Two major data privacy class actions are unfolding in Middle Tennessee courts, according to the Nashville Banner. In Davidson County, three anonymous plaintiffs sued CareNow (owned by HCA Healthcare) on June 11, alleging the urgent care chain secretly shared patients' scheduling and health data with Google and marketing firms via tracking cookies, allegedly forcing patients through repeated CAPTCHAs until they accepted cookies enabling the data sharing. HCA says it will "defend aggressively" against the claims. Separately, 12 lawsuits filed throughout June in federal court target Franklin-based XSolis, an AI health care analytics company, after a January hack exposed patients’ personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) — including Social Security numbers — for roughly 1.4 million patients nationwide. Plaintiffs allege the company failed to properly encrypt sensitive data.

Two programs from the 2025 TBA Convention will replay as webcasts as part of TBA's Christmas in July CLE series. On July 9, tune in for Trailblazing Women, a panel featuring retired Court of Appeals Judge Martha Craig "Cissy" Daughtrey, Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Camille McMullen and U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger, moderated by Margaret Behm of Dodson Parker Behm & Capparella. On July 10, Russell Fowler of Legal Aid of East Tennessee presents a countdown of the landmark cases that shaped Tennessee’s legal landscape with Famous Tennessee Trials. Each webcast will air at noon CDT, offering 0.75 hours of general credit.

Two Tennessee National Guard members fatally shot 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson early on July 5 in Memphis after police and guard soldiers pursued him following a shots-fired call. Officials say Johnson turned toward the guard members with a handgun before they fired. According to the Commercial Appeal, Johnson, who had no criminal record in Shelby County but had prior misdemeanor traffic charges and a failure-to-appear warrant in Middle Tennessee, was pronounced dead at the scene. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy has asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to investigate the shooting. The guard has been in Memphis since October 2025 as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force, a deployment already facing a lawsuit from Democratic officials after a temporary injunction against it was overturned on appeal. This marks the fourth shooting and third fatal shooting involving a task force member, including the fatal shooting of Darrin Pigram and Jonah Neal in May.

Former Tennessee Democratic Party Treasurer Carol Abney has sued the party and its chair, Rachel Campbell, alleging her March 2026 removal was falsely justified by claims she lived in Kentucky while in actuality it was retaliation for her efforts to impose stricter financial controls after a 2022 FEC audit found spending violations. The lawsuit claims Campbell resisted her attempts to collect receipts documenting proper fund use and to hire an auditor as required by party bylaws. She also says that the party accused her of "voter fraud" during a removal process where she was not allowed to call witnesses. Abney, who remains registered to vote in Tennessee and is still on the 2026 ballot for a party executive committee seat, is seeking $1 million in damages. Tennessee Lookout has the story.

A new state-controlled board of the Metro Nashville Airport Authority held its first meeting on July 6, elected Jimmy Granbery as chair and Deputy Gov. Stuart McWhorter as vice chair, and voted 5-0 to withdraw from a lawsuit against the state that the previous Metro-appointed board had joined. The board's makeup changed after a new state law took effect July 1, giving Republican legislative leaders six of nine board seats, marking the second time in three years the state has moved to seize control of the airport authority. The Nashville Business Journal reports that Metro Law Director Wally Dietz argued the new board isn't legitimately appointed and that its actions carry no legal effect, while the underlying lawsuit — which cites a federal law governing disputed airport sponsorship changes — remains pending. An initial hearing in that matter is set for Aug. 5 in federal court. Despite the unresolved litigation, the new board plans to press ahead with governance, including committee meetings and votes scheduled for July 8. A similar dispute also is playing out in the Chattanooga airport board's federal appeals case.

Robert DeBusk, a former Knox County assistant district attorney (ADA) who resigned in 2024 after being caught lying under oath, has been shifted from a full-time deputy clerk position paying $100,000 a year to a part-time, seasonal role paying $39,000 for 15 hours weekly. The change was effective July 1. According to Knox News, Criminal Court Clerk Mike Hammond, who hired DeBusk in June 2025, said the change came after DeBusk expressed interest in returning to courtroom work. DeBusk is barred from practicing in Hammond's jurisdiction. His resignation from the DA's office stemmed from testimony in a hearing where he initially denied, then admitted, that he improperly accessed privileged attorney-client communications between inmates and defense attorneys. The revelations led to his suspension, resignation and an April 2026 censure by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 29 ruled 6-3 that law enforcement's use of geofence warrants to access cell phone location history constitutes a Fourth Amendment search requiring a warrant, though the majority opinion by Justice Elena Kagan declined to define when such warrants are constitutionally valid. Bloomberg Law reports that the case arose from Okello Chatrie's conviction in a 2019 Virginia credit union robbery, where a multi-step geofence warrant to Google ultimately identified him as a suspect. Rather than resolving the case, the court sent it back to the 4th Circuit to determine whether the warrant satisfied the Constitution's particularity and probable cause requirements. Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett dissented while Neil Gorsuch concurred only in the judgment. The ruling builds on the court's 2018 Carpenter decision and arrives as Google says it can no longer comply with such warrants, having migrated location history data off its servers last year. Read the ruling.

After retiring from the bench in 2023, former Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon Lee visited Tyshon Booker, a state prisoner convicted of first-degree murder committed when he was 16, to encourage him toward rehabilitation ahead of a future parole hearing. Lee, who spoke about the experience recently, wrote the 2022 Tennessee Supreme Court opinion that found mandatory life sentences for juvenile homicide offenders unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment and instead entitled Booker to an individualized parole hearing after 25 to 36 years. Knox News reports that students at the Advocacy Clinic, part of the University of Tennessee Winston College of Law Legal Clinic, determined in 2025 that more than 100 young people in Tennessee have been sentenced to terms of life imprisonment and thus entitled to earlier parole release hearings.

The Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference (TNDAGC) held its annual meeting in Memphis last month and elected new executive committee officers. They are President Mark Davidson, district attorney (DA) for the 25th Judicial District, which serves Fayette, Hardeman, Lauderdale, McNairy and Tipton counties; Vice President Ray Crouch, DA for the 23rd Judicial District, made up of Cheatham, Dickson, Houston, Humphreys and Stewart counties; and Secretary Dan Armstrong, 3rd Judicial District DA, which serves Greene, Hamblen, Hancock and Hawkins counties. Other members of the executive committee are Blount County DA Ryan Desmond; 24th Judicial District DA Neil Thompson, serving Benton, Carroll, Decatur, Hardin and Henry counties; DA Brent Cooper, serving the 22nd Judicial District counties of Giles, Lawrence, Maury and Wayne; Metro Nashville DA Glenn Funk; 8th Judicial District DA Jared Effler, serving Campbell, Claiborne, Fentress, Scott and Union counties; Stephen Hatchett, 10th Judicial District DA serving Bradley, McMinn, Monroe and Polk counties; and 27th Judicial District DA Colin Johnson, serving Obion and Weakley counties.

Former state Sen. James Dolan "Jim" Tracy died July 3 at age 69. He represented Tennessee's 14th Senate District, which includes Bedford and Moore counties and part of Rutherford County. During his time in the General Assembly, Tracy served as assistant floor leader of the Senate Republican Caucus, chaired the Senate Transportation Committee and served on the Senate Education Committee and the Senate State and Local Government Committee. Among the legislation Tracy sponsored was Tennessee's statewide smoking ban for most indoor public places and workplaces, which took effect in 2007. He retired from the Tennessee Senate in 2020 after being appointed by President Donald Trump as Tennessee state director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development office. Services will be held July 7 at North Boulevard Church of Christ, 1112 N. Rutherford Blvd., Murfreesboro 37130, with visitation beginning at 10 a.m. CDT followed by a funeral service at 1 p.m. Fox17 News has remembrances on Tracy's life and career.