Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts

The plaintiff, an employee of a real estate and auction company, sustained serious injuries while assisting the managing broker of the company to move cattle panels on the managing broker’s personal farm.The plaintiff filed a claim for workers’compensation benefits against the real estate and auction company and its insurer. The plaintiff also filed a common law tort action against the managing broker and the broker’s son, who was called to assist after the injury occurred. The workers’ compensation action was settled. Pursuant to the court approved settlement agreement, the employee released and discharged the real estate and auction company and its insurer, as well as their subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, employees, agents and representatives “from any and all further liability and indemnity, under the terms and provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Law of the State of Tennessee, at common law or otherwise . . . .” After the workers’ compensation action was settled, the managing broker and his son filed a joint motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff’s tort claims on the grounds they were afforded immunity under the Workers’ Compensation Law, specifically Tennessee Code Annotated § 50-6-108(a), and that the plaintiff gave the defendants a full release in the workers’ compensation settlement agreement. The trial court summarily dismissed all claims against the defendants on both the statutory ground and the release. We affirm the dismissal of the tort claims against the employer’s managing broker. However, we reverse the dismissal of the claims against the managing broker’s son because the son was not an affiliate,officer,director,employee,agent or representative of the employer when the plaintiff sustained his injuries and he does not come within the terms of the release. Therefore, the plaintiff’s claims against the son are reinstated and remanded for further proceedings.

In this action to terminate the parental rights of both parents to their three minor children, the trial court found that the petitioners, the paternal grandmother and her husband, had proven the grounds of persistence of conditions, abandonment for failure to visit, and abandonment for failure to support the children, and that termination of both parents’ rights was in the children’s best interests. Mother appealed the termination of her parental rights; Father did not. Finding no error, we affirm.

This appeal involves the termination of parental rights and adoption. In August 2007, the Department of Children’s Services visited the home of the respondent mother and her 11month-old son based on a referral. After it determined that the mother’s husband had engaged in domestic abuse and that the mother was using illegal drugs, the Department told the mother that her son would be taken into state custody if she did not immediately find someone to care for him. The mother’s neighbor, the petitioner in this case, agreed to take temporary custody of the mother’s son. Even though the child was not actually taken into state custody, but was “safety-placed” with the petitioner neighbor, the Department developed a Family Services Plan, assigning certain tasks to the mother for her to regain custody of her son. After about ten months, before the mother had completed the assigned tasks, the Department closed the mother’s case and ceased any involvement with the child or the mother. The child remained in the custody of the petitioner neighbor and her husband, and the mother visited the child each week. The mother brought the child items such as diapers, milk, and food, but made no monetary payments to the neighbor. When the child was three years old, the petitioner and her husband filed this petition to terminate the mother’s parental rights and adopt the child. After a trial, the trial court terminated the mother’s parental rights based on failure to comply with the FamilyServices Plan and failure to support. The mother now appeals. We reverse the termination of the mother’s parental rights.
 

The trial court dismissed this case on the ground that the plaintiff credit card company failed to timely respond to discovery requests. We reverse, concluding that the trial court erred in dismissing the case without sufficient evidence of contumacious conduct on behalf of the plaintiff.

After a 2006 divorce, both parties petitioned the trial court in 2009 for a modification of the parenting plan and to hold the other parent in contempt. The trial court slightly modified the parent visitation schedule and held the father in contempt for violating the parenting plan’s provisions on spring break and medical expense reimbursement. On appeal the father asserts that the trial court erred in the contempt rulings, in not giving him primary custody or substantially equal parenting time and in not holding the mother in contempt. We reverse the father’s contempt for his actions during spring break. In all other respects we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

This is an appeal by Elvira N. M. from an order terminating her parental rights to her two minor children, Estefani Y. M. and Vanessa N. M. The order terminating the appellant’s parental rights was entered on October 15, 2012. The Notice of Appeal was not filed until November 15, 2012, more than (30) days from the date of entry of the October 15, 2012 order. Because the Notice of Appeal was not timely filed, we have no jurisdiction to consider this appeal.

This is an appeal from an order transferring the action below from the Circuit Court for Roane County to the Chancery Court for Roane County. Because the order appealed from does not resolve any issues raised in the proceedings but merely transfers those claims to another court, we dismiss this appeal for lack of a final judgment.

A teacher at Overton High School, who was also a sports coach, challenged the nonrenewal of his coaching contract, claiming the nonrenewal was not in accordance with Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-510. The trial court found the contract was not renewed because the teacher refused to follow the guidelines for handling money collected at the sporting events and that the former coach had not met his burden of proof under the statute. We conclude the evidence supports the trial court’s ruling and affirm the judgment.
 

Mother and Stepfather filed a petition to terminate Father’s rights to his fourteen year old son to allow Stepfather to adopt the child. Mother and Stepfather asserted Father abandoned the child because his visits constitute nothing more than “token visitation.” Father lives in Massachusetts and usually visits the child once a year. Father’s most recent visit was one month before Mother and Stepfather filed their petition. The trial court denied the petition and we affirm the trial court’s judgment. Father presented evidence that he has tried to communicate and visit more with the child but that Mother has thwarted his efforts. Based on the particular facts of this case we conclude Father has not abandoned the child by failing to visit, or engaging in “token visitation” as set forth in Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-1-102, in the four months preceding the filing of the petition for termination.
 

Mother’s parental rights to two children were terminated on the grounds of abandonment by failure to support, substantial non-compliance with permanency plans, and persistence of conditions. The court also concluded that termination of Mother’s rights was in the best interests of the children. Mother appeals, contending that the evidence does not support the statutory grounds or that termination is in the children’s best interest and asserting that the Departmentof Children’s Services did not make reasonable efforts to reunify the family. We affirm the judgment terminating her rights.

Plaintiffs appeal the dismissal of their action for breach of contract, breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty, violation of the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act, and fraudulent misrepresentation arising out of the purchase of a recreational vehicle from Defendant, a business located and incorporated in the State of Florida. The trial court dismissed the action on the finding that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over Defendant because the corporation had not purposely availed itself of doing business in Tennessee and did not have sufficient contacts with Tennessee. The trial court further found that the choice of venue clause in the purchase contract between the parties was enforceable and, thus, the proper venue for the action was Florida. Plaintiffs appealed arguing that the court may exercise personal jurisdiction over Defendant. We affirm the finding that the trial court lacks personal jurisdiction over Defendant as Plaintiffs did not establish the prima facie case of jurisdiction.

The trial court granted the parties a divorce, named the father as the primary residential parent of their one and a half year old child, and permitted him to return with the child to North Carolina, where both parties originally came from and where their families still resided. The mother was granted three days of supervised visitation with the child each month in North Carolina. She argues on appeal that the trial court’s decision was flawed because the court failed to analyze the best interest of the child in accordance with the appropriate statutory factors. She also argues that by allowing Father to take the child to North Carolina and limiting her visitation so severely, the court deprived her of her right to maintain the parent-child relationship, and that its actions were inconsistent with case law stating that “the least restrictive visitation limits are favored in order to encourage the parent-child relationship.” We affirm the trialcourt’s designation of the father as the primary residential parent, and its finding that it was in the child’s best interest that the father be permitted to relocate with the child. We also affirm the parenting plan.