State of Tennessee Department of State Tennessee State Library and Archives 403 Seventh Avenue North Nashville, Tennessee 37243-0312 RECORDS OF THE CLERK OF THE APPELLATE COURTS OF TENNESSEE 1795-2013 RECORD GROUP 191 Processed by: Vincent G. McGrath Archives & Manuscripts Unit Technical Services Section Date Completed: January 23, 1992 Additional processing by: Kimberly Wires Nathaniel Taylor Archival Technical Services April, 2019 PARTIALLY MICROFILMED SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE Record Group 191, Records of the Clerk of the Appellate Courts of Tennessee, consists of records generated by the state Supreme Court and the intermediate appellate courts from 1792-2013. The records are divided to reflect the three grand divisions of the Tennessee courts: East, Middle, and West. The collection contains a variety of materials with the majority consisting of minute books, opinion books, and enrollment books. Other records include execution dockets, order books, certiorari cases, decrees, case histories, financial records, and judgment indexes. While Record Group 191 contains a multitude of court-generated documents and official clerk records, the main case files for state Supreme Court trials are located in Record Group 170: Tennessee Supreme Court Case Files, 1792-. Researchers should be aware that most volume numbers were assigned by TSLA staff. Original volume numbers are scarce, but those that are known are designated within parenthesis alongside the archivist's assigned volume number. Many volumes contain their own indexes and most, but not all, of the volumes of Middle and West are microfilmed. Volumes that are microfilmed are assigned a reel number. Some records are microfilmed and the original documents are not part of the collection. Most records from East Tennessee are not microfilmed and were inventoried and incorporated in 2019. The collection contains records produced in the earliest years of the Tennessee courts. Relying on a model borrowed from North Carolina, the 1794 Territorial Assembly at Knoxville divided the prospective state into three judicial districts: Washington, Hamilton, and Mero. Within each district, the Assembly established a Superior Court of Law and Equity with original jurisdiction, or the ability to hear cases for the first time, as well as the right to hear appeals from county courts. In 1809, the Superior Court was replaced by the Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals, which heard equity cases and appeals from the newly created circuit courts. The Constitution of 1835 finally created the Supreme Court as an independent, co-equal branch of state government with exclusive appellate jurisdiction. In 1996, the Commission on the Future of the State Judicial System (CFSJS) concluded, “Tennessee has one of the more complex and confusing court structures in the nation.” The complicated nature of the Tennessee state court system is the result of Article VI of the Constitution of 1870, the same charter in effect as of 2019. Under Article VI, judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court and its inferior courts; however, the General Assembly wields the power to “ordain and establish” inferior courts. Taking advantage of this power, the General Assembly frequently utilized private acts to create courts and to make changes in the jurisdictions and locations of various existing courts. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the overuse of private acts by the legislature resulted in a complex muddle of specialized courts, overlapping jurisdictions, and numerous local variations in procedures and policies. For example, in 1996, a random analysis of ten counties by the CFSJS found that court jurisdiction was different in every single county. In one county, the general sessions court had jurisdiction for misdemeanors, preliminary felonies, juvenile court, environmental court, domestic relations, probate, and mental health cases. In another county, only misdemeanor and preliminary felony cases could be heard in general 2 sessions court. This disparity also existed at the state trial court level: in one county, the circuit court had jurisdiction for civil, mental health, domestic relations, probate, and felony cases, whereas another county’s circuit court could only hear civil and mental health cases. Despite various attempts to simplify Tennessee’s judicial system, it remained esoteric and complex throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. From the bottom up, Tennessee’s basic court hierarchy consists of the local courts of limited jurisdiction, the trial courts of general jurisdiction, the intermediate appellate courts, and finally, the Supreme Court. The local courts of limited jurisdiction include juvenile courts, municipal courts, and, more importantly, the general sessions courts, which were mandated in 1960 to replace the outdated justice of the peace system for every county that did not already have a general sessions court. Though their responsibilities vary, courts of general sessions typically administer preliminary hearings in major criminal cases, hold trials for minor criminal and civil cases, issue warrants, and handle small claims. The courts of general jurisdiction are mainly comprised of the circuit and chancery courts. The circuit courts are basic trial courts with broad jurisdiction to hear civil and criminal matters, as well as appeals from local courts. The chancery courts are trial courts of equity, as opposed to courts of law, and were established to hear cases when a complete, clear remedy was not likely to be had in a court of law. Thus, chancery courts hear only civil cases, such as lawsuits, intestate estate settlements, contract disputes, injunctions, fraud, debt, foreclosures, partitioning of land, and other cases pertaining to domestic relations. The Constitution of 1870 divided the counties into twenty-five judicial districts, each with its own circuit court and chancery court. In 1984, Tennessee’s ninety-five counties were redrawn into thirty-one judicial districts, a system that continues as of 2019. Over time, the General Assembly established criminal courts in thirteen of the judicial districts to help relieve overwhelmed circuit courts. Additionally, two probate courts were established in Davidson and Shelby Counties to handle the large number of estate cases within their districts. Paralleling the expansion of the trial courts to meet the judicial needs of a growing population, similar changes transpired in the intermediate appellate courts. Until 1895, the Supreme Court heard all appeals from the lower courts, which created a backlog of cases on the court’s docket. Temporary Arbitration Courts were established from 1873-1879 to help relieve the Supreme Court’s caseload, and Supreme Court justices appointed Courts of Referees in 1883 to create reports to help process the logjam of cases. In 1895, in response to claims of an inefficient judiciary, the General Assembly finally established the state’s first appellate court, the Court of Chancery Appeals. This tribunal heard appeals of equity cases until 1907, when it was renamed the Court of Civil Appeals and its jurisdiction expanded to include appeals from both chancery and circuit courts. In 1925, the General Assembly again restructured the appellate court when it abolished the five-member Court of Civil Appeals and established the Court of Appeals, a twelve-member panel of rotating judges that continues to this day. Lastly, in 1967 the legislature created the Court of Criminal Appeals to handle the many routine appeals of criminal cases. As of 2019, Tennessee is one of two states with a divided appellate court structure: the Court of Appeals for civil cases and the Court of Criminal Appeals for criminal cases. 3 The Supreme Court has the final word on questions of state law. The creation and subsequent expansion of the intermediate appellate courts enabled the Supreme Court to exert much more control over its agenda and focus on the most important questions of law. The only cases allowed to bypass the appellate courts are those dealing with state taxes, public office, and constitutional law. Death penalty cases decided in the appellate courts are automatically appealed to the Supreme Court, which also must grant review to disciplinary actions against attorneys and cases involving teacher tenure. A legislative overhaul in 2013 created an administrative court system specifically for workers’ compensation suits. The act created the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims to hear workplace injury suits, as well as the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board to hear appeals from the lower court. The Supreme Court Special Workers’ Compensation Appeals Panel was formed in 1997 to adjudicate appeals in workers’ compensation cases and it continues to be the arbiter in appeals from the Worker’s Compensation Appeals Board. The full Supreme Court retains the ability to hear cases decided by the Special Appeals Panel. The many and varied records of Record Group 191 reflect the work of division clerks, overseen by the Chief Clerk of the Appellate Courts, to create and maintain official records of the cases and judgments of the courts of Tennessee. Docket books are simple lists of cases heard in the courts. Execution dockets are registers of money owed for restitution, interest, and court costs. Enrollment books contain entries and transcriptions of proceedings in cases officially registered in the various courts. Similarly, minute books contain official clerk summaries of court proceedings. Opinion books hold