Tennessee Supreme Court Modifies Summary Judgment Standard

Recently the Tennessee Supreme Court modified the summary judgment standard in state courts in the state of Tennessee. The Tennessee Supreme Court returned the state's summary judgment standard to be consistent with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by overturning the seven-year old precedent in Hannan v. Alltel Publishing Co. that it said "frustrate[d] the purposes for which summary judgment was intended."

In Rye v. Women's Care Center of Memphis, the court ruled that Rule 56 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure, which governs summary judgment proceedings, should be interpreted like the nearly identical Federal Rule 56 after which it was modelled.

In general, summary judgment is a weapon used by a litigant, usually a defendant, to force the opposing party to show its proverbial poker hand. Under the federal standard, the moving party either 1) provides affidavits or evidence collected through discovery to show that no genuine issue of material fact