Debbie Williams v. Rodney Holt

05/01/2025

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

April 1, 2025 Session

DEBBIE WILLIAMS V. RODNEY HOLT, ET AL.

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Davidson County

No. 23C7 Thomas W. Brothers, Judge

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No. M2024-01188-COA-R3-CV

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This appeal concerns the trial court’s summary judgment dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims

of intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress

relating to her interaction with a transit bus operator. We affirm the dismissal.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court

Affirmed; Case Remanded

JOHN W. MCCLARTY, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Frank G. Clement,

Jr., P.J., M.S., and ANDY D. BENNETT, J., joined.

Debbie Williams, Nashville, Tennessee, pro se appellant.

Janet Strevel Hayes, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Mary Beth Haltom White and Richmond

Hall, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Rodney Holt, Tyquenta Keys, and

Metropolitan Transit Authority d/b/a Wego Public Transit.

OPINION

I. BACKGROUND

The underlying facts are not in dispute for purposes of this appeal. On the morning

of November 15, 2022, Debbie Williams (“Plaintiff”) was waiting to board a transit bus at

Bay 5 in the Music City Center. Plaintiff was not wearing a coat in the cold weather at

7:35 a.m. Her assigned bus, driven by Rodney Holt, pulled into Bay 3 because Bay 5 was

blocked. Upon his departure, Mr. Holt noticed Plaintiff waiting at Bay 5. Mr. Holt swerved

into Bay 5 and opened the doors. He stated to Plaintiff, “Come on now.” Plaintiff

requested assistance from Mr. Holt to lower the steps to ease her transition onto the bus.

Mr. Holt closed the bus doors in response and drove away, leaving Plaintiff.

Plaintiff alerted Tyquenta Keys at the customer service desk of her interaction. Ms.

Keys advised Plaintiff to file a complaint by phone and assured Plaintiff that she would

also file a complaint. Plaintiff then boarded the next bus at approximately 8:01 a.m. Ms.

Keys did not initiate a complaint against Mr. Holt as promised; however, Plaintiff filed the

requisite complaints. Georgiana Beaty, a Quality Assurance Investigator, conducted an

investigation upon receipt of the complaint. Ms. Beaty reviewed video footage from the

bus and validated the complaint. She did not store the video footage from the bus. The

footage was automatically overwritten sometime in the next 30 days.

Plaintiff filed the instant action against Mr. Holt, Ms. Keys, and the Metropolitan

Transit Authority d/b/a WeGo Transit Authority (“MTA”) (collectively “Defendants”),

alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”) against Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys

and negligent infliction of emotional distress (“NIED”) against MTA as the alleged

employer of Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys. Plaintiff claimed that seeing the bus being driven

away without her caused overwhelming emotions and nullified her freedom to choose

which bus and at what time to board. She claimed that her mental injury was rooted in her

claim that she was “ill clad” and forced to wait, causing her to be “propelled into an interval

of intensified emotional distress.” She alleged that Ms. Keys’s failure to file a complaint

as promised caused additional distress. Plaintiff insisted that the actions of Mr. Holt and

Ms. Keys have caused severe emotional distress, resulting in impaired “flow of energies in

the meridians of the liver, kidney, heart, spleen, stomach and large intestine.”

Defendants denied liability. Plaintiff filed a motion for discovery, requesting the

trial court to order MTA to produce the video footage for her review. MTA responded that

the video footage had been automatically overwritten by their surveillance system.

Plaintiff filed a motion for sanctions due to the spoliation of the evidence. The court denied

the motion, advising Plaintiff that she was free to argue spoliation of evidence at trial.

Defendants then moved for summary judgment. Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys asserted

that Plaintiff failed to establish a claim of IIED. MTA alleged that even if Plaintiff

established her claim of NIED, Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys were employed by the Davidson

Transit Organization (“DTO”), not MTA. Pending a hearing on the summary judgment

motions, Plaintiff filed a motion to compel discovery, arguing that Defendants were

evasive in their responses to the written interrogatories and failed to produce supplemental

documentation. The court denied the motion to compel.

Following a hearing on the motions for summary judgment, the trial court granted

judgment in favor of Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys, finding that reasonable minds could not differ

that their conduct was not extreme and outrageous, a necessary element of an IIED claim.

The court also granted judgment in favor of MTA, finding that MTA could not be held

liable because Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys were employed by DTO. This appeal followed.

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II. ISSUES

A. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in its denial of the motion

to compel discovery.

B. Whether the trial court erred in its grant of summary judgment in favor

of Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys.

C. Whether the trial court erred in its grant of summary judgment in favor

of MTA.

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Summary judgment is appropriate “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to

interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there

is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment

as a matter of law.” Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.04. When a party moves for summary judgment

but does not have the burden of proof at trial, the moving party must either submit evidence

“affirmatively negating an essential element of the nonmoving party’s claim” or

“demonstrating that the nonmoving party’s evidence at the summary judgment stage is

insufficient to establish the nonmoving party’s claim or defense.” Rye v. Women’s Care

Ctr. of Memphis, MPLLC, 477 S.W.3d 235, 264 (Tenn. 2015).

When a party files and properly supports a motion for summary judgment as

provided in Rule 56, the nonmoving party “‘may not rest upon the mere allegations or

denials of [its] pleading.’” Id. at 265 (quoting Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.06). Rather, the

nonmoving party must respond and produce affidavits, depositions, responses to

interrogatories, or other discovery that “set forth specific facts showing that there is a

genuine issue for trial.” Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.06; see also Rye, 477 S.W.3d at 265. If the

nonmoving party fails to respond in this way, “summary judgment, if appropriate, shall be

entered against the [nonmoving] party.” Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.06.

We review a trial court’s summary judgment determination de novo, with no

presumption of correctness. Rye, 477 S.W.3d at 250. Therefore, “we make a fresh

determination of whether the requirements of Rule 56 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil

Procedure have been satisfied.” Id. In reviewing a summary judgment motion on appeal,

“we are required to review the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party

and to draw all reasonable inferences favoring the nonmoving party.” Shaw v. Metro. Gov’t

of Nashville & Davidson Cnty., 596 S.W.3d 726, 733 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2019) (citations and

quotations omitted).

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IV. DISCUSSION

We begin by acknowledging Plaintiff’s status as a pro se litigant throughout this

litigation. It is well-settled that “[w]hile a party who chooses to represent himself or herself

is entitled to the fair and equal treatment of the courts, [p]ro se litigants are not . . . entitled

to shift the burden of litigating their case[s] to the courts.” Chiozza v. Chiozza, 315 S.W.3d

482, 487 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2009) (internal citations omitted). Plaintiff has presented a

thorough brief for our review. We will review her issues on appeal in turn.

A.

Decisions pertaining to discovery are subject to an abuse of discretion standard of

review. To determine whether a decision constitutes an abuse of discretion, we review the

trial court’s decision to ascertain: “(1) whether the factual basis of the decision is supported

by sufficient evidence; (2) whether the trial court has correctly identified and properly

applied the applicable legal principles; and (3) whether the trial court’s decision is within

the range of acceptable alternatives.” Gooding v. Gooding, 477 S.W.3d 774, 780 (Tenn.

Ct. App. 2015) (quotation omitted). The Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure limit the

scope of discovery to “any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter

involved in the pending action, whether it relates to the claim or defense of the party

seeking discovery or to the claim or defense of any other party[.]” Tenn. R. Civ. P. 26.02.

Here, Plaintiff asserts that the trial court abused its discretion in denying her motion

to compel discovery when she sought additional information to support her action.

Defendants respond that denial of the motion was appropriate when they readily admitted

Plaintiff’s version of events for purposes of summary judgment. We affirm the trial court’s

discretionary decision pertaining to Plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery when the facts

were not in dispute for purposes of ruling upon the motions for summary judgment.

B.

As a threshold issue, Plaintiff contends that the July 12, 2024, order does not comply

with Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 56.04 because it does not state the legal grounds

in support of the court’s grant of summary judgment. Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure

56.04 provides that “[t]he trial court shall state the legal grounds upon which the court

denies or grants the motion [for summary judgment], which shall be included in the order

reflecting the court’s ruling.” Here, the trial court’s order clearly states that Mr. Holt and

Ms. Keys affirmatively negated an essential element of Plaintiff’s claim by establishing

that their conduct was neither extreme nor outrageous, thereby resulting in the grant of

summary judgment. Additionally, there is no doubt that the order reflects the court’s own

independent judgment. Plaintiff’s argument is without merit.

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Next, Plaintiff argues that the record does not support the trial court’s grant of

summary judgment in support of Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys. Under Tennessee law, there are

three elements of a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress:

1. The conduct complained of must be intentional or reckless.

2. The conduct must be so outrageous that it is not tolerated by a

civilized society.

3. The conduct complained of must result in serious mental injury.

Bain v. Wells, 936 S.W.2d 618, 622 (Tenn. 1997). In Bain, the Tennessee Supreme Court

held that it is not an easy burden to meet the essential elements of outrageous conduct and

stated that it “has adopted and applied the high threshold standard described in the

Restatement (Second) of Torts.” Id. at 622. The Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 46,

comment d (1965), states in pertinent part:

The cases thus far decided have found liability only where the defendant’s

conduct has been extreme and outrageous. It has not been enough that the

defendant has acted with an intent which is tortious or even criminal, or that

he intended to inflict emotional distress, or even that his conduct has been

characterized by “malice,” or a degree of aggravation which would entitle

the plaintiff to punitive damages for another tort. Liability has been found

only where the conduct has been so outrageous in character, and so extreme

in degree as to go beyond all bounds of decency, and to be regarded as

atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Generally, the

case is one in which the recitation of the facts to an average member of the

community would arouse his resentment against the actor, and lead him to

exclaim, “Outrageous!”

The liability clearly does not extend to mere insults, indignities, threats,

annoyances, petty oppressions, or other trivialities. The rough edges of our

society are still in need of a good deal of filing down, and in the meantime

plaintiffs must necessarily be expected and required to be hardened to a

certain amount of rough language, and to occasional acts that are definitely

inconsiderate and unkind. There is no occasion for the law to intervene in

every case where someone’s feelings are hurt.

A plaintiff seeking damages for IIED must meet an “exacting standard.” Miller v.

Willbanks, 8 S.W.3d 607, 614 (Tenn. 1999). “Recovery for [IIED] is limited to mental

injury which is so severe that no reasonable person would be expected to endure it.” Arnett

v. Domino’s Pizza I, LLC, 124 S.W.3d 529, 540 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2003) (quoting Bain, 936

S.W.2d at 622). It is for the trial court to determine, in the first instance, whether a

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defendant’s conduct may reasonably be regarded as so extreme and outrageous as to permit

recovery. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 46, comment h. Thus, the trial court may

reasonably dismiss this legal theory as a matter of law.

We have no doubt that Plaintiff was upset when Mr. Holt closed the doors and left

her at the Music City Center in the cold. However, we cannot hold that Mr. Holt’s conduct

was so beyond the bounds of decency to warrant the label of “atrocious” or “outrageous”

behavior. Ms. Keys’s false assurance that she would file a complaint also does not rise to

the level of outrageous conduct. At worst, Plaintiff experienced an annoyance as a result

of poor customer service that caused her to wait approximately 26 minutes. We hold as a

matter of law that Plaintiff’s evidence at the summary judgment stage was insufficient to

establish a claim of IIED against Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys.

C.

In order to prevail in a negligence action in Tennessee, the plaintiff must prove that

(1) a duty of care was owed by the defendant; (2) the defendant’s conduct fell below the

applicable standard of care, resulting in a breach of the duty; (3) the plaintiff suffered an

injury or loss as a result of the breach of the duty; (4) the defendant’s breach of the duty

was cause in fact of the injury or loss; and (5) the defendant’s breach of the duty was the

proximate or legal cause of the injury or loss. McClung v. Delta Square Ltd., P’ship, 937

S.W.2d 891, 894 (Tenn. 1996). In claims for NIED, the claim must include the above

elements, as well as expert proof establishing that the plaintiff’s emotional distress was

“serious” or “severe.” Eskin v. Bartee, 262 S.W.3d 727, 735 (Tenn. 2008). Whether a

plaintiff sought recovery for negligence or NIED, the threshold element is always duty of

care because without a legal duty, there can be no conduct that breaches the duty. Hale v.

Ostrow, 166 S.W.3d 713, 716–17 (Tenn. 2005). The analysis of duty is specific to the

particular plaintiff and defendant involved. Nichols v. Atnip, 844 S.W.2d 655, 662 (Tenn.

Ct. App. 1992). Whether a defendant owed a duty is a question of law, and whether that

duty was breached is a question of fact. Giggers v. Memphis Hous. Auth., 277 S.W.3d 359,

366 (Tenn. 2009); see also Biscan v. Brown, 160 S.W.3d 462, 478 (Tenn. 2004).

Here, Plaintiff alleged that MTA owed her a duty of care as the employer of Mr.

Holt and Ms. Keys and that MTA should be held liable for their actions. The trial court

found, and the record confirms, that Mr. Holt and Ms. Keys were employed by DTO, not

MTA. Vince Malone, Chief of Staff and Administration of DTO, attested that Mr. Holt

and Ms. Keys were not hired by MTA and that they were directly managed and

compensated by DTO. Plaintiff does not dispute these facts. DTO and MTA have also

been defined as separate and distinct entities. Thompson v. Davidson Transit Org., 563 F.

Supp. 2d 820, 829 (M.D. Tenn. 2008) (“It is a settled fact that DTO and MTA are separate

legal entities and that only DTO is involved with day-to-day operations such as hiring,

disciplining, and firing employees.”). Plaintiff’s evidence at the summary judgment stage

was also insufficient to establish a breach of any alleged duty of care owed. With these

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considerations in mind, we affirm the trial court’s summary judgment dismissal of

Plaintiff’s claim against MTA for NIED.

V. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the summary judgment dismissal of the

action and remand for such further proceedings as may be necessary and consistent with

this opinion. Costs of the appeal are taxed to the appellant, Debbie Williams.

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JOHN W. MCCLARTY, JUDGE

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