The Tennessee Bar Association’s online renewal for 2025-2026 is now open! Renew your membership to continue your access to TBA Today, the Tennessee Bar Journal, three free hours of CLE, resources for starting and building a new firm, and free legal research through vLex Fastcase, as well as savings on a range of products and services. Be sure to check out TBA's Preventing Legal Malpractice providers and Law Firm in a Box, and watch for more information this fall about TBA’s Group Health Insurance enrollment. Attorneys not participating in the TBA's firm billing program can log in and renew through their MyTBA dashboard. The TBA membership team will be working with firm administrators for those participating in firm billing so check with your firm administrator if you have questions about that process.

The next legal clinic for veterans in Knoxville will take place April 9 from 12-2 p.m. EST at the Knox County Public Defender's Community Law Office, 1101 Liberty St., Knoxville 37919. This is a general advice clinic sponsored by the Knoxville Bar Association, KBA Barristers, Legal Aid of East Tennessee, Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law, the University of Tennessee College of Law, the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office and the local Veterans Affairs office. Attorneys and law students are needed. Sign up to volunteer here.

The Tennessee Supreme Court on March 26 directed the Board of Board of Professional Responsibility to respond to a filing by California lawyer Dale Gerard Nowicki that discipline imposed against him by the California Supreme Court should not be imposed in Tennessee. The court directed Nowicki to explain why reciprocal discipline should not imposed. He responded on March 10, arguing that identical discipline should not be imposed in Tennessee. The court directed the BPR to file its response by April 23.

THAPAR, Circuit Judge. How does a case about a dog bite end up in federal court? Diversity jurisdiction. But just because a plaintiff is entitled to be in federal court, that doesn’t mean any federal court will do. Rather, the plaintiff must pick the right federal court. Here, the district court found that the plaintiff picked the wrong one. We affirm.

SUTTON, Chief Judge. A certified class of Ohio landowners alleges that a Colorado- based mining company underpaid them $10 million in natural gas royalties. The district court agreed, and so do we. We affirm.

JOHN K. BUSH, Circuit Judge. Marina Debity brought claims against the Monroe County Board of Education for sex discrimination and retaliation in violation of the Equal Pay Act (EPA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), and the Tennessee Human Rights Act (THRA). Debity alleges that the Board offered her a lower salary than it had paid Matthew Ancel for the same job two years earlier. According to Debity, when she asked for the same salary as Ancel, the Board withdrew her job offer in retaliation. A jury found that the Board did offer Debity less money for equal work, but for legitimate reasons having nothing to do with her sex. It also found that the Board did not retaliate against Debity. Based on these findings, she had no claim to damages. Nevertheless, the jury awarded Debity slightly more than $195,000, likely because of poor instructions on the verdict form. The magistrate judge, presiding with the parties’ consent, noticed the inconsistency between the damage award and the jury’s finding of no liability but nonetheless dismissed the jurors without allowing the parties to object. On appeal, we face two questions. The first is what type of verdicts the jury returned. The second is whether the Board’s affirmative defense, that it offered Debity less money for a reason other than sex, survives a motion for judgment as a matter of law. We conclude that the magistrate judge presented the jury with a general verdict on the retaliation claims and a general verdict with interrogatories on the discrimination claims. We also conclude that the jury’s answers to the interrogatories on the discrimination claims are consistent with each other but inconsistent with the general verdict. Though we reject the magistrate judge’s classification of these verdicts as special verdicts, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure still permit the magistrate judge’s chosen course (entering judgment based on the interrogatories) under the correct classification, so we affirm it.

MATHIS, Circuit Judge. Congress instructed the Sentencing Commission to enhance the Sentencing Guidelines range for individuals convicted of a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense after having been previously convicted of two or more such offenses. 28 U.S.C. § 994(h). The Commission created the career-offender guideline in response to Congress’s directive. We must decide if the district court properly increased Tyren Cervenak’s Guidelines range under the career-offender guideline. Specifically, we consider whether Cervenak’s prior convictions for robbery under Ohio law are “crimes of violence,” as the Guidelines use that term. Because we hold that they are not, we vacate Cervenak’s sentence.

The Defendant, Michael Stacey James May, was convicted by a Johnson County Criminal Court jury of first degree felony murder, aggravated kidnapping, conspiracy to commit especially aggravated kidnapping, extortion, and conspiracy to commit extortion. The trial court imposed an effective sentence of life plus twenty years. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction. However, because the appeal is untimely and the interest of justice does not require waiver of the timely filing of the notice of appeal, we dismiss the appeal.

Petitioner, Keyshawn D. Fouse, was convicted of attempted first degree murder, aggravated assault, and employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, for which he received an effective sentence of twenty-six years’ confinement. This court affirmed Petitioner’s convictions and sentences on direct appeal. Petitioner then filed a petition for post-conviction relief in which he claimed ineffective assistance of counsel, and the post-conviction court denied the petition after a hearing. On appeal, Petitioner asserts that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to properly advise him of the importance of his testimony at trial. After review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

A Davidson County jury convicted the Defendant, Asben K. Chapman, of one count of first degree premeditated murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of attempted first degree murder, and two counts of employing a firearm during a dangerous felony offense. The trial court imposed an effective sentence of life plus thirty-one years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the Defendant contends: (1) the trial court improperly admitted pretrial statements; (2) the evidence was insufficient to establish premeditation for his first degree murder conviction and attempted first degree murder convictions; and (3) the trial court improperly ordered consecutive sentences. After review, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.