Claims Against the State of Tennessee — Western Division, Serving Memphis and West Tennessee
Tennessee Claims Commission Attorney
A state trooper arrests you without a warrant. A state employee runs a stop sign in a state vehicle. A pothole on a state highway that the department knew about for months takes out your front axle. In any other case, you would file suit in circuit court and ask for a jury.
Not against the State of Tennessee. The State has sovereign immunity — it cannot be sued at all unless the legislature has said so. The Tennessee Constitution provides that suits may be brought against the State only in the manner and in the courts the legislature directs. In 1984 the legislature created the Tennessee Claims Commission to hear and determine those claims, and that is where they go. Not circuit court. Not chancery. No jury.
The Claims Commission is a real forum with real remedies, but it operates on its own terms: a narrow list of claim types, a mandatory notice step before you can file anything, two separate deadlines, a statutory cap on damages, and a single commissioner who decides the case. Miss any one of those and a strong case ends before it is heard on the merits.
The Law
The Claims Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over monetary claims against the State based on the acts or omissions of state employees — but only when the claim falls within one of the categories the legislature specifically enumerated. If your claim does not fit one of them, the State keeps its immunity and the Commission has no authority to hear the case at all.
The categories most often at issue include:
Two of these carry extra proof requirements written into the statute. Claims for dangerous conditions on state property or state highways require the claimant to establish foreseeability of the risk and notice to the proper state officials far enough in advance that the State could have done something about it. Claims for negligent deprivation of a statutory right require proof that the General Assembly expressly conferred a private right of action against the State under that particular statute — a demanding standard the State raises aggressively.
The categories are not read grudgingly. The legislature directed that the jurisdiction of the Claims Commission be liberally construed to implement the remedial purposes of the Act. That directive does real work in contested cases, and it is often the difference between a claim that survives a motion to dismiss and one that does not.
Deadlines
You do not begin by filing with the Claims Commission. You begin by giving written notice of the claim to the Division of Claims and Risk Management in Nashville. The Tennessee Supreme Court has held that this notice is a condition precedent to recovery — filing a complaint with the Claims Commission instead does not satisfy the requirement, no matter how timely that complaint is.
The notice must state the circumstances of the claim, including the state department or agency involved, the time and place of the incident, and the nature of the injury.
Clock one: the notice must be given within the same statute of limitations that would apply to a similar case in court. For most personal injury claims in Tennessee, that is one year from the date of injury.
Clock two: the Division investigates and must make every effort to honor or deny the claim within ninety days. If it denies the claim, you have ninety days from the date of the denial notice to file with the Claims Commission. If it offers a settlement you will not accept, the same ninety-day window runs. If it does nothing within ninety days, the claim transfers to the Commission automatically.
There is a third trap after the case is filed: absent prior written consent of the Commission, any claim on which the claimant takes no action to advance the case toward disposition for a one-year period must be dismissed with prejudice. A claim against the State cannot be parked.
The Forum
The Commission decides claims without a jury. A single Claims Commissioner hears the evidence and rules on both the facts and the law. Cases on the regular docket are conducted under the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure, a court reporter makes a record, and the commissioner's decision may be appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Smaller claims may be assigned to a separate small claims docket, where no record is made and the commissioner's decision is final and cannot be appealed.
What you can recover is limited by statute:
The last of these drives strategy in almost every serious case. The State's standard response to a claim involving a wrongful arrest, an excessive use of force, or any other deliberate act is that the conduct was intentional and therefore outside the Commission's reach. The answer is usually to focus the claim where the State's own negligence lies — how it hired, trained, supervised, or retained the employee, and how it discharged its duty of care — rather than on what the individual employee meant to do.
Common Claims
Claims against the State come from ordinary situations that happen to involve a state agency, a state vehicle, a state road, or a state employee:
If you are not sure whether your situation fits one of the statutory categories, that is exactly the question to bring to a consultation. The categorization decision is made at the beginning of the case and shapes everything after it.
The State’s Playbook
The State’s first move in a Claims Commission case is almost always a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The argument is that the claim does not fit any enumerated category, so immunity was never waived and the Commission has no power to hear it. It is filed early, it is filed often, and it ends a great many claims before anyone looks at what actually happened.
The arguments are predictable enough to name. In a case involving state officers, the State will typically raise some combination of the following.
The State points to whatever statute the officers violated and observes that it does not create a cause of action on its own. That is often true and often beside the point, because the claim’s jurisdictional basis is a category in TCA § 9-8-307, not the underlying statute.
The Commission’s jurisdiction is limited, and intentional torts by state employees generally fall outside it. So the State works to characterize everything as intentional. The answer is that negligent hiring, training, supervision, and retention are the State’s own negligence, not the employee’s intent, and they are pleaded separately for exactly that reason.
Also generally true, and also aimed at a claim that was not brought that way. It does not reach a claim built on the State’s failure to train or supervise the people it put in the field.
This is the one worth knowing about. The State reads that category narrowly, arguing it covers only mistreatment of someone already being held. The Commission has rejected that reading. Negligent training, supervision, and retention claims fall within the category, and so do claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress.
All of which is a long way of saying that these cases are frequently won or lost at the pleading stage, before a single fact is in dispute. Getting the theory of the claim right at the outset is what keeps it alive past the State’s first motion.
Western Division
The Claims Commission sits in three divisions — Eastern, Middle, and Western. Claims arising in Shelby, Tipton, Fayette, and the surrounding counties are heard in the Western Division. On the other side of every one of these cases is the Tennessee Attorney General's Torts Litigation Division, which does nothing but defend the State.
Practicing in front of the Commission is not the same as practicing in circuit court. The pre-suit notice requirement, the ninety-day windows, the enumerated categories, the damages caps, and the absence of a jury all change how a claim should be built and how it should be presented.
William Young — Claims Against the State of Tennessee
Of Counsel · Tennessee Bar · Practicing Since 2011
Attorney William Young represents claimants before the Tennessee Claims Commission, Western Division, in claims against the State of Tennessee and its agencies — including claims arising out of the conduct of Tennessee Highway Patrol officers. He knows the pre-suit notice requirements that decide these cases before they start, the jurisdictional arguments the Attorney General's office raises, and how to plead a claim so it survives them. When the State is the defendant, the rules are different, and the margin for error is small.
Learn more about Attorney William Young →
Car accidents → · Truck accidents → · Should I talk to the police? → · Fayette County →
Common Questions
Yes, but not in the way you would sue a private person or company. The State of Tennessee has sovereign immunity, meaning it cannot be sued except where the legislature has consented. The legislature gave that consent by creating the Tennessee Claims Commission in 1984. Claims against the State based on the acts or omissions of state employees are heard by the Claims Commission — not by circuit court, and not by a jury.
Only claims that fall within one of the categories listed in Tennessee Code Annotated § 9-8-307(a)(1). Those categories include negligent operation of a state vehicle, dangerous conditions on state-maintained highways, negligently maintained dangerous conditions on state property, negligent care, custody and control of persons, health care liability by a state employee, negligent operation of machinery or equipment, breach of a written contract with the State, negligent deprivation of a statutory right, and unconstitutional takings of private property, among others. If a claim does not fit one of these categories, the State keeps its immunity and the Commission has no power to hear the case.
Yes, and this is where cases are most often lost. Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 9-8-402, you must give written notice of the claim to the Division of Claims and Risk Management. The Tennessee Supreme Court has held this notice is a condition precedent to recovery — filing directly with the Claims Commission does not satisfy it. The notice must identify the state agency involved, the time and place of the incident, and the nature of the injury.
Written notice must reach the Division of Claims and Risk Management within the same statute of limitations that would apply to a similar case in court — for most personal injury claims in Tennessee, that is one year from the date of injury. There is a second deadline after that: if the Division denies the claim, you have only ninety days from the date of the denial notice to file with the Claims Commission. Tennessee appellate courts have affirmed dismissal of claims that missed the ninety-day window even where the filing was still within one year of the injury.
The Division investigates and must make every effort to honor or deny the claim within ninety days. If it denies the claim, you have ninety days from the denial to file with the Claims Commission. If it makes a settlement offer you find unacceptable, the same ninety-day window applies. If the Division simply takes no action within the ninety-day period, the claim is automatically transferred to the administrative clerk of the Claims Commission.
No. All claims before the Commission are heard without a jury. A single Claims Commissioner decides both the facts and the law. Cases on the regular docket are conducted under the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure with a court reporter and a record, and decisions can be appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Because there is no jury, the case is built for a judge — which changes how the evidence and the legal theories should be presented.
Tort damages are capped by statute at $300,000 per claimant and $1,000,000 per occurrence, unless the Board of Claims has purchased insurance covering the class of claim, in which case recovery may go up to the policy limit. The State is liable for actual damages only. Punitive damages are not available, and litigation costs other than court costs are not recoverable.
Sometimes, but the choice matters and it is not fully reversible. State officers and employees are absolutely immune for acts within the scope of their employment, except for willful, malicious, or criminal acts or acts done for personal gain. Separately, filing a claim against the State operates as a waiver of any cause of action you have against the individual officer or employee based on the same act or omission — though that waiver is void if the Commission determines the act was outside the scope of employment. Deciding whether to proceed against the State, against the individual, or in federal court is a strategic decision that should be made before anything is filed.
Generally no. The Claims Commission Act provides that the State is not liable for the willful, malicious, or criminal acts of state employees, and the State routinely argues that conduct characterized as intentional falls outside the Commission's jurisdiction. That is why the negligence theory in these cases matters so much — negligent hiring, training, supervision or retention, negligent care, custody and control, and negligent infliction of emotional distress are claims against the State itself for its own failures, not claims that depend on an employee's intent.
It is one of the enumerated categories, found at Tennessee Code Annotated § 9-8-307(a)(1)(E), and it is broader than it sounds. The State often argues it applies only to people physically in state custody, such as inmates or patients. Tennessee courts have not read it that narrowly — the legislature directed that the Commission's jurisdiction be liberally construed to serve the statute's remedial purposes. Claims for negligent training, supervision, or retention of a state employee and for negligent infliction of emotional distress have been brought under this subsection.
The Claims Commission is divided into Eastern, Middle, and Western Divisions. Claims arising in Shelby, Tipton, Fayette, and the surrounding West Tennessee counties are heard in the Western Division. Practicing in front of the Commission is different from practicing in circuit court — the docket, the rules, the Attorney General's Torts Litigation Division on the other side, and the fact that a commissioner rather than a jury decides the case all shape how a claim should be handled.
Filing a claim on the regular docket carries a modest statutory privilege tax, which can be waived by affidavit of indigency. Attorney fees depend on the type of claim — many injury claims against the State are handled on a contingency basis, meaning no fee unless there is a recovery. Call (901) 578-1515 for a free consultation and an honest assessment of whether your claim fits one of the categories the Commission can hear.
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