These pages are designed solely as
"parking places" for notes
during research on legal, attorney negligence, insurance, ethics and other matters.
Periodically, we clean off most everything on a research page.
This page does not always have entry portals or text
regarding our fields of legal malpractice, lawyer ethics, corporate governance, and attorney fee bill
disputes.
Statewide legal standard of care.
Chapman v. Bearfield (Tenn. 2006) 2006 WL 3162923 ruled that there is
only one statewide standard of care for attorneys practicing in Tennessee.
within the state. In the legal malpractice action, defendant Bearfield argued
that the plaintiffs' expert's declaration was inadmissible because the expert
did not demonstrate that he had knowledge of the professional standard of care
for attorneys practicing in his specific locality, as opposed to the standard of
care in Tennessee generally. The trial court agreed and granted the motion.
The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected Bearfield's assertion that there was a
"locality rule" for the standard of care. Therefore, the plaintiffs' expert's
declaration was admissible, and the trial courts order excluding the expert's
testimony was erroneous.
The Court defined the standard of care as being the "ordinary care,
skill, and diligence... which is commonly possessed and exercised by attorneys
in practice in the jurisdiction." (Emphasis in original.) The Court
defined "jurisdiction" as being the entire state of Tennessee, not any
particular local venue. It is clear that in Tennesee, "[a]n attorney practicing
in Tennessee... must exercise the ordinary care, skill, and diligence commonly
possessed and practiced by attorneys throughout the state. "
The Court's policy reasons for the adoption of a statewide standard are
familiar to those following the demise of the locality rule. Foremost in those
reasons: attorneys in Tennessee had to join the 21st century, where the
existence of internet based research tools undercuts "historical transportation
and communications arguments favoring local variations in the standard of care."
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