APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

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.

The suit presently on appeal originated by Steven R. Linn and his son, David L. Linn, and their wives filing suit against Vera E. Elrod and Olin D. Elrod, seeking a mandatory injunction requiring removal of a fence erected upon property the Linns claim to be owned by them. Upon the filing of an answer and the counter-complaint by the Elrods and the adding of a third-party, Anna Lee Leinart Gross, as a Defendant, it resolved itself into a property line dispute.