The Supreme Court's June 19, 2019 Order accepted certification of three questions from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in Jodi McClay v. Airport Management Services, LLC, No. 3:17-cv-00705. The plaintiff in McClay filed suit against the defendant, an operator of a retail store in the Nashville Airport, after a wooden panel in the store fell and struck the plaintiff's foot. Following a trial, the jury returned a verdict awarding the plaintiff $444,500.00 in economic damages and $930,000.00 in non-economic damages.
The defendant asked the court to apply Tennessee's non-economic damages cap, which limits non-economic damages to $750,000.00. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 29-39-102(a)-(e). The plaintiff objected, arguing that the damages cap violated the right to a trial by jury, amounted to an impermissible exercise of judicial powers by the Tennessee legislature, and, in an unusual argument, disproportionally discriminated against women, all in violation of the Tennessee Constitution. The plaintiff's objection cited the Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Lindenberg v. Jackson Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 912 F.3d 348 (6th Cir. 2018), which held that Tennessee's statutory cap on punitive...
