J. Ronnie Greer

This multidistrict class action was brought by independent dairy farmers against Dean Foods, DFA, NDH, and related entities and individuals, alleging violations of Sherman Act sections 1 and 2 through a conspiracy to monopolize and monopsonize the market for fluid Grade A milk in Federal Milk Market Orders 5 and 7, plus a state-law breach of contract claim against DFA. The opinion addresses multiple defense motions for summary judgment on the antitrust counts and the contract claim, following an earlier order announcing the court's rulings on several of those motions. The court reviews the factual background of milk marketing, processing, and cooperative arrangements in the Southeast, along with the evidence offered on market power, individual defendants' participation, and damages calculations that rely on recalculating federal blend prices. Its analysis applies the legal standards for conspiracy, attempt, and monopolization claims under the Sherman Act and assesses whether plaintiffs' proffered facts and inferences suffice to create triable issues.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves a hospital operator seeking additional Medicare reimbursements through Disproportionate Share Hospital adjustments for services provided to low-income patients under Tennessee's TennCare Medicaid expansion waiver program from 1995 to 2000. The plaintiff argued that these expansion population patient days should be included in the Medicaid fraction numerator for calculating the DSH adjustment. The court granted summary judgment to the defendant Secretary of Health and Human Services, dismissing the case. The core reasoning was that the Secretary's policy excluded such populations from the calculation, a policy ratified retroactively by the Debt Reduction Act of 2005, following precedents like Cookeville and St. Thomas that found the statute ambiguous and upheld the Secretary's interpretation.

healthcarefederal power

This case involves a dispute over life insurance proceeds from two ERISA-governed policies on the life of Herbert Scott, which were assigned to an irrevocable trust benefiting his sons from his first marriage but paid instead by MetLife to his second wife Helen Scott. The plaintiffs, Mark and Paul Scott, along with cross-claims by Regions Bank as trustee, alleged breaches of fiduciary duty under ERISA, fraud, conversion, and related torts against Helen Scott, Andrea LaFollette, and others. Defendants Helen Scott and Andrea LaFollette moved to dismiss the ERISA claim and related actions. The court denied the motion to dismiss, adopting the magistrate judge's report and recommendation after finding that the plaintiffs adequately alleged a valid assignment of benefits to the trust and that the plan terms supported their beneficiary status.

business & regulatorypropertytorts & liability

The case is a citizen suit by plaintiffs against Koch Foods and the City of Morristown alleging Clean Water Act violations from unauthorized sewage overflows, along with related state-law claims of nuisance, trespass, negligence, and inverse condemnation tied to wastewater discharges from an industrial user permit held by Koch's poultry processing plant. The district court addressed three summary judgment motions: plaintiffs' partial motion, Koch's partial motion, and the City's motion on all claims. It held that only one overflow event fell within the court's jurisdiction due to inadequate 60-day notice for others under the CWA, while evaluating permit compliance duties, overflow prohibitions, and evidentiary issues for the remaining claims; state tort claims were analyzed separately under Tennessee law standards for harm and intent. Core reasoning focused on the NPDES permit terms, federal pretreatment regulations, and procedural notice requirements limiting the scope of review.

environmenttorts & liabilityprocedure

This multidistrict antitrust litigation involves disputes over the sealing of various court filings related to class certification motions and other pretrial matters under a protective order that allows parties to designate confidential commercial information. The Magistrate Judge denied several motions to seal and ordered the unsealing of certain class certification documents, prompting objections from defendants, non-parties, and media outlets seeking intervention for access. The District Court vacated the Magistrate Judge's order as to five specific documents and re-referred those matters for further consideration, while also referring the media's unsealing motion to the Magistrate Judge. The core reasoning emphasizes that even agreed-upon protective orders cannot override the public's interest in access to judicial records, requiring case-specific analysis rather than blanket sealing based on party agreement or self-interest.

business & regulatoryprocedure

In this federal criminal case, the defendant was indicted on nine counts including possession with intent to distribute various controlled substances, possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking, unlawful possession of a machinegun, and related charges. After a jury trial, he was convicted on eight counts and acquitted on one. The defendant moved for judgment of acquittal under Rule 29 or a new trial under Rule 33, arguing insufficient evidence and lack of jury unanimity on the firearms counts. The court denied the motion, holding that the evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to convict when viewed in the light most favorable to the government and that no specific unanimity instruction was required because the firearms were seized as part of the same transaction from the defendant's residence.

criminal lawgunsprocedure

In United States v. Davis, the defendant, charged as a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, moved to suppress physical evidence including a gun, currency, surveillance equipment, and shell casings obtained from a warrantless search of his residence and seizure of his vehicle after a shooting incident at a nearby bar. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation in full and denied the motion. The court first held that the defendant's general objection to the report, which merely referred back to his original motion without specificity, waived any right to further review. On de novo consideration, the warrantless entry and search were justified by exigent circumstances due to the ongoing danger from an armed suspect, consent from the home's occupants, and the plain view doctrine for items like shell casings and the DVD recorder, while the vehicle was lawfully seized as an instrumentality of the crime containing evidence in plain view.

criminal lawprocedureguns

This case involves multiple declaratory judgment actions filed after a 2004 tractor-trailer collision on Interstate 81 in Tennessee that killed several people and injured others. The tort plaintiffs (families of the deceased and injured parties) sought a ruling that liability and umbrella insurance policies issued by U.S. Fire and North River to XTRA (the trailer owner and lessor) would cover claims against World Trucking (the lessee and operator), its driver Nazov, and related entities, treating them as additional insureds. The insurers and XTRA moved for judgment that the policies provided no such coverage or duty to indemnify. The court denied the tort plaintiffs' summary judgment motions and granted those of the insurers and XTRA, holding that the policy language did not extend coverage to the World Trucking parties as additional insureds and that the MCS-90 endorsement did not apply to require coverage when other insurance exceeding federal minimums was available.

torts & liabilitybusiness & regulatory

This patent infringement case involves AFG Industries' U.S. Patent No. 4,859,532 for low-emissivity coatings on glass windows, consisting of alternating layers of silver and metal oxides, against competing products made by Cardinal IG Company. After multiple appeals and remands from the Federal Circuit regarding the proper construction of the term 'layer,' the district court considered cross-motions for summary judgment on infringement. The court granted Cardinal's motion for summary judgment of non-infringement and denied AFG's motion, finding that Cardinal's accused products, which involve multiple sequential depositions of zinc oxide without intervening silver layers, fall outside the scope of the patent claims as construed by the Federal Circuit in its most recent decision. The court dismissed the case with prejudice, determining that the mandate left no genuine issue of material fact on infringement.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This multidistrict litigation involves present and former dairy farmers in the Southeast United States suing milk processors, cooperatives, and related entities under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act for an alleged conspiracy to fix, depress, and stabilize prices for Grade A milk, monopolize and monopsonize the market, foreclose access to bottling plants, and boycott independents through supply agreements and other conduct. The court addressed defendants' motions to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) in several of the consolidated cases, accepting the complaints' factual allegations as true for purposes of the ruling. The core reasoning focused on the application of the pleading standard from Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, concluding that the complaints provided sufficient notice of the antitrust claims without requiring exhaustive factual detail at the pre-discovery stage.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved a father who sued the Tennessee Department of Children's Services and its employees under federal civil rights statutes, claiming that his children were improperly removed from his custody based on false accusations of sexual abuse, that the agency delayed filing a custody petition in violation of state law, and that an investigator gave false testimony in court. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that the one-year statute of limitations barred the claims. The court reasoned that the plaintiff knew of his alleged injury at the time of the children's removal in November 2003, that there was no continuing violation that would delay the start of the limitations period, and that pending juvenile court proceedings did not toll the statute under the applicable precedents.

civil rightsfamily lawprocedure

Cincinnati Insurance and Progressive Hawaii Insurance sought declaratory judgments that Shaderick Boggs was not entitled to liability or uninsured motorist coverage under policies issued to his employer Fairway Ford and his grandmother Ruth Larkins. The policies provided coverage for employees acting within the course and scope of employment or for permissive users of covered vehicles, but excluded customers of an auto dealership and non-permissive users. Following a bench trial, the court found that Boggs, a Fairway Ford employee, took a dealership vehicle for a personal trip to Johnson City after work without permission, was not acting in the scope of employment, and was driving while intoxicated, leading to an accident. The court held that the presumptive use statute was rebutted by credible evidence and that Boggs did not qualify as an insured under any of the policies, granting declaratory relief to the insurers.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

This case involves the sentencing of a federal criminal defendant whose Presentence Investigation Report recommended a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, producing a range of 6-12 months. After the Supreme Court’s Blakely v. Washington decision, which invalidated judicial fact-finding that increased a sentence beyond the range supported by the jury verdict or admissions, the court examined whether the enhancement could be applied on the basis of findings made by the judge under a preponderance standard. The court held that Blakely applies to the federal Guidelines and bars the obstruction enhancement absent jury findings or a stipulation by the defendant, while rejecting the government’s claims that the defendant had admitted the facts and that the Guidelines remained fully valid. The reasoning emphasized that the Sixth Amendment requires any facts increasing the prescribed sentencing range to be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, though the Guidelines are not unconstitutional in their entirety.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involves a medical malpractice claim alleging that surgical needles were negligently left in the plaintiff's back during a December 1997 laminotomy and discectomy, with the foreign objects discovered only in January 2003 via imaging, leading to suit filed in December 2003. The defendants moved to dismiss on grounds that the action was barred by the three-year statute of repose in Tennessee Code Annotated Section 29-26-116(a)(3), arguing the foreign-object exception in subsection (a)(4) did not override it. The court denied the motions, interpreting the statute's plain language, original pre-codification wording, legislative history, and Tennessee Supreme Court precedents to hold that the foreign-object discovery rule applies to and extends beyond the repose period, allowing the claim to proceed.

torts & liabilityprocedurehealthcare