Lawson v. Hawkins Cnty.

Decision Date16 February 2023
Docket NumberE2020-01529-SC-R11-CV
PartiesPENNY LAWSON ET AL. v. HAWKINS COUNTY, TENNESSEE ET AL.
CourtSupreme Court of Tennessee

Session Heard May 25, 2022 at Cookeville [1]

Appeal by Permission from the Court of Appeals Circuit Court for Hawkins County No. 20-CV-37 Alex E. Pearson, Judge

Governmental entities generally are immune from suit. But the Governmental Tort Liability Act removes immunity for certain injuries caused by the negligent acts of an employee. In this case, we consider whether the term "negligent" in the Act's removal provision is limited to ordinary negligence or instead also encompasses gross negligence or recklessness. We hold that the Act removes immunity only for ordinary negligence. Because the Court of Appeals held to the contrary, we reverse the decision below and remand for further proceedings.

Tenn R. App. P. 11 Appeal by Permission; Judgment of the Court of Appeals Reversed; Case Remanded to the Court of Appeals

Russell W. Adkins, Kingsport, Tennessee, for the appellant Hawkins County Emergency Communications District Board.

Jeffrey M. Ward, Greeneville, Tennessee, for the appellants, Hawkins County Emergency Management Agency and Hawkins County, Tennessee.

Thomas J. Seeley, III, and Brett N. Mayes, Johnson City, Tennessee, for the appellees, Penny Lawson and Corey Lawson.

W. Bryan Smith, Memphis, Tennessee, John Vail, Washington, D.C., and Brian G. Brooks, Greenbrier, Arkansas, for the Amicus Curiae, Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association.

SARAH K. CAMPBELL, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ROGER A. PAGE, C.J., and SHARON G. LEE, JEFFREY S. BIVINS, and HOLLY KIRBY, JJ., joined.

OPINION

SARAH K. CAMPBELL, JUSTICE

I.
A.

In the early morning hours of February 22, 2019, a mudslide washed away part of Highway 70 on Clinch Mountain in Hawkins County, Tennessee.[2] A driver traveling north on Highway 70 called the Hawkins County Emergency Communications District ("ECD-911") at 12:58 a.m. to report that trees were blocking the road. The driver warned the 911 dispatcher that the highway was "cut off" and that a driver "going up the mountain" would "go off the road."

A Hawkins County deputy was dispatched to the scene about five minutes later and arrived before 1:13 a.m. Once at the scene, the deputy called ECD-911 and advised contacting the highway department to report a "big mudslide" and a leaning power pole. Although the dispatcher expressed concern that "one of these days . . . the whole mountain is just gon' come down," neither the dispatcher nor the deputy discussed closing the road. Instead, the dispatcher jokingly warned the deputy not to "let a rock fall on" him.

From around 1:21 a.m. to 1:30 a.m., the dispatcher placed calls to the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the director of the Hawkins County Emergency Management Agency ("EMA"), and Holston Electric Company.

Fifteen minutes later, at about 1:46 a.m., the deputy called ECD-911 again. This time, he reported that a car had hit a "rock embankment" and flipped down the mountain. The driver of that car was Steven Lawson. He was trapped inside the vehicle for eleven hours and died before help arrived.

Shortly after 1:46 a.m., the deputy told the dispatcher that a second vehicle had also rolled down the mountain. At that time, the deputy advised ECD-911 that he would ask neighboring Hancock County to "block the road off." The EMA director, whom the dispatcher had called earlier that morning, did not arrive at the scene until 3:07 a.m.

B.

Mr. Lawson's surviving spouse, Penny Lawson, on her own behalf and on behalf of Mr. Lawson's surviving child, Corey Lawson, brought this wrongful-death action against Hawkins County, ECD-911, and EMA in Hawkins County Circuit Court.[3] She alleged that "grossly negligent and reckless conduct" by these parties and their employees caused Mr. Lawson's death. All three defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings. ECD-911 argued that the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act, Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-201 (2012 &Supp. 2013) ("the Act" or "GTLA"), provided immunity from suit for claims based on recklessness. Hawkins County and EMA similarly argued that they were immune under the Act from claims based on non-negligent conduct. And all three defendants invoked the public-duty doctrine as an additional basis for immunity.

The trial court granted the motions and dismissed the case with prejudice. The court concluded that the Act gave defendants immunity from claims alleging recklessness and that the public-duty doctrine independently barred any claims based on negligence.

The Court of Appeals reversed. See Lawson v. Hawkins Cnty., No. E2020-01529-COA-R3-CV, 2021 WL 2949511 (Tenn. Ct. App. July 14, 2021), perm. app. granted (Tenn. Nov. 17, 2021). First, it held that the Act did not provide immunity for claims based on gross negligence or recklessness. The court reasoned that "negligence is a subspecies of" gross negligence and recklessness, and immunity from claims based on those "heightened forms of negligence" is therefore removed by Tennessee Code Annotated section 29-20-205, id. at *10, which lifts immunity for "injury proximately caused by a negligent act or omission of any employee within the scope of his employment," id. at *5 (quoting Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-205). Next, the court concluded that plaintiff's complaint alleged sufficient facts to state claims for recklessness and gross negligence. Id. at *11. Finally, it held that the public-duty doctrine did not bar plaintiff's suit because her allegations of "recklessness and gross negligence" were sufficient at the judgment-on-the-pleadings stage to trigger an exception to the doctrine for claims involving reckless misconduct. Id. at *12.

We granted defendants' application for permission to appeal. That application raised three issues. The first issue-and the only one we decide in this opinion-is whether the Court of Appeals erred by holding that Tennessee Code Annotated section 29-20-205 allows a plaintiff to sue a governmental entity for employee conduct that exceeds mere negligence. [4]

II.

We review de novo a motion for judgment on the pleadings. Mortg. Elec. Registration Sys., Inc. v. Ditto, 488 S.W.3d 265, 275 (Tenn. 2015); see also Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12.03. We accept all the non-moving party's factual allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. King, 354 S.W.3d at 709. A judgment on the pleadings for a defendant should be affirmed when the plaintiff "can prove no set of facts" in support of a claim entitling her to relief. Young v. Barrow, 130 S.W.3d 59, 63 (Tenn. 2003); see also McClenahan v. Cooley, 806 S.W.2d 767, 769 (Tenn. 1991) (stating that, under these circumstances, the issue is whether "the Plaintiff's complaint states a cause of action that a jury should have been entitled to decide").

We also review de novo questions of statutory interpretation like the one presented here. See State v. Marshall, 319 S.W.3d 558, 561 (Tenn. 2010). In interpreting statutory provisions, our role is to determine how a reasonable reader would have understood the text at the time it was enacted. State v. Deberry, 651 S.W.3d 918, 924 (Tenn. 2022). We undertake that task by considering the statutory text "in light of 'well-established canons of statutory construction.'" Id. (quoting State v. Sherman, 266 S.W.3d 395, 401 (Tenn. 2008)).

We give terms their natural and ordinary meaning in their statutory context unless the statute defines them. Mills v. Fulmarque, Inc., 360 S.W.3d 362, 368 (Tenn. 2012). When a statute uses a common-law term without defining it, we assume the enacting legislature adopted the term's common-law meaning "unless a different sense is apparent from the context, or from the general purpose of the statute." In re Estate of Starkey, 556 S.W.3d 811, 817 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2018) (quoting Lively v. Am. Zinc Co. of Tenn., 191 S.W. 975, 978 (Tenn. 1917)). Statutes "in derogation of the common law," moreover, must be "strictly construed and confined to their express terms." Moreno v. City of Clarksville, 479 S.W.3d 795, 809 (Tenn. 2015) (quoting Doyle v. Frost, 49 S.W.3d 853, 858 (Tenn. 2001)).

III.

The question before us is whether, as the Court of Appeals held, the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act lifts immunity for grossly negligent and reckless employee actions, in addition to merely negligent ones. We begin our analysis with some background about common-law governmental immunity and the Act. We then examine the relevant statutory text-Tennessee Code Annotated section 29-20-205-and conclude that it removes immunity only for ordinary negligence, not gross negligence or recklessness.

A.

At common law, the State and its political subdivisions were generally immune from suit under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Hughes v. Metro. Gov't of Nashville &Davidson Cnty., 340 S.W.3d 352, 360-61 (Tenn. 2011). This "doctrine has been a part of Tennessee jurisprudence for well over one hundred years." Id. at 360. It has its roots in feudal England, where "the King . . . was answerable to no court." Moreno, 479 S.W.3d at 809 (quoting Hawks v. City of Westmoreland, 960 S.W.2d 10, 14 (Tenn. 1997)).

Yet sovereign immunity does not bar suit when the government has "specifically consent[ed]" to be sued. Hughes, 340 S.W.3d at 360. Our Constitution empowers the legislature to "waive the protections of sovereign immunity," id., by providing that "[s]uits may be brought against the State in such manner and in such courts as the Legislature may by law direct," Tenn. Const. art. I, § 17.

In 1973, our General Assembly exercised this authority by passing the Act. Hughes, 340 S.W.3d at 360. The Act reiterated the general rule of sovereign immunity. See...

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