On October 7, 2026, the Tennessee Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for its October docket in Nashville, Tennessee. Oral arguments will be heard at the Tennessee Supreme Court building in Nashville and livestreamed to the TNCourts YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/@TNCourts).
Beginning at 9:00 am CDT, the Court will hear the following three cases:
• Dennis N. Etheredge et al. v. Estate of Doris Etheredge – This case concerns the applicability of Tennessee’s Revivor Statute, which governs the procedure for reviving pending civil actions against a party who has died and whose estate is being administered. In 1989, Nathan Etheredge and his wife Doris Etheredge entered into a post-nuptial agreement under which they each agreed to execute a will leaving their estate to the other, and for the survivor to then leave his or her estate in equal shares to their combined children. Mr. Etheredge had five children, and Mrs. Etheredge had two children, so the result would be that each child would receive 1/7 of the remaining estate at the survivor’s death. The agreement provided it could not be revoked absent a separate agreement by the parties specifically revoking it.
Mr. Etheredge incorporated this agreement into his 2003 will. In 2015, however, Mr. Etheredge executed a new will that explicitly excluded his children as beneficiaries and did not incorporate the 1989 agreement. After Mr. Etheredge died in 2018, his children (“the Plaintiffs”) filed a declaratory judgment action against Mrs. Etheredge seeking a declaration that the 1989 agreement continued to govern the distribution of both estates. When Mrs. Etheredge died in 2021, the Plaintiffs substituted her estate as the defendant. However, the Plaintiffs did not file the substitution order in the probate court as required by the Revivor Statute. The Defendant moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the Plaintiffs failed to properly revive the case under the statute, so the trial court no longer had subject matter jurisdiction. The trial court agreed and dismissed the case. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Tennessee Supreme Court granted permission to appeal to consider whether the Revivor Statute applies to declaratory judgment actions and, if it does, whether failure to comply with the statute removes a trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction.
• Christopher Rogers v. Frank Strada et al. and Anthony Washington v. Tennessee Department of Correction et al.– In these cases, the Tennessee Supreme Court will consider whether an inmate serving a life sentence for first‑degree murder committed between July 1, 1989, and July 1, 1995 may apply sentence reduction credits to shorten that sentence. In 1992, Christopher Rogers was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to a first‑degree murder he committed in 1991. Later, in 1995, Anthony Washington was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to a first‑degree murder he committed in 1993. In 2024, the defendants both filed declaratory judgment actions seeking to correct their sentence expiration dates. Specifically, they argued their life sentences were determinate sentences with specific end dates and that their earned time credits should reduce both their parole eligibility dates and the ultimate expiration of their sentences. The trial court concluded that the defendants’ life sentences operate as sixty‑year determinate sentences and that they are entitled to apply their sentence reduction credits to both the release eligibility dates for parole consideration and their full sentence expiration dates. Although the court found that the Tennessee Department of Correction (“TDOC”) properly applied the defendants’ sentence reduction credits against their parole release eligibility dates, it could not determine whether the agency had also applied those credits to their sentence expiration dates. As a result, the court ordered TDOC to correct the defendants’ records as necessary. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Tennessee Supreme Court granted permission to appeal to determine whether a life sentence for first‑degree murder committed between July 1, 1989, and July 1, 1995—when treated as a determinate sixty‑year term—may be shortened below sixty years through the application of sentence reduction credits.
In addition, one case will be submitted to the Court on the briefs:
• Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee v. Valerie Wyber Epstein – This case is an attorney discipline action. Licensed attorney Valerie Epstein recovered $128,320.20 for a client in a collection case. At the end of the case, the client asked Ms. Epstein to hold the recovered funds in trust for the client’s future purchase of two properties. Ms. Epstein agreed and deposited the funds into her professional trust account. After the client purchased the first property, Ms. Epstein issued a check from her trust account to cover the purchase. However, the transaction was not recorded by her bookkeeper and was not identified during routine account reconciliation. When the client later purchased a second property, Ms. Epstein—believing the full amount remained in the trust account—wrote a check for $128,320.20 and deposited it into her firm’s operating account, causing the trust account to be overdrawn. Ms. Epstein then transferred funds from her firm’s operating account to cover the overdraft while she investigated the cause. Once Ms. Epstein discovered the accounting error, she restored the full $128,320.20 to the trust account and paid the remaining funds toward the client’s second closing. The Board of Professional Responsibility (“the Board”) filed a petition for discipline. After a hearing, a majority of the hearing panel of the Board found that Ms. Epstein violated the Rules of Professional Conduct. However, the panel unanimously declined to impose a sanction and dismissed the petition, concluding that Ms. Epstein’s actions did not cause injury or potential injury. Upon judicial review, the trial court affirmed the findings of ethical violations but reversed the dismissal, finding that once a violation is found by a hearing panel it cannot dismiss the petition. As a result, the trial court imposed a public censure, which is the least severe sanction available. The case is now before the Tennessee Supreme Court, which will consider issues raised by both Ms. Epstein and the Board of Professional Responsibility.
Media members planning to attend oral arguments should review Supreme Court Rule 30 and reach out to Communications Director Samantha Fisher by email at: samantha.fisher@tncourts.gov.