Tennessee Legislature Passes Online Notary Public Act
On April 18, 2018, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill authorizing electronic acknowledgments and online notarizations for certain transactions. This so-called web cam notarization is currently only available in four states. Tennessee will join those stated on July 1, 2019 when the legislation becomes effective. There are a number of other states with pending bills similar to Tennessee’s Online Notary Public Act (“Act”). Under current law in Tennessee, a person must physically appear before a notary to have his or her signature notarized. After the Online Notary Public Act takes effect, a person may “appear” by an interactive two-way audio and
“I Want to Enlighten You a Leetle”
The title to this article is the opening sentence in a letter Mark Twain wrote to the Keokuk Post in 1856 under the pseudonym Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass. Twain, in that same letter, described a scene in a Shakespeare play by writing “[t]hey all laid their heads together like as many lawyers when they are gettin' ready to prove that a man's heirs ain't got any right to his property.” Popular culture abounds with lawyer jokes – some of them good. But good lawyers, contradictory to popular belief, are worth their cost. A recent Tennessee Court of Appeals case illustrates just
It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Hurt
“Everyone has a duty to exercise ordinary and reasonable care in light of the surrounding circumstances,” including a group of friends engaging in an athletic activity. White v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson Cnty., 860 S.W.2d 49, 51 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1993). The Tennessee Court of Appeals released a recent opinion remanding a case back to the trial court because the trial court ruled that a cyclist assumed the risk of paceline riding “where it is certainly foreseeable that an accident could occur. . . .” Crisp v. Nelms, No. E2017-01044-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. 2018). In Crisp, five cyclists were