A group of residents in Hickman County are suing the Water Authority of Dickson County for not turning over documents about a proposed sewage plant that would dump 12 million gallons of wastewater a day into Lick Creek. The residents allege that the water authority withheld documents without explanation. About 97% of the sewage would come from Davidson and Williamson counties.
Davidson County Chancellor Pat Moskal ruled that the state could not withhold consultant reports by McKinsey and Co. under a deliberative process privilege in the face of a public records request. She said the reports were a one-way communication with state officials and did not fall under a deliberative process privilege because they were not "deliberative" and did not consist of communications between high-level government officials. The ruling is a win for journalist Stephen Elliott, who began requesting the reports in 2020.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that an audio recording of a trial made by the court reporter is part of the court record and a public record subject to the state public records law. The ruling overturns a lower court decision that had upheld an East Tennessee judge's refusal to give a convicted killer the audio recording of his murder trial.
A lawsuit filed earlier this month by journalist Stacy Jacobson of WREG in Memphis is seeking access to records related to the Department of Children's Services interactions with a 14-year-old boy who died in Memphis 2020. The department had investigated issues surrounding the boy four times previous to his death.
A citizen who won a public records lawsuit against the Knox County Sheriff has asked an appeals court for a rehearing on a ruling that vacated the trial court's award of about $58,000 in attorney's fees and expenses.
