Volume 552 — South Western Reporter, Third Series

This case focuses on a service contract between R.B.E,PLLC (RBE) and Emergency Coverage Corporation pursuant to which Dr. Robert Bruce Evans and his company were to provide medical services in emergency rooms. The issue before us is whether the subject contract obligates Emergency Coverage to schedule Dr. Evans for a minimum number of hours. Dr. Evans and RBE filed a breach of contract action alleging that Emergency Coverage failed to pay the required minimum monthly amounts due under the contract. Emergency Coverage filed a motion for summary judgment asserting that the contract contains a minimum availability requirement for Dr. Evans but no obligation on the part of Emergency Coverage to use Dr. Evans for a guaranteed number of hours. The trial court granted the motion. The plaintiffs appeal. We affirm

The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County ("Metro") sued Teleport Communications America, LLC ("TCG") in the Chancery Court for Davidson County ("the Trial Court") to recover a fee for TCG's use of Metro's public rights-of-way. TCG contended the fee was unlawful and refused to pay. Metro and TCG previously had entered into a franchise agreement in keeping with an ordinance requiring telecommunications providers to pay 5% of their gross revenues to Metro. The Tennessee Court of Appeals later ruled in another case against an ordinance purporting to set a gross revenue franchise fee as being akin to a tax. The Trial Court cited this holding to invalidate the ordinance in the present case. Metro nevertheless pursued this action further, seeking to recover under a contractual theory. After extensive litigation, the Trial Court found that TCG owed damages to Metro in the amount of $550,000. The Trial Court reasoned that even though the underlying ordinance was invalid, the parties had entered into a franchise agreement and Metro was entitled to some measure of compensation. TCG appealed. We affirm the judgment of the Trial Court.

In this action, the Tennessee Department of Revenue ("the Department") sought to collect unpaid franchise and excise taxes owed by a dissolved corporation from its former shareholder. The trial court entered a judgment in favor of the shareholder, determining that the Department could not collect on the assessments originally issued in 2008 and 2009 due to the six-year statute of limitations contained in Tennessee Code Annotated § 67-1-1429. The trial court also determined that the shareholder was not a "person" or "taxpayer" subject to franchise and excise taxes because those taxes are assessed solely against entities such as corporations. Finally, the trial court determined that the shareholder had no personal liability for the taxes owed by the dissolved corporation absent proof of a fraudulent conveyance. The Department timely appealed. Determining that the trial court erred in its construction and application of the applicable tax statutes, we reverse the judgment in favor of the shareholder.

This appeal arises out of the appellant prisoner's petition for a writ of error coram nobis. The petitioner, convicted of aggravated rape in 1998, asserted in his petition that the State violated his constitutional right to due process of law by withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense in his trial, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). Without asking the State for a response to the coram nobis petition and without an evidentiary hearing, the trial court dismissed the petition in part because it was filed long after expiration of the one-year statute of limitations and demonstrated no reason for equitable tolling of the statute of limitations. The Court of Criminal Appeals declined to consider the statute of limitations because the State had not pled it as an affirmative defense, but affirmed the dismissal because the petition did not present newly discovered evidence warranting coram nobis relief. On appeal, we initially clarify that an error coram nobis proceeding is not the appropriate procedural vehicle for obtaining relief on the ground that the petitioner suffered a constitutional due process violation under Brady. As to the petition, we hold that (1) coram nobis petitions with insufficient allegations are susceptible to summary dismissal on the face of the petition, without discovery or an evidentiary hearing (2) Tenn. R. Civ. P 8.03 does not apply to a petition for writ of error coram nobis (3) timeliness under the statute of limitations is an "essential element" of a coram nobis claim that must be demonstrated on the face of the petition and (4) if the petitioner seeks equitable tolling of the statute of limitations, the facts supporting the tolling request must likewise appear on the face of the petition. Applying this standard, we find no error in the trial court's decision to dismiss the coram nobis petition and affirm.

We granted permission to appeal in this case in order to determine whether the exclusionary rule should be applied to a blood sample drawn from an individual pursuant to a search warrant because the arresting officer failed to leave a copy of the warrant with the individual. The Defendant, Angela Faye Daniel, was arrested for driving under the influence. The arresting officer obtained a search warrant and transported the Defendant to a medical facility for a blood draw. The officer failed to give the Defendant a copy of the search warrant. The trial court granted the Defendant's motion to suppress the evidence obtained pursuant to the warrant on the basis of the exclusionary rule set forth in Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 41. The State sought and was granted an interlocutory appeal, and the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. We hold that, under the facts and circumstances of this case, a good-faith exception should be applied to Rule 41's exclusionary rule. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment below and remand this matter to the trial court for further proceedings.

A jury convicted the Defendant, Lindsey Brooke Lowe, of two counts of first degree premeditated murder, two counts of first degree felony murder, and two counts of aggravated child abuse, all arising from the Defendant's smothering to death her newborn infant twins. The trial court merged the alternative counts of first degree murder as to each victim and sentenced the Defendant to two terms of life imprisonment for the murders and two terms of twenty-five years for the aggravated child abuse convictions, all to be served concurrently. On direct appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the Defendant's convictions and sentences. We granted the Defendant's application for permission to appeal in order to address the following issues raised by the Defendant: (1) whether the Exclusionary Rule Reform Act, codified at Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-6-108 ("the ERRA"), violates the Tennessee Constitution's Separation of Powers Clause (2) whether the trial court erred by relying on the ERRA to deny the Defendant's motion to suppress the evidence gathered at her house pursuant to a search warrant that did not conform with the technical requirements of Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 (3) whether the trial court erred by ruling inadmissible certain expert testimony proffered by the defense during the hearing on the Defendant's motion to suppress her statement to Detective Malach (4) whether the trial court erred by denying the Defendant's motion to suppress her statement and (5) whether the trial court erred by prohibiting the Defendant's expert witness from testifying at trial about the reliability of her responses to Detective Malach's questions. We also directed the parties to address the additional issue of whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule adopted by this Court in State v. Davidson, 509 S.W.3d 156, 185-86 (Tenn. 2016), should be expanded to include clerical errors made by the issuing magistrate when the search in question is otherwise constitutional. We hold that the ERRA represents an impermissible encroachment by the legislature upon this Court's authority and responsibility to adopt exceptions to the exclusionary rule and, therefore, violates the Tennessee Constitution's Separation of Powers Clause that the exclusionary rule should not be applied to suppress evidence gathered pursuant to a search warrant that is technically defective under Rule 41 due to the magistrate's simple and good-faith clerical error of incorrectly indicating on one of three copies of the warrant that it was issued at 11:35 "PM" while correctly indicating on the other two copies that it was issued at 11:35 "AM" that the trial court did not err in ruling inadmissible the defense expert's testimony at the hearing on the Defendant's motion to suppress her statement, although the trial court should have allowed defense counsel to proffer the testimony in a question and answer format that the trial court did not err in ruling that the Defendant was not in custody at the time she made her statement to Detective Malach, rendering moot any claimed defects in the administration of Miranda warnings prior to her statement being made and that the trial court did not commit reversible error in ruling inadmissible at trial certain proffered expert testimony by a defense witness. In sum, we affirm the Defendant's convictions and sentences.