Eddison Williams v. State of Tennessee

04/23/2018
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE
AT KNOXVILLE
November 14, 2017 Session

EDDISON WILLIAMS v. STATE OF TENNESSEE

Appeal from the Tennessee Claims Commission
No. K20141365 William O. Shults, Commissioner

No. E2017-00626-COA-R3-CV

This appeal involves the jurisdiction of the Tennessee Claims Commission to hear an
action brought by a former medical student, Eddison Williams (claimant), against the
Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University. Claimant alleged that
the State, acting through medical school officials, “negligently breached its contractual
duties regarding following policies before dismissing [him] on disciplinary grounds.” He
argued his action stated a claim for “negligent care, custody and control of persons,” a
category of claims the Commission has jurisdiction to hear under Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-8-
307(a)(1)(E) (Supp.2017). The Commission concluded it had no subject matter
jurisdiction. We affirm.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Claims Commission
Affirmed; Case Remanded

CHARLES D. SUSANO, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which D. MICHAEL
SWINEY, C.J., and THOMAS R. FRIERSON, II, J., joined.

George T. Underwood, Jr., Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Eddison Williams.

Herbert H. Slatery, III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée S. Blumstein, Solicitor
General; and Melissa Brodhag, Senior Counsel, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee,
State of Tennessee.

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 I.

Claimant was dismissed from the medical school on January 16, 2014. On August
7, 2014, he filed his complaint against the State, ETSU, and Dr. Kenneth E. Olive,
Executive Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs at the medical school, in his
official capacity. Claimant alleged that his “permanent dismissal was negligently done
by Defendant without a hearing or other university procedures required by the catalog
and student hand book.” Specifically, the complaint alleges:

The Defendants failed to comply with the due process
procedures adopted by E.T.S.U. in its James H. Quillen
College of Medicine Student Handbook Student’s BILL OF
RIGHTS and the due process requirements of the Tennessee
Board of Regents and such failures constituted negligence
and breach of contract.

(Capitalization in original.)

After extensive discovery, the Commission granted the State’s motion to dismiss
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Commission ruled that claimant’s action did
not fall within the ambit of Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-8-307(a)(1)(E), which provides
jurisdiction for monetary claims against the State based on the acts or omissions of its
employees falling within the category of “negligent care, custody and control of persons.”
Claimant timely filed a notice of appeal.

II.

The issue presented is whether the Tennessee Claims Commission correctly
determined it did not have subject matter jurisdiction because the complaint did not state
a claim for the negligent care, custody or control of persons, based on the actions or
omissions of a state employee, as provided by Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-8-307(a)(1)(E).

III.

“The jurisdiction of the Claims Commission is a question of law that we review de
novo with no presumption of correctness.” Mullins v. State, 320 S.W.3d 273, 278 (Tenn.
2010) (citing Stewart v. State, 33 S.W.3d 785, 791 (Tenn. 2000)). The Commission
made numerous findings of fact in its judgment. Neither party challenges any of these
findings as erroneous or unsupported by the preponderance of the evidence. In his brief,
claimant cites and relies upon many of these facts to support his argument that state
officials negligently and unfairly dismissed him from medical school. However, the facts
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presented are largely irrelevant to the analysis required here, except to the extent that they
illumine whether the claim can be construed as falling within the statutory category of
“negligent care, custody and control of persons.”

IV.

This action involves the question of whether the State has removed its sovereign
immunity from such a lawsuit. As this Court observed in a case addressing this same
question,

the State retains immunity for all claims except those claims
enumerated in Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-8-307(a). Stated another
way, “the Claims Commission lacks subject matter
jurisdiction and has no authority to hear any claims that fall
outside the categories enumerated in section 9-8-307(a).”
Mullins, 320 S.W.3d at 279.

In re Demitrus M.T., No. E2009-02349-COA-R3-CV, 2011 WL 863288, at *14 (Tenn.
Ct. App., filed Mar. 14, 2011); see also Hale v. State, No. E2016-00249-COA-R3-CV,
2017 WL 445147, at *5 (Tenn. Ct. App., filed Feb. 2, 2017). Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-8-307
provides as follows:

(a)(1) The commission or each commissioner sitting
individually has exclusive jurisdiction to determine all
monetary claims against the state based on the acts or
omissions of “state employees,” as defined in § 8-42-101,
falling within one (1) or more of the following categories:

* * *

(E) Negligent care, custody and control of persons[.]

(Emphasis added.) In Mullins, the Supreme Court, construing subsection (E), provided
the following guidance regarding the interpretation of this statute:

The legislature made its intent clear in the 1985 amendment
to the Act by stating: “[i]t is the intent of the general
assembly that the jurisdiction of the claims commission be
liberally construed to implement the remedial purposes of this
legislation.” Act of March 25, 1985, ch. 105, § 1, 1985 Tenn.
Pub. Acts 154, 154 (codified at Tenn. Code Ann. § 9–8–
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 307(a) (Supp.1985)); see also Hembree v. State, 925 S.W.2d
513, 516 (Tenn. 1996). This is contrary to the general rule
that statutes permitting lawsuits against the State “are in
derogation of the state’s inherent exemption from suit and
must be strictly construed.” Beare Co. v. Olsen, 711 S.W.2d
603, 605 (Tenn. 1986); see State ex rel. Allen v. Cook, 171
Tenn. 605, 106 S.W.2d 858, 860–61 (1937).

In Stewart [v. State, 33 S.W.3d 785 (Tenn. 2000)], we
observed that courts should defer to the expressed intention of
the legislature that a waiver of sovereign immunity be
liberally construed “in cases where the statutory language
legitimately admits of various interpretations,” but also
cautioned that

[a] policy of liberal construction of statutes,
however, only requires this Court to give “the
most favorable view in support of the
petitioner’s claim,” Brady v. Reed, 186 Tenn.
556, 563, 212 S.W.2d 378, 381 (1948), and
such a policy “does not authorize the
amendment, alteration or extension of its
provisions beyond [the statute’s] obvious
meaning.” Pollard v. Knox County, 886
S.W.2d 759, 760 (Tenn. 1994). Moreover,
“[w]here a right of action is dependent upon the
provisions of a statute . . . we are not privileged
to create such a right under the guise of a liberal
interpretation of it.” Hamby v. McDaniel, 559
S.W.2d 774, 777 (Tenn. 1977).

33 S.W.3d at 791 (alterations in original). Similarly, in
Northland Insurance Co. [v. State, 33 S.W.3d 727 (Tenn.
2000)], this Court, recognizing “the principle that a waiver of
sovereign immunity must be clear and unmistakable,”
observed that “[a] liberal construction of an existing category
. . . is a different proposition than a construction creating a
new category.” 33 S.W.3d at 728, 730.

320 S.W.3d at 279 (emphasis in original).

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 The Commission, in its final judgment, stated that “[n]either party argues, and the
Commission certainly agrees, that [claimant] was ever under the care or custody of the
State as contemplated by Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-8-307(a)(1)(E).” (Underlining in
original.) Although the legislature used the conjunctive word “and” in the language of
the statute, the Supreme Court has clarified that

Following the legislative mandate to liberally construe the
jurisdiction of the commission to implement the remedial
purposes of the act, we interpreted section 9–8–307(a)(1)(E)
in the disjunctive rather than the conjunctive . . . We
concluded that pursuant to section 9–8–307(a)(1)(E) the
Claims Commission had jurisdiction to hear a claim against
the State where the state employee alleged to be negligent had
a “legal duty to control . . . irrespective of whether he had
actual care and custody . . . if he was negligent in the
fulfillment of that duty.”

Mullins, 320 S.W.3d at 281 (quoting Stewart, 33 S.W.3d at 794); see also In re
Demitrus M.T., 2011 WL 863288, at *16 (“The proper inquiry is whether the State’s
involvement is such that it may be fairly said to have exercised either care, custody, or
control”) (emphasis in original). In the present case, we are dealing with a claim that the
State had sufficient “control” of claimant, because he did not argue that he was in the
State’s custody or care. The factor that there was no “custody” or “care” involved is not
determinative, but it is pertinent to the analysis, because the Mullins Court also
recognized that “[t]he concept of ‘custody’ is closely intertwined with the concepts of
responsibility for ‘care’ and ‘control.’ ” Id. at 280.

Claimant’s argument is that the State employees, officers of the ETSU Quillen
medical school, had control over his future medical career, in that they controlled his
enrollment status in the school, and determined whether he would be awarded a medical
degree. He further asserts that ETSU assumed a duty to control its employees in a
manner that comports with the student handbook and the university’s policies and
procedures. Some of his claims are couched in terms of a violation of his due process.
To the extent that they could be construed as stating a claim for a constitutional due
process violation, the Commission has no subject matter jurisdiction over such a claim.
See, e.g., Shell v. State, 893 S.W.2d 416, 418 (Tenn. 1995).

Regarding claimant’s argument that the medical school had a duty to control its
employees in a non-negligent manner, this Court addressed a similar argument in Byrd v.
State, 150 S.W.3d 414, 419-20 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2004), stating:

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 The Byrd employees argue that because employers have a
duty to control their employees, the Claims Commission had
jurisdiction to hear the claim of negligent supervision under
Stewart v. State, 33 S.W.3d 785 (Tenn. 2000). In Stewart, . .
. [t]he Tennessee Supreme Court reviewed the existing law,
noting two categories of claimants who could recover: “An
examination of the cases dealing with this grant of
jurisdiction . . . makes clear that liability may be imposed for
injuries to persons confined in penal institutions, residences,
or health facilities maintained by the state. . . . [L]iability may
[also] be imposed for injuries to third persons caused by those
persons . . . .” Id. at 792. The [C]ourt then expanded the
scope of the Claims Commission’s jurisdiction under section
9–8–307(a)(1)(E): “[I]t is difficult to conceive that the
legislature intended to deny jurisdiction in cases where
negligent control of a person by a state employee resulted in
injury, even though the injured person was not actually within
the care or custody of the state employee.” Id. It found,
however, that the claimant had not demonstrated that the state
trooper had a legal duty to control the county deputies under a
statute, under the common law, or by virtue of having
assumed such a duty. Id. at 793–94.

All of the cases cited interpreting section 9–8–307(a)(1)(E),
including Stewart, involve an alleged duty by a state official
to exert physical control of a person. In contrast, the Byrd
employees allege that the Clinic failed to discipline Berry or
terminate his employment, i.e. affect his legal status as an
employee rather than physically controlling him. The Byrd
employees cite no cases which stretch the language in section
9–8–307(a)(1)[E] to include such a situation, and we decline
to do so.

(Emphasis in original). In the present case, claimant is likewise arguing that he was
impacted by control of his legal status as a medical student, not physical control of his
person. As we concluded in Byrd, even granting the statutory language at issue a liberal
construction in favor of jurisdiction, we hold that it cannot be reasonably “stretched” so
far as to encompass the present situation. Claimant’s cause of action does not arise out of
the care, custody, or control of a person by a State employee. Consequently, the Claims
Commission’s determination that it had no subject matter jurisdiction must be affirmed.

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 V.

The judgment of the Claims Commission is affirmed. Costs on appeal are
assessed to the appellant, Eddison Williams.

_______________________________
CHARLES D. SUSANO, JR., JUDGE

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