Tennessee Labor Decisions: 1901-1954

Any survey of a state\u27s decisional law in the labor field should include some reference to the jurisdiction of its courts over labor controversies. There would be no separate body of substantive labor law but for the intervention of Congress into employment relations affecting interstate commerce with comprehensive legislation designed to strengthen the worker in his collective capacity.\u27 The administration of this legislation by the National Labor Relations Board provides the great majority of case law governing the employment relationship. However, that residue which may be regulated exclusively or concurrently by the states is an important one, as evidenced by the number of states which have enacted their own labor relations acts

Constitutional Law -- 1962 Tennessee Survey

I. Delegation of Legislative Power to Metropolitan Charger Commission II. Right to Jury Trial: Special Findings Without General Verdict III. Due Process of Law: In Personam Jurisdiction Over Nonresident Individual IV. Due Process: Expulsion from Public University Without Hearing V. Equal Protection: Legislative Apportionment VI. Legislative Classification: Suspension of General Law for One County VII. Legislative Classification: Exemption from Carrier Regulation VIII. Equal Protection: Racial Discrimination IX. Standing to Challenge Constitutionalit

Constitutional Law -- 1961 Tennessee Survey

Although a relatively small number of cases turned upon constitutional questions during the survey period, some important decisions were handed down in this area. In five separate decisions legislation was declared unconstitutional. The impact of the constitutional decisions varies from the right to millions of dollars in school funds in Shelby County and the salary of the clerk of General Sessions Court of Clay County to approval of permanent tenure for all franchised automobile dealers in the state. The scope of governmental power over the administration of estates, condemnation of private property and the pursuit of private businesses brought forth important and far-reaching judicial pronouncements. Two cases are witness to the diminishing concern for protection of contractual rights as such from legislative infringement. Although most decisions dealt with constitutional limitations on legislative power over business, private property and governmental functions, in one decision the fundamental procedural rights of one accused of crime were upheld in order to free him

Real Property -- 1954 Tennessee Survey

Champertous Deeds and Adverse Possession: There were two cases, Robinson v. Harris, and State v. McNabb, which used the questionable champertous deed concept to reach what seem to be just results. The sixteenth century doctrine, enacted by statute in Tennessee, is that a deed of conveyance executed and delivered by a title owner while the land is held in the adverse possession of another is void. As pointed out in the 1953 Survey article, however, recent Tennessee cases have tended to ignore a line of nationally recognized Tennessee equity cases holding that the deed is not void; that the transfer is good as between the grantor and the grantee and all persons in privity with them; that the grantee is entitled to sue in the name of the grantor; and that if the grantor recovers possession from the adverse possessor, it inures to the benefit of the grantee