RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b)

File Name: 21a0225p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

BRIAN B. DEVEREUX; RENEE DEVEREUX,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

KNOX COUNTY, TENNESSEE,

Defendant-Appellant.

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No. 19-6071

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville.

No. 3:17-cv-00197—J. Ronnie Greer, District Judge.

Argued: March 23, 2021

Decided and Filed: September 22, 2021

Before: BATCHELDER, GRIFFIN, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.

_________________

COUNSEL

ARGUED: David S. Wigler, KNOX COUNTY, TENNESSEE, Knoxville, Tennessee, for 

Appellant. Richard Everett Collins, II, STANLEY, KURTZ & COLLINS, PLLC, Knoxville, 

Tennessee, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: David S. Wigler, KNOX COUNTY, TENNESSEE, 

Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Richard Everett Collins, II, STANLEY, KURTZ & 

COLLINS, PLLC, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellees.

_________________

OPINION

_________________

JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge. Brian Devereux suffered a major stroke during or 

around the period of his custody by Knox County for misdemeanor first-time DUI. Corrections 

>
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 2

officers were in and out of the holding cell where he sat motionless for several hours but did not 

provide medical attention until it was too late to mitigate the stroke’s effects. Devereux and his 

wife, Renee Devereux,1sued the officers and Knox County. They brought federal civil rights 

claims as well as negligence claims under the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act, which 

waives sovereign immunity for certain claims, but not those arising from “civil rights.” After 

years of litigation, the district court dismissed all of Devereux’s claims against the officers as 

well as his civil rights claims against Knox County. It then declined to exercise supplemental 

jurisdiction over the TGTLA claims and dismissed them without prejudice, allowing Devereux 

to refile them in state court. Knox County objects, arguing that the district court should have 

retained jurisdiction and determined that the TGTLA’s “civil rights exception” necessarily 

barred Devereux’s negligence claims. The parties also move to certify a question about the civil 

rights exception’s timing and scope to the Tennessee Supreme Court. We VACATE the district 

court’s 2018 order denying Knox County’s first motion to dismiss only as to its rationale 

regarding the TGTLA negligence claim and VACATE the portion of the district court’s order of 

September 11, 2019, that relied on that vacated part of the district court’s 2018 order, AFFIRM

its judgment in all other respects, and DENY the parties’ joint motion to certify.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

Late in the afternoon of June 3, 2016, Devereux turned himself in to the Knox County 

Detention Facility to serve his sentence for a misdemeanor first-time DUI conviction. About an 

hour later, he sat on a bench in a holding cell, which was monitored by a video camera (with no 

audio), where he remained motionless and unresponsive for about six hours. During this time, 

multiple corrections officers entered and exited the cell, carrying out their normal tasks, and 

fellow detainees tried to wake Devereux (sometimes while officers were in the cell). Eventually, 

officers and a nurse brought medical equipment; when an ambulance arrived, medical personnel 

found Devereux “lying on the floor,” “hypotensive and hypoxic with a diminished respiratory 

drive and shallow breath sounds” as well as “unconscious and only responsive to pain.” 

1Because the majority of the Devereuxs’ claims are asserted by Brian Devereux alone, we will typically 

refer to the appellants as just “Devereux.”
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 3

Devereux was brought to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, where he 

remained for 10 days. An MRI showed that he had suffered a stroke and associated injuries, 

causing “permanent neurologic injury.” In the opinion of Dr. Kenneth Gaines, Devereux’s 

treating neurologist, the stroke occurred shortly after he entered the holding cell. Devereux, who 

worked as a mechanical engineer, now experiences “significant cognitive impairment” and has 

“poor fine motor control and a tremor that interferes with activities of daily living,” among other 

medical conditions. He asserts that had he received treatment earlier, it is likely that his injuries 

would have been substantially mitigated. 

B. Procedural Background

Brian and Renee Devereux brought claims against the corrections officers (the 

“individual Defendants”) and Knox County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Eighth Amendment 

for “deliberate indifference to and violation of Brian Devereux’s right to be provided adequate 

medical care for a serious medical need.” In a separate claim, Devereux contended that the 

individual Defendants and Knox County “owed [him] a duty to provide him adequate medical 

care while he was in custody” and breached that duty, negligently violating their statutory duty to 

“[s]ee that when sick [he had] proper medicine and medical treatment.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 41-

2-109(5). This count also asserted that the individual Defendants and Knox County were 

“negligent per se for not complying with various provisions of state-established minimum 

standards for jail facilities.” 

In July 2017, Knox County filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (“first 

motion to dismiss”). It argued that sovereign immunity barred the state-law claims under the 

“civil rights exception” in the TGTLA, see Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-205(2), and that Devereux 

failed to allege facts sufficient to allow the factfinder to determine “that Knox County has 

customs, policies[,] or practices that encouraged deliberate indifference to serious medical 

needs.” The individual Defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings and a motion 

for summary judgment, both based on qualified immunity. Knox County then filed a motion for 

summary judgment, incorporating the arguments from its pending first motion to dismiss. 
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 4

In September 2018, the district court granted in part and denied in part Knox County’s 

first motion to dismiss, leaving only the TGTLA negligence claims against it. It concluded that 

“Knox County has established that it is entitled to dismissal of Mr. Devereux’s municipalliability claim under § 1983 but has failed to show, under the TGTLA’s civil rights exception, 

that it is entitled to dismissal of Mr. Devereux’s negligence claim.” The court also opined that 

Tennessee law allowed a TGTLA claim to stand alone, without an accompanying civil rights 

claim. 

In October 2018, Knox County filed a second motion to dismiss, this time for lack of 

subject-matter jurisdiction (“second motion to dismiss”). It also moved the court to certify to the 

Tennessee Supreme Court a question about the point in the litigation at which a district court 

should determine its subject-matter jurisdiction over TGTLA claims when the plaintiff also 

brings claims under § 1983.

During extensive motion practice, the parties disputed the admissibility of the testimony 

of Dr. Gaines, the neurologist who treated Devereux and who Devereux sought to introduce as 

an expert. The district court ultimately excluded Dr. Gaines’s testimony because the disclosures 

were inadequate—and because Devereux did not respond to the individual Defendants and Knox 

County’s renewed motion to exclude and instead raised his arguments in objections to the 

magistrate judge’s order. The court remarked:

The Court begins by emphasizing—as [the magistrate judge] did—the 

importance of Dr. Gaines’ testimony about the timing of the stroke. Dr. Gaines is 

Plaintiffs’ only expert witness, so his testimony that Mr. Devereux suffered a 

stroke in the Knox County Jail is, by every appearance, necessary to establish a 

violation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983—specifically, to establish that a delay in 

medical treatment resulted in a constitutional violation.

(R. 135, Order, PageID 1382 (citations omitted))

On September 11, 2019, the district court also granted the individual Defendants’ motion 

for summary judgment on the § 1983 claims but denied Knox County’s second motion to dismiss 

and motion to certify. The court noted that without Gaines’s declaration, “the remaining 

evidence in the record suggests that Mr. Devereux suffered a stroke after he was transported 

from the Knox County Jail to the hospital.” The court declined to exercise supplemental 
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 5

jurisdiction over the TGTLA claims and dismissed them without prejudice, allowing refiling in 

state court. And it dismissed all remaining motions, including Knox County’s motion for 

summary judgment, as moot. Devereux refiled his TGTLA claims against Knox County in state 

court, and the state court entered an agreed order staying that case pending this appeal. Agreed 

Order for Stay of Proceedings, Devereux v. Knox County, No. 3:354-19 (Tenn. Cir. Ct. Knox 

Cnty. Jan. 16, 2020). 

The parties filed notices of appeal, but all except Knox County voluntarily dismissed 

their appeals. Knox County appealed the district court’s September 11, 2019, order. 

Subsequently, Devereux and Knox County filed a joint motion asking us to certify the following 

question to the Tennessee Supreme Court:

When does the GTLA’s civil rights exception attach in a case where, as here, the 

plaintiff’s complaint avers claims against a Tennessee municipality under both 42 

U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights) and the GTLA (negligence) in the same action under 

the same underlying facts?

(Dkt. 34-1 at 2) 

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

We review de novo a district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss for lack of subjectmatter jurisdiction or failure to state a claim. Rote v. Zel Custom Mfg. LLC, 816 F.3d 383, 387 

(6th Cir. 2016); Beydoun v. Sessions, 871 F.3d 459, 464 (6th Cir. 2017). We review a district 

court’s denial of a motion to certify a question to a state court for abuse of discretion. Church 

Joint Venture, L.P. v. Blasingame, 947 F.3d 925, 930 (6th Cir. 2020).

B. The Civil Rights Exception and Knox County’s Motions

The civil rights exception provides that Tennessee governmental entities do not waive 

their sovereign immunity “for injury proximately caused by a negligent act or omission of any 

employee within the scope of his employment” if “the injury arises out of . . . [f]alse 

imprisonment pursuant to a mittimus from a court, false arrest, malicious prosecution, intentional 

trespass, abuse of process, libel, slander, deceit, interference with contract rights, infliction of 
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 6

mental anguish, invasion of right of privacy, or civil rights.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-205 

(emphasis added).2 Noting that this “exception has been construed to include claims arising 

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the United States Constitution,” we have held that “the plain 

language of the TGTLA preserves immunity for suits claiming negligent injuries arising from 

civil rights violations.” Johnson v. City of Memphis, 617 F.3d 864, 872 (6th Cir. 2010). In 

Johnson, the plaintiff brought a Fourth Amendment claim under § 1983 and sought to add 

Tennessee-law claims alleging negligence by an emergency dispatcher. Id. at 867, 871. The 

district court denied her motion to amend on the ground that the civil rights exception would 

render the additional negligence claim futile. Id. at 871. On de novo review, we affirmed the 

decision, finding that the negligence claim “arises out of the same circumstances giving rise to 

her civil rights claim under § 1983” and “therefore falls within the exception.” Id. at 872. 

We have since applied Johnson’s analysis to similarly parallel civil rights and negligence 

claims. See Savage v. City of Memphis, 620 F. App’x 425, 429–30 (6th Cir. 2015); Bryant v. 

City of Memphis, 644 F. App’x 381, 384 (6th Cir. 2014). Tennessee courts have typically done 

the same. See, e.g., Siler v. Scott, 591 S.W.3d 84, 96–98 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2019), appeal denied

(Oct. 11, 2019); Cochran v. Town of Jonesborough, 586 S.W.3d 909, 914–21 (Tenn. Ct. App. 

2019), appeal denied (Aug. 4, 2019); Merolla v. Wilson County, No. M201800919COAR3CV, 

2019 WL 1934829, at *4–6 (Tenn. Ct. App. May 1, 2019), appeal denied (Sept. 18, 2019).

In Tennessee, when a plaintiff’s civil rights claim is dismissed for failure to state a claim, 

it remains an open question whether the district court must necessarily reach the parallel TGTLA 

negligence claim or can instead decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction. We have likewise 

not conclusively answered the question but have touched upon adjacent issues. In Bryant, the 

plaintiff brought an employment discrimination claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which the district 

court construed as having been brought under § 1983 and then dismissed. 644 F. App’x at 384; 

see Johnson v. City of Shelby, 574 U.S. 10, 11–12 (2014) (per curiam). He also brought a claim 

for negligent training, which the court dismissed under the civil rights exception. Bryant, 644 F. 

App’x at 384. On appeal, Bryant argued that “if the district court had dismissed his improperly 

brought § 1981 claim, there would have been no civil-rights bypass to the City’s liability for 

2Though this statute has been amended since the events in this case, this provision remains the same.
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 7

negligent training.” Id. (emphasis removed). Without commenting on whether this reasoning 

was valid, we held that the district court acted properly by recasting the § 1981 claim. Id. 

Meanwhile, prior to Johnson v. City of Memphis, we analyzed a district court’s decision that “did 

not consider the distinction between a cause of action based on [a civil rights violation] and one 

based on allegations of . . . independently negligent acts,” when the latter included other 

circumstances that were both “temporally and factually distinct.” Partee v. City of Memphis, 449 

F. App’x 444, 449 (6th Cir. 2011). While noting that “Tennessee state courts have not explicitly 

determined whether the limited factual overlap between these claims would be sufficient to 

render the City immune from the [negligence] claim under the GTLA,” we declined to reach the 

issue of whether the GTLA barred the negligence claim because it was unnecessary to resolving 

the appeal. Id. at 449–50.

In a similar situation, another Tennessee federal court recently employed the 

same jurisdictional procedure as the district court did here. In Blevins v. Marion County, 

No. 1:18-CV-53, 2020 WL 3036359 (E.D. Tenn. June 5, 2020), the plaintiff, a pretrial detainee, 

“had a stroke and was not treated for ‘several hours’ afterwards.” Id. at *2. Like Devereux, 

she brought federal civil rights claims in addition to claims for “violation of [Tenn. Code Ann.] 

§ 41-2-109” and “state-law negligence” against individual defendants and Marion County. Id. at 

*3. On the defendants’ motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim and for summary 

judgment, the district court dismissed Blevins’s civil rights claims. Id. at *4–12. Finding that 

her state-law claims were “predicated on Defendants’ alleged violation of her civil rights in 

denying her medical care,” the court ruled that the civil rights exception afforded Marion County 

immunity from those claims, but that Blevins could maintain them against the individual 

defendants. Id. at *9. The district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the 

state-law claims due to “the interests of judicial economy and abstention from needlessly 

deciding state-law issues.” Id. at *13.

In earlier comparable cases, Tennessee courts offered no indication that this procedure 

posed a problem. See, e.g., Payne v. Tipton County, 448 S.W.3d 891, 894 n.1 (Tenn. Ct. App. 

2014), appeal denied (Sept. 18, 2014); Payne v. Tipton County, No. 05-2310 MAP, 2006 WL 

1967046, at *2 (W.D. Tenn. July 12, 2006); Parker v. Henderson County, No. W2009-00975-
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 8

COA-R3-CV, 2010 WL 377044, at *2 n.2 (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 4, 2010); Parker v. Henderson 

County, 450 F. Supp. 2d 842, 857 (W.D. Tenn. 2006). Nor has our court found this procedure 

objectionable. See, e.g., Siler v. Webber, No. 3:05-CV-341, 2009 WL 10680025, at *6 (E.D. 

Tenn. Jan. 27, 2009) (declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over TGTLA claims), aff’d,

Siler v. Webber, 443 F. App’x 50 (6th Cir. 2011).

Decisions by district courts to decline supplemental jurisdiction over TGTLA claims 

remaining after dismissing the core civil rights claims generally draw on our decision in Gregory 

v. Shelby County, 220 F.3d 433 (6th Cir. 2000). There, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s 

TGTLA claims against a corrections officer, declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction. Id.

at 445. We affirmed, highlighting that 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c) allows district courts to decline 

supplemental jurisdiction if “in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for 

declining jurisdiction” and that Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-307 confers upon Tennessee circuit 

courts “exclusive original jurisdiction” over TGTLA claims. Gregory, 220 F.3d at 446. We 

emphasized that “[i]n this instance, the Tennessee legislature expressed a clear preference that 

TGTLA claims be handled by its own state courts. This unequivocal preference of the 

Tennessee legislature is an exceptional circumstance for declining jurisdiction.” Id.

Federal district courts in Tennessee have echoed this point, noting that it “is even more 

compelling where . . . the underlying federal claim has been dismissed.” Payne, 2006 WL 

1967046, at *2; see also Parker, 450 F. Supp. 2d at 857; Siler, 2009 WL 10680025, at *6 

(collecting cases). That is exactly what the district court did here, citing Gregory. And that is 

substantially what happened in the cases that Knox County cites. Cochran, 586 S.W.3d at 911–

12; Cochran v. Town of Jonesborough, No. 2:17-CV-44, 2018 WL 1144816, at *7 (E.D. Tenn. 

Mar. 2, 2018); Siler, 591 S.W.3d at 92; Siler, 2009 WL 10680025, at *1.

Knox County argues that Gregory is entirely inapplicable, contending that it “cannot be 

read as creating a categorical rule precluding supplemental jurisdiction over TGTLA claims in 

every case.” True, Gregory creates no categorical bar—or requirement. Gregory simply holds 

that it is valid, under 28 U.S.C. § 1367, for a district court to exercise its discretion to decline to 

retain supplemental jurisdiction. That holding is consistent with the actions of the district court 

here and those taken in cases like Blevins. Knox County then argues that our decisions in 
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 9

Briscoe v. Fine, 444 F.3d 478 (6th Cir. 2006), and Grover by Grover v. Eli Lilly & Co., 33 F.3d 

716 (6th Cir. 1994), control over Gregory. But Knox County’s lengthy quotation from Briscoe

refers to the court’s jurisdiction to hear a cross-appeal about whether a dismissal of pendent 

state-law claims should have been with prejudice—not at issue here—and the remainder of the 

case concerns the application of ERISA—a federal law, unlike the TGTLA. 444 F.3d at 495–

501. And the possibility of undue prejudice to a defendant resulting from a dismissal without 

prejudice which Grover discusses seems minimal when applied to this case. See 33 F.3d at 718–

19. Tennessee courts, moreover, have regularly countenanced federal district courts’ dismissals 

without prejudice of TGTLA claims. Finally, there is no need here to resolve the issue of 

whether speculative prejudice to a defendant can ever outweigh the strong preference of the 

Tennessee legislature to have Tennessee courts decide those claims. 

Knox County also posits that declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over 

TGTLA claims after dismissing federal civil rights claims will lead to procedural maneuvering 

that will deprive Tennessee governmental entities of a meaningful opportunity to assert 

sovereign immunity. But denials of motions to dismiss that assert sovereign immunity are 

immediately appealable as collateral orders. Town of Smyrna v. Mun. Gas Auth. of Georgia, 723 

F.3d 640, 645 (6th Cir. 2013); Kelly v. Great Seneca Fin. Corp., 447 F.3d 944, 948 (6th Cir. 

2006). That provides an appropriate opportunity for Tennessee governmental entities to litigate 

and vindicate any sovereign immunity they can validly assert.

And that remains a secondary issue because the Tennessee Court of Appeals has already 

threaded the needle on this argument:

[W]e are . . . unpersuaded by Appellant’s argument that because the district court 

dismissed Appellant’s federal claims at the summary judgment stage, there were 

no civil rights violations, and section 29-20-205(2) [the civil rights exception] is 

thereby inapplicable. Appellant asserts in his brief that “the [f]ederal [c]ourt 

specifically found, based on the [d]efendants[’] [m]otions, that there were no 

‘civil-rights’ violations.” Respectfully, we disagree. Nothing in the language of 

section 29-20-205(2) indicates that there must be an express finding that a civil 

rights violation occurred in order for the exception to apply. Indeed, immunity 

offered by section 29-20-205 is broad, preserving immunity for negligence 

claims so long as the “injury arises out of . . . civil rights.” Tenn. Code Ann. 

§ 29-20-205(2). Here, there is no dispute that Appellant originally claimed that 

his injuries arose from violations of his civil rights . . . . As such, the district court 
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 10

never concluded that the injuries alleged by Appellant did not sound in civil 

rights; rather, the district court simply concluded that Appellant failed to put forth 

sufficient evidence at the summary judgment stage to proceed with his action. 

Moreover, none of the cases discussed herein indicate that section 29-20-205(2) 

requires the claimant to be successful in his or her civil rights claim in order for 

the civil rights exception to apply to corresponding state law claims. As such, 

Appellant’s argument in this regard is simply without basis.

Cochran, 586 S.W.3d at 919–20; see also Siler, 591 S.W.3d at 97. 

This is very similar to the situation presented here. When confronting issues of state law, 

we view intermediate state appellate courts’ decisions as persuasive “unless it is shown that the 

state’s highest court would decide the issue differently,” and no such showing has been made 

here. In re Dow Corning Corp., 419 F.3d 543, 549 (6th Cir. 2005). Cochran and cases like it 

counsel a particular course of action: the district court may decline to exercise supplemental 

jurisdiction over TGTLA cases, leaving it to the Tennessee courts to decide those claims in the 

first instance. As in Cochran, it could be that once in state court, TGTLA claims that arose from 

the same set of facts as the federal civil rights claims decided in federal court are unlikely to 

succeed. But as Cochran and cases like it indicate, Tennessee’s courts are best situated to 

resolve that question. Thus, under governing precedent, the district court did not abuse its 

discretion by declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ TGTLA claims.

Knox County also contends that the district court’s order denying its first motion to 

dismiss (asserting sovereign immunity on the TGTLA claims because they arose from his civil 

rights claims) is unduly prejudicial because collateral estoppel will prevent it from litigating that 

issue in state court. That September 2018 order stated:

But the Court has no need to determine whether Mr. Devereux’s 

negligence claim arises out of his § 1983 claim because it has already concluded 

that his § 1983 claim requires dismissal, leaving no civil-rights claim standing 

against Knox County. Without an existing civil-rights claim from which the 

negligence claim against Knox County can “directly flow,” . . . the negligence 

claim cannot come within subsection 29-20-205(2)’s civil-rights exception. The 

viability of this claim now simply depends on whether Mr. Devereux has pleaded 

sufficient facts under each of the elements that comprises a negligence claim 

under Tennessee law . . . . Knox County, however, does not challenge the 

sufficiency of the allegations as they pertain to the elements of Mr. Devereux’s 

negligence claim itself. The Court therefore offers no opinion as to whether Mr. 
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 11

Devereux states a plausible negligence claim under Tennessee law, and it will 

allow this claim to survive dismissal.

(R. 75 at PageID 551 (emphasis added)) 

In its later order of September 11, 2019, the district court described its previous order:

[T]he Court dismissed Mr. Devereux’s municipal liability claim against Knox 

County, but it declined also to dismiss Mr. Devereux’s negligence claim against 

Knox County under the TGTLA’s civil-rights exception, observing that, under 

Tennessee law, a TGTLA claim could potentially stand alone—that is, without an 

accompanying civil-rights claim under § 1983.

(R. 136 at PageID 1405)

At the time of its decision on Knox County’s first motion to dismiss, the district court did 

not have the benefit of the decision of the Tennessee Court of Appeals in Cochran. By the time 

the district court entered its order of September 11, 2019, Cochran had been published, but the 

district court did not address it. This timing notwithstanding, “[t]he general rule . . . is that an 

appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision.” Henderson v. 

United States, 568 U.S. 266, 271 (2013) (second alteration in original) (quoting Thorpe v. Hous. 

Auth., 393 U.S. 268, 281 (1969)).

Cochran suggests that the district court’s statement—that the civil rights exception can 

only apply if a civil rights claim is currently pending—was erroneous. The court was correct 

that after it dismissed Devereux’s municipal liability claim against Knox County, no civil rights 

claims were pending. But under Cochran, the issue is whether the claims “did not sound in civil 

rights,” and the presence of a civil rights claim is not strictly necessary for the civil rights 

exception to apply to parallel TGTLA claims. Cochran, 586 S.W.3d at 920. Given the district 

court’s now-incorrect statement of law, concern regarding collateral estoppel in subsequent 

proceedings is justified because “even an erroneous judgment is entitled to preclusive effect as 

long as all the other prerequisites have been met.” Mullins v. State, 294 S.W.3d 529, 537 n.3 

(Tenn. 2009). And here, when the mandate in this case becomes effective, the issue will have 

been fully “actually raised, litigated, and decided on the merits” in the earlier proceeding (this 

case), with the decision made final, and with Knox County having “had a full and fair 

opportunity” to argue the matter. Id. at 535.
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 12

The best approach on this record, then, is to give the Tennessee courts a fresh opportunity 

to consider whether Plaintiffs’ TGTLA claims against Knox County “did not sound in civil 

rights,” Cochran, 586 S.W.3d at 920, per the Tennessee legislature’s strong preference. We 

therefore vacate the rationale of the district court’s 2018 order on Knox County’s first motion to 

dismiss regarding the TGTLA claim (R. 75 at PageID 551), and do so in order to prevent any 

issue of collateral estoppel in state court based on this aspect of the district court’s reasoning. 

We also vacate the part of the district court’s order of September 11, 2019 (R. 136 at PageID 

1404–06), which relies on that aspect of the district court’s 2018 order. We do not disturb the 

remainder of the district court’s order of September 11, 2019. 

C. Motion to Certify

Tennessee, like other states, invites federal courts of appeals to certify questions of law, 

which its Supreme Court may answer at its discretion. Tenn. Ct. R. 23(1). The certifying court 

must “determine[] that, in a proceeding before it, there are questions of [Tennessee] law . . . 

which will be determinative of the cause and as to which it appears to the certifying court there is 

no controlling precedent in the decisions of the Supreme Court of Tennessee.” Id. Tennessee’s 

rule mirrors our explanation that certification “is a matter within the discretion of the court” and 

is “most appropriate when the question is new and state law is unsettled.” State Auto Prop. & 

Cas. Ins. Co. v. Hargis, 785 F.3d 189, 194 (6th Cir. 2015) (quoting Transamerica Ins. Co. v. 

Duro Bag Mfg. Co., 50 F.3d 370, 372 (6th Cir. 1995)). We do “not trouble our sister state courts 

every time an arguably unsettled question of state law comes across our desks.” Id. (quoting 

Pennington v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co, 553 F.3d 447, 450 (6th Cir. 2009)). Instead, 

“[w]hen we see a reasonably clear and principled course, we will seek to follow it ourselves”; 

“[t]he state court need not have addressed the exact question, so long as well-established 

principles exist to govern a decision.” Id. Certain procedural concerns matter when deciding a 

motion to certify, including that “the appropriate time for a party to seek certification of a statelaw issue is before, not after, the district court has resolved the issue.” Id.

Certification of the question the parties have proposed is not warranted here. As 

discussed above, there exists sufficient Tennessee appellate case law addressing questions 

similar to the one the parties seek to certify. The broad ruling that the parties would have the 
No. 19-6071 Devereux, et al. v. Knox Cnty., Tenn. Page 13

Tennessee Supreme Court make is not necessary to resolve this case. Moreover, given that the 

Tennessee legislature strongly prefers that Tennessee courts adjudicate TGTLA claims (and 

matters of Tennessee law in general), there is no need to impose the delays that would result 

from invoking the certification procedure when the option of letting the parties litigate this issue 

in Tennessee courts alone is readily available.

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons discussed above, we VACATE the portion of the district court’s 2018 

order denying Knox County’s first motion to dismiss the Devereuxs’ TGTLA claims only as to 

its rationale regarding the TGTLA negligence claim and also VACATE the portion of the 

district court’s order of September 11, 2019, that relied on the vacated part of its 2018 order. We 

AFFIRM the district court’s judgment in all other respects, and DENY the parties’ joint motion 

to certify.