APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

This is a divorce case in which Wife appeals the judgment of the trial court regarding, inter alia, the division of marital property and the trial court's allowance of expert testimony.

This is a suit for wrongful death by suicide allegedly resulting from negligence of the defendant, a psychiatrist. After a jury could not agree upon a verdict, the Trial Judge directed a verdict and dismissed the suit. Plaintiff has appealed and presented a single issue as follows:

This is an appeal by plaintiffs/appellants, Jerry and Nancy Adcock, from the judgment of the trial court in favor of defendant/appellee, James F. Witcher.

This appeal arises from a dispute over a will in which a 93-year-old man left his estate to three of his four surviving daughters. The daughter who was not named in her father’s will challenged the validity of the will after her sisters propounded it for probate in the Chancery Court for Trousdale County. The chancery court transferred the case to the Circuit Court for Trousdale County where a jury found in favor of the will. The daughter who contested the will has appealed. We have determined that no reversible error was committed in the circuit court proceeding and, therefore, affirm the circuit court’s judgment and remand the case to the chancery court for further probate proceedings.

This is a grandparent's visitation case. Plaintiff, Donna Faye Glover England, is the maternal grandmother of Skylar Piercey, age four. Skylar's natural mother died in December of 1993. Skylar's natural father, Richard Piercey, now refuses to allow England to see Skylar. England filed a petition for grandparent visitation. The trial court dismissed the case based upon the Tennessee Supreme Court decision of Hawk v. Hawk, 855 S.W. 2d 573 (Tenn. 1993), reasoning that Hawk allows Piercey as the natural father, to deny England the right to see Skylar in the absence of a showing of substantial harm to the child. We affirm the decision of the trial court.

The sole issue presented by the appellant is: "Did the trial court err by awarding custody of the appellant's minor child to a third party?"