Court Opinion

ID: 9960762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-16 22:09:07.44795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:19:52.285882
License: Public Domain

04/16/2024
               IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE
                             AT KNOXVILLE
                    Assigned on Briefs February 28, 2024

  JOHN SCHMEECKLE V. HAMILTON COUNTY TENNESSEE, ET AL.

                Appeal from the Chancery Court for Hamilton County
                   No. 23-0403    Pamela A. Fleenor, Chancellor

                           No. E2024-00309-COA-T10B-CV

This is the petitioner’s second petition to recuse based on the same allegations. Therefore,
we affirm the trial court’s dismissal.

Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 10B Interlocutory Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Chancery
                                 Court Affirmed

ANDY D. BENNETT, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CARMA DENNIS
MCGEE and KRISTI M. DAVIS, JJ., joined.

John Schmeeckle, Chattanooga, Tennessee, pro se.

Sharon McMullan Milling, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the appellees, Hamilton County
Chancery Court, Greg Carson, Austin L. Garrett, and Ron Rice.

                                        OPINION

                                      BACKGROUND

       This is the second appeal of a recusal denial pursuant to Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 10B in
this case. In the first recusal appeal, John Schmeeckle sought recusal of the trial judge,
Chancellor Fleenor, because she “refused to explain the reasons other judges recused from
the case, refused to hear evidence of misconduct against an attorney involved in the case,
and allegedly ruled erroneously in several respects.” Schmeeckle v. Hamilton Cnty., No.
E2023-01533-COA-T10B-CV, 2023 WL 8093111 at *1 (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 20, 2023)
(“Schmeeckle I”). The case was stayed. Id. at *4. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial
court’s denial of Mr. Schmeeckle’s motion to recuse the trial judge. Id. at *9. The
Tennessee Supreme Court declined to consider the Court of Appeals’s Schmeeckle I
decision.
        Nothing further happened in the case at the trial level until Mr. Schmeeckle filed a
motion on January 31, 2024, requesting the judge to “take appropriate action” against
Assistant County Attorney Sharon Milling. The second motion to recuse was filed a week
later. This second recusal motion arose out of Ms. Milling’s successful advocacy for a
motion for judgment on the pleadings, and an associated motion to stay discovery, which
resulted in a dismissal of Mr. Schmeeckle’s case on September 20, 2023.1 Subsequently,
the case was reinstated when the defendants admitted that, as Mr. Schmeeckle asserted,
their motion was “technically deficient.”2 In any event, Mr. Schmeeckle appealed the trial
court’s denial of the second motion to recuse.3

                                                  ANALYSIS

       The Rule 10B standard of review is de novo. TENN. SUP. CT. R. 10B, § 2.01. This
Court ordered an answer as authorized pursuant to Rule 10B, § 2.05. After examination of
the petition for recusal and the answer, we have determined that additional briefing and/or
oral argument are not required, and we choose to act summarily on the appeal in accordance
with Rule 10B §§ 2.05 and 2.06.

        Judicial impartiality is fundamental to our legal system. Mr. Schmeeckle filed his
second motion for recusal against the trial judge because, as he explained in his petition,
“if Ms. Milling’s misconduct was unlawful, then Chancellor Fleenor’s rulings in support
of Ms. Milling and the Defendants would likewise be unlawful.” Thus, the conduct
justifying recusal occurred September 18, 2023, when the trial judge declined to hear
evidence of Ms. Milling’s alleged misconduct. The order denying the second recusal
motion states, “The case was stayed while on appeal. Thus[,] there were no other rulings
from this Court during the stay. Accordingly, therefore, this is res judicata on the recusal
issue.” Chancellor Fleenor further explained her ruling during the February 19, 2024
hearing:

          And I stated in the order the case was stayed while on appeal. Thus, there
          were no other rulings from this court during the stay. I took no actions. So
          regardless of what you say in your motion, it can’t be anything but what
          occurred in your prior motions -- because the court did nothing while you

    1
        Mr. Schmeeckle filed his first motion to recuse later that same day.
    2
     This pleading is not in the record, but Schmeeckle I states that on November 6, 2023, the appellees,
Hamilton County and the Hamilton County Sheriff and two employees, “agreed that their motion for
judgment on the pleadings was deficient,” and that, “the dismissal of the action should be set aside.”
Schmeeckle I, 2023 WL 8093111, at *4.
    3
     Mr. Schmeeckle emphatically did not want the panel of judges who heard his first recusal motion to
hear his second one. By the luck of the draw, he received the present panel comprised of three different
judges. Therefore, no recusals were considered.
                                                     -2-
       asked the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court for recusal. No other
       actions were going on in this case. Therefore, ergo, it had to be the same
       items that you originally asked for in your motion to recuse. And I put that
       in my order. So that’s your clarification -- which allows you to go forward
       today.

       Mr. Schmeeckle denies that the second recusal motion is the same as the first. The
second motion to recuse alleged that the chancellor was not impartial, citing Tenn. Sup. Ct.
R. 10, Rule of Judicial Conduct, 2.11(A), which provides that “A judge shall disqualify
himself or herself in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be
questioned.”.

        The Schmeeckle I opinion described the reasons Mr. Schmeeckle sought the first
recusal of the trial judge as including she “refused to hear evidence of misconduct against
an attorney involved in the case.” Schmeeckle I, 2023 WL 8093111, at *1. In Mr.
Schmeeckle’s petition to the Supreme Court concerning the Schmeeckle I opinion, Mr.
Schmeeckle referred to instances of “judicial misconduct,” and referred the Court to his
petition to rehear the trial court’s denial of the motion to recuse. One of the points he raised
in the petition to rehear states:

       Chancellor Fleenor writes in her Order denying recusal: “Plaintiff’s second
       ground for recusal is that Chancellor Fleenor gave the appearance of bias
       as she refused to hear Plaintiff’s presentation of misconduct by the
       Defendants’ counsel, Assistant County Attorney Sharon Milling.” This is
       incomplete, because Plaintiff stated that this refusal to hear gave “rise to the
       reasonable suspicion that the Chancellor was acting to protect the Assistant
       County Attorney, which gives the appearance of bias against Plaintiff in
       this case.”

Impartiality and bias are opposite sides of the same coin. If one is impartial, one is not
biased. If one is biased, one is not impartial.

       In our opinion, both of Mr. Schmeeckle’s motions to recuse Chancellor Fleenor
raise the same allegations of bias or lack of impartiality arising out of the chancellor’s
ruling regarding Ms. Milling on September 18, 2023. Multiple motions based on the same
allegations are prohibited by Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 10B, § 1.01, which states that “Any
subsequent motion under this section filed in the same case must state, with specificity,
substantially different factual and legal grounds than those relied upon in support of a prior
motion filed under this section.” Therefore, the second motion to recuse is repetitive and
improper.

       Even if this Court viewed the allegations of the two petitions as different, another
principle of Rule 10B counsels for dismissal of the second motion to recuse. “Any party

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seeking disqualification, recusal, or a determination of constitutional or statutory
incompetence of a judge of a court of record, or a judge acting as a court of record, shall
do so by a written motion filed promptly after a party learns or reasonably should have
learned of the facts establishing the basis for recusal.” TENN. SUP. CT. R. 10B, §1.01
(emphasis added). “A delay in asserting the right to an impartial judge will result ‘in a
waiver of a party’s right to question a judge’s impartiality.’” Harris v. Allen, No. W2023-
01794-COA-T10B-CV, 2024 WL 137453, *2 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 11, 2024) (quoting
Kinard v. Kinard, 986 S.W.2d 220, 228 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1998)). Even if we viewed the
second petition as containing a different allegation, Mr. Schmeeckle waited too long to file
the petition.

                                       CONCLUSION

       The judgment of the trial court is affirmed. Costs of this appeal are assessed against
the appellant, John Schmeeckle, for which execution may issue if necessary.

                                                  /s/ Andy D. Bennett
                                                  ANDY D. BENNETT, JUDGE

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