, custody, or a permanent parenting plan. Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-5-103(c). For an obligee spouse defending against an obligor spouse’s effort to reduce or end alimony or child support, or modify a permanent parenting plan, the objective may be to maintain the status quo. This objective is achieved upon voluntary dismissal by the obligor spouse. Under these circumstances, the obligee spouse is a “prevailing party” under section 36-5-103(c). For this reason, we hold that trial courts may award attorney fees to an obligee spouse under the statute after the obligor spouse nonsuits a post-divorce petition. Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals, affirm the trial court’s award of attorney fees to the former wife, award the former wife attorney fees on appeal, and remand the case to the trial court for a determination of the amount of reasonable attorney fees.

A court-approved marital dissolution agreement awarded Vanessa Turner alimony. Her former husband, John Colley, later sought to modify the alimony award but voluntarily dismissed that post-judgment action without prejudice before it was adjudicated. The question here is whether Ms. Turner is the “prevailing party” in the post-judgment proceeding and therefore entitled to attorney’s fees under the parties’ marital dissolution agreement and Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-5-103(c). The majority opinion concludes that she is. I agree with that bottom line but not with the entirety of the majority’s legal analysis. The majority reasons that Ms. Turner prevailed in the post-judgment proceeding because her objective was to maintain the status quo, and she achieved that objective when her former husband voluntarily dismissed his petition. In my view, a voluntary dismissal without prejudice—standing alone—could not make Ms. Turner a prevailing party. Although Ms. Turner may have “prevailed” in the colloquial sense of that term when the petition was voluntary dismissed, she was a “prevailing party” as that legal term of art has long been understood only because the voluntary dismissal meant that she had succeeded in defending earlier court-awarded relief. To the extent the majority opinion holds that a defendant can be a prevailing party in the absence of any judicially sanctioned change in the parties’ legal relationship or judicial rejection of the plaintiff’s claims, I disagree. I write separately to explain my position.

The Defendant, Melvin Lee Harth, appeals from his guilty-pleaded convictions for aggravated assault involving strangulation, a Class C felony; two counts of aggravated assault involving the violation of a prior court order, a Class C felony; false imprisonment, a Class A misdemeanor; and resisting arrest, a Class B misdemeanor. See T.C.A. §§ 39-13-102 (Supp. 2024) (aggravated assault); 39-13-302 (2018) (false imprisonment), 39-16-602 (2018) (resisting arrest). The trial court ordered the Defendant to serve an effective nine-year sentence in confinement. On appeal, the Defendant contends the court erred by denying alternative sentencing. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Petitioner, Tracy D. Boyd, Jr., appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, which challenged his guilty-pleaded convictions of three counts of impersonating a licensed professional, two counts of theft of property, and one count of forgery. He claims that he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel and that his guilty pleas were not knowingly and voluntarily entered. Upon review of the record, we affirm the denial of post-conviction relief.

In this dispute, the trial court found that certain subsections of 2023 Tennessee Public Acts, chapter 488, violated the home rule amendment and the equal protection guarantee found in the Tennessee Constitution. The defendants, who are officials of the State of Tennessee, have appealed the trial court’s ruling. Following our thorough review, we affirm the trial court’s determination that section two of the act is unconstitutional. However, we reverse the trial court’s determination that sections two, six, seven, eight, and nine of the Act violate the equal protection guarantee found in the Tennessee Constitution. We therefore also reverse the trial court’s elision of sections six, seven, eight, and nine from the statute.

This negligence action arose when Courtney L. Wherry (“Ms. Wherry”), a member of the South Fulton High School sideline cheerleading team, fell and injured her neck while performing a “shoulder sit” stunt in the endzone of a football field prior to a high school football game. Ms. Wherry and her parents, Jason T. Wherry and Jaime L. Tidwell, (collectively, “the Wherrys”) brought suit against the Obion County Board of Education and Obion County School District (collectively, “the School District”)1 under the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act to recover damages for the injuries sustained by Ms. Wherry. The Wherrys sought recovery based upon two negligence theories: (1) that the school district’s selection and hiring of the South Fulton High School cheerleading coach Nichole Harrell (“Ms. Harrell”) was negligent, and (2) that the negligent acts and omissions of Ms. Harrell on the night of the accident related to the football field conditions were the cause in fact and proximate cause of Ms. Wherry’s injuries. Following a bench trial, the trial court found in favor of the School District on both negligence theories. The Wherrys appeal. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The Defendant, Kerrington J’Kobe Lake, entered guilty pleas to two felonies, felony evading arrest and attempted tampering with evidence; and three misdemeanors, speeding, reckless driving, and simple possession of marijuana, with the trial court to determine whether to grant judicial diversion or, alternatively, the length and manner of his sentence. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court denied the Defendant’s request for judicial diversion and imposed an effective sentence of three years, with the Defendant to serve 180 days in jail before serving the remainder of his sentence on supervised probation. On appeal, the Defendant argues the trial court (1) unreasonably denied judicial diversion, and (2) imposed an excessive sentence. After review, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

The Defendant, Diamond Leah Wilson, was convicted by a Maury County Circuit Court jury of aggravated neglect of a child who was age eight or less, a Class A felony, for which the Defendant is serving a sixteen-year sentence at 100% service. See T.C.A. § 39-15-402 (Supp. 2024). On appeal, she contends that (1) the trial court erred in approving the verdict in its role as thirteenth juror, (2) the evidence is insufficient to support her conviction, and (3) the trial court erred in sentencing. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

We granted review in this case to decide whether our collateral estoppel doctrine bars relitigation of a prior class certification denial which was affirmed on appeal. In 2014, Plaintiff Emergency Medical Care Facilities, P.C. filed a putative class action against Defendant BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Inc. EMCF alleged that BCBST had breached various contracts with it and other similar entities by applying a cap on certain payments for medical services after an action by TennCare. The trial court denied class certification, and the Court of Appeals affirmed and remanded. EMCF subsequently voluntarily nonsuited its claims. After getting a favorable ruling in a separate lawsuit against TennCare, EMCF refiled its case against BCBST, again seeking class certification. The trial court held that collateral estoppel precluded relitigation of class certification, but the Court of Appeals reversed. We hold that the trial court got it right. In this case, the same plaintiff filed suit against the same defendant for the same claims on behalf of the same putative class based on the same common questions. Our collateral estoppel doctrine exists to prevent this type of second-chance relitigation. Certain decisions are final and binding, including when a trial court and appellate court conclude that a particular class cannot be certified. The plaintiff here is certainly entitled to have the merits of its substantive claims heard in its refiled action, but it does not get a do-over on class certification.

A Knox County jury convicted the Defendant, Cristobal Jose Vasquez, of solicitation of a minor and aggravated sexual battery, and the trial court sentenced him to an effective term of nine years’ imprisonment. On appeal, the Defendant argues that the evidence is legally insufficient to support his conviction for aggravated sexual battery. He also asserts that the trial court erred by (1) allowing testimony concerning uncharged criminal conduct; and (2) excluding extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement by the victim or, alternatively, prohibiting him from recalling the victim to lay a foundation for that evidence. Upon our review, we respectfully disagree and affirm the judgments of the trial court.

In this appeal regarding Tennessee’s survival statute, Tennessee Code Annotated section 20-5-102, we hold that a cause of action for invasion of privacy based on intrusion upon seclusion does not abate upon the death of the person whose privacy was invaded. Here, an elderly woman with severely impaired cognitive functioning was a resident of the defendant skilled nursing facility. While an employee of the facility was helping the resident take a shower, the employee took a personal video call with her incarcerated boyfriend. During the call, the employee propped her cell phone in the shower in a way that displayed the resident’s nude body to the boyfriend. The resident’s conservator sued the defendant facility claiming, inter alia, invasion of the resident’s privacy. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the facility, and the plaintiff appealed. While the appeal was pending, the resident died, and her estate was substituted. The Court of Appeals reversed; it held the complaint stated a claim for invasion of privacy based on intrusion upon seclusion, and that the claim did not abate upon the death of the resident. We granted the defendant facility permission to appeal on abatement. Tennessee Code Annotated section 20-5-102 provides that no civil action based on “wrongs” abates upon the death of either party, “except actions for wrongs affecting the character of the plaintiff.” On appeal, the defendant facility argues that the claim abated either because section 20-5-102 does not apply at all, or because the character exception in the statute applies, since a claim for intrusion upon seclusion is an action for “wrongs affecting the character of the plaintiff.” We hold that the survival statute, section 20-5-102, applies to the claim of intrusion upon seclusion, and that the exception for actions for “wrongs affecting the character of the plaintiff” does not apply. Therefore, we affirm the holding of the Court of Appeals that the claim for intrusion upon seclusion did not abate upon the death of the resident whose privacy was invaded.

This case involves a dispute between a property owner and her homeowners’ association. Appellant’s property is governed by the homeowner’s association’s covenants, conditions, and restrictions. There are two improvements to appellant’s property, a main house and a carriage house, both of which were originally roofed with vintage concrete tiles. Appellant replaced the roof on the carriage house with asphalt shingles, but did not replace the roof on the main house. Rather, appellant had the main house roof cleaned, which resulted in a lighter appearance. The homeowners’ association demanded that appellant replace the main house roof with shingles to match the carriage house. Appellant refused and filed an action for declaratory judgment and injunction. The association filed a counter-complaint alleging that appellant was in breach of certain provisions of the covenants, conditions, and restrictions. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The trial court dismissed appellant’s declaratory judgment action on its finding that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because appellant failed to join all necessary parties. The trial court granted the homeowners’ association’s motion for summary judgment on its counter-complaint and awarded attorney’s fees. Because the trial court’s order does not adequately explain its reasons for dismissing appellant’s declaratory judgment action, we cannot conduct a meaningful review of that holding, and we vacate the trial court’s dismissal of appellant’s complaint. There are disputes of material fact that preclude the grant of summary judgment. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s grant of summary judgment and its award of attorney’s fees to the homeowner’s association.

The Petitioner, Michael Terrell McKissack, appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court’s denial of his petition for a writ of error coram nobis, claiming that a codefendant’s recanted testimony constitutes newly discovered evidence. Based on our review, we affirm the coram nobis court’s denial of the petition.

In the Circuit Court for Sevier County (“the Trial Court”), William R. Smith and Judy M. Smith (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) filed a complaint to enforce a contract for the sale of land owned by Keith Prater and Janet Prater (collectively, “Defendants”). Defendants filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that Plaintiff lacked standing because Defendants had entered into the contract with Plaintiffs’ limited liability company, “R & J 44, LLC” (“the LLC”), rather than Plaintiffs themselves. Plaintiffs filed a motion seeking permission to file a second amended complaint to clarify that they were suing both individually and in their capacities as members of the LLC. The Trial Court denied Plaintiffs’ motion, finding undue delay in amending the complaint, and granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm.

Petitioner, Charles Hardy, Jr., appeals the denial of his post-conviction petition, arguing that the post-conviction court erred in denying his claims that trial counsel was ineffective in advising him not to testify, and provided ineffective counsel pretrial and at trial. He also argues he is entitled to relief due to the cumulative effect of trial counsel’s individual errors. Following our review of the record, the briefs of the parties, and oral arguments, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Petitioner, Ashley Nicole Thomas, appeals the denial of her post-conviction petition, in which she challenged her multiple convictions related to the sexual abuse of a child and her effective forty-year sentence. On appeal, Petitioner maintains that her trial counsel was ineffective. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

A Madison County jury convicted Defendant, Tyrone McCurdy, of multiple counts of vandalism and theft, and the trial court imposed an effective sentence of twenty-two years to be served in confinement as a persistent offender. On appeal, Defendant contends that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions. After review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Gary Rollins, Defendant, was charged with one count of rape of a child and two counts of aggravated sexual battery in September of 2020.  At the conclusion of the first trial, the jury found Defendant not guilty of rape of a child but could not reach a verdict on the lesser-included offenses of rape of a child.  The jury could not reach a verdict on either count of aggravated sexual battery.  The trial court granted a mistrial for the remaining lesser-included offenses of rape of a child and the two counts of aggravated sexual battery.  In a second trial on the same presentment, Defendant was again tried for rape of a child.  The jury found Defendant guilty of rape of a child and two counts of aggravated sexual battery.  At sentencing, Defendant challenged the rape of a child conviction for the first time on the basis that it violated double jeopardy.  The trial court agreed, entering a judgment for the lesser-included offense of attempted rape of a child.  The trial court sentenced Defendant to twenty years for the attempted rape of a child conviction and fifteen years for each aggravated sexual battery conviction.  The trial court ordered the sentences to run consecutively, for a total effective sentence of fifty years. On appeal, Defendant argues that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the State to introduce evidence of a prior bad act in violation of Tennessee Rule of Evidence 404(b), that his second trial for rape of a child violated his right against double jeopardy, and that the trial court had no authority to modify the conviction on the jeopardy-barred offense to attempted rape of a child.  Because the Defendant failed to demonstrate a reasonable probability that he would not have been convicted of the attempted rape of a child absent the presence of the charge of rape of a child and because the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the State to introduce evidence of a prior bad act, we affirm the convictions.

In this divorce, the trial court sanctioned Husband for failing to participate in discovery. After a final hearing at which Husband failed to appear, the trial court entered a final decree of divorce that awarded Wife monetary judgments and alimony, divided the marital property, adopted Wife’s proposed parenting plan, and set child support. Husband filed a motion to set aside, alter, or amend the final decree, which the trial court denied. On appeal, Husband challenges the sanctions and complains that the trial court failed to consider the statutory best interest factors when fashioning the permanent parenting plan. Although the trial court’s factual findings concerning the children’s best interest are deficient, we can “soldier on” by conducting a de novo review of the record to determine where the preponderance of the evidence lies. After that review, we affirm.

This appeal arises from an order requiring a petitioner to pay a filing fee or face dismissal of his case. Because the order is not final, we lack subject matter jurisdiction and must dismiss the appeal.

Following mediation, family members signed a settlement agreement resolving their business dispute. One party then sought to withdraw from the agreement. The trial court determined that the party’s ability to withdraw was limited and ordered him to close on the transactions contemplated by the agreement. Because we conclude that the settlement agreement’s language was ambiguous, we vacate and remand for an evidentiary hearing.

This action involves the termination of a mother’s parental rights to her minor child. Following a bench trial, the court found clear and convincing evidence to establish the following statutory grounds of termination: (1) abandonment for failure to provide a suitable home and (2) the persistence of conditions which led to removal. The court also found that termination was in the best interest of the child. We now affirm.

The Defendant, Kimberly M. Smart, was convicted by a Hamilton County Jury of reckless aggravated assault, for which she received a sentence of three years' incarceration.  On appeal, the Defendant argues that (1) the trial court erred in admitting extrinsic evidence of a witness's prior inconsistent statement for impeachment, (2) the trial court erred in admitting a body camera recording depicting the victim shortly after she was stabbed, and (3) the prosecutor committed misconduct by attempting to shift the burden of proof to the Defendant during closing and rebuttal arguments.  Discerning no error, we affirm.

A plaintiff was awarded a judgment against a defendant who failed to complete home improvement work. The defendant appeals; however, he has failed to provide an adequate record to allow for consideration of his arguments on appeal and has asked this court to perform fact-finding that is beyond the scope of our authority. We affirm the circuit court’s judgment.