Author: Donald Vowell

In a decision handed down Dec. 20, 2018, the Tennessee Supreme Court adopted a new standard for determining the legality of exculpatory clauses. [Copeland v. HealthSouth/Methodist Rehabilitation Hospital, LP, 565 S.W.3d 260 (Tenn. 2018)] The Court ruled that the five factors that it had identified in Olson v. Molzen, 558 S.W.2d 429 (Tenn. 1977) were…

In a decision handed down Sept. 20, 2019, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s dismissed of a workers’ compensation case where the trial court had ruled that the statute of limitations had expired when the action was initiated. Williams v. SWS LLC d/b/a SecureWatch, 2019 WL 4740106. I handled the appeal at the…

In response to the lawsuit, TVA has announced that it is going to publish an environmental impact statement that will address changes to its vegetation management policy, including a “border to border” approach by which it would clear the entire right-of-way, including the historic buffer zones, which include vast numbers of 50-100-year-old trees. The Plaintiffs…

Yesterday we filed the Plaintiffs’ response to TVA’s confession of judgment and motion for judgment in favor of the Plaintiffs. 2017-03-23 Doc. 386 Plaintiffs’ Response to TVA’s Motion for Judgment in Plaintiffs’ Favor We, of course, agree that judgment should be entered in favor of the Plaintiffs, but we think that it should go further than what…

On March 3, Ed Marcum at the Knoxville News Sentinel did a front-page story on the case that was picked up by USA Today Network.

Interesting development yesterday. TVA, the defendant in the case, filed a “Confession of Judgment in Plaintiffs’ Favor” 2017-03-01 Doc. 377 Confession of Judgment in Plaintiffs’ Favor and a “Motion for Judgment in Plaintiffs’ Favor.” 2017-03-01 Doc. 378 Motion for Judgment in Plaintiffs’ Favor. They also filed a supporting brief. 2017-03-01 Doc. 379 Brief in Support of TVA’s Motion for Judgment…

There is an especially ugly dimension to the 15-foot rule that I would like to highlight, using Land Between the Lakes as an illustration. The destruction at Land Between the Lakes – cutting down every tree in the right-of-way, thousands of trees, including vast numbers of 40-100-year-old trees – was accomplished between February and July of 2015.…

It isn’t often that a United States District Court is reversed twice in the same case, but that is exactly what has happened. The Sixth Circuit again ruled in our favor, reversing the District Court. The issues were simple. After the first appeal, TVA claimed that it had suspended the 15-foot rule (clear-cutting its entire right-of-way)…

In this entry, I am writing about Sherwood v. TVA, an appeal that I am handling and that is pending right now in the Sixth Circuit. (See http://www.vowell-law.com/cases-on-appeal/) We are now in the second appeal in the case. The case has generated huge public interest. If you simply google “TVA tree cutting” you will find endless articles…