Tenn. Code Ann. § 20-13-102

Actions against state prohibited

Applied in 21 court decisions — leading case Richard Berndt v. State of Tennessee and Lakeshore Mental Health Institute (1986)

Most recently applied in Gerald Morgan v. Bd. of Prof. Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tenn. (March 2023)

Acts 1873, ch. 13, § 2; Shan., § 4507; Code 1932, § 8634; Acts 1977, ch. 170, § 1; T.C.A

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) No court in the state shall have any power, jurisdiction or authority to entertain any suit against the state, or against any officer of the state acting by authority of the state, with a view to reach the state, its treasury, funds or property, and all such suits shall be dismissed as to the state or such officers, on motion, plea or demurrer of the law officer of the state, or counsel employed for the state.

(2) No statutory or other provision authorizing the University of Tennessee and its board of trustees to sue and be sued shall constitute a waiver of sovereign immunity.

Current official text: Tennessee Code (LexisNexis). Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Tennessee statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.