Delbert T. McConkey and wife, Opal Ray McConkey v. Continental Insurance Company

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, Eastern Section, decided May 22, 1984 (Sanders, Judge, writing for the court; Goddard and Franks, JJ., concurring). Permission to appeal was denied by the Supreme Court of Tennessee on December 31, 1984. Our text comes from the Caselaw Access Project (case.law), Harvard Law School’s open archive of published U.S. case law. Removed as print artifacts: the archive’s own section separators and its bracketed opinion tag (“[SANDERS, Judge. — majority]”), and the reporter’s head-matter block — the caption, the court and section line, the decision date, the permission-to-appeal notation, and the counsel listings. Those counsel listings are summarized here instead: Larry B. Nolen, Athens, for the plaintiffs; Archie R. Carpenter, Knoxville, for the defendant. We did not include an authority_url for this page because we could not verify a stable, freely readable copy of the opinion online; the citation above is the reporter citation. Scan repairs, complete list — five categories: (1) three line-break hyphens rejoined, “McCon-keys” and two instances of “McCon-key,” to “McConkeys” and “McConkey”; (2) the stray end-of-line hyphen in “voided the policy-” corrected to a period; (3) the artifact ”— -to me there was” in the fire expert’s testimony rendered as ”— to me there was”; (4) the stray underscore standing in for an omission mark inside the quoted 44 Am.Jur.2d passage, after “recovery on the policy by the insured;”, rendered as an ellipsis; and (5) curly quotation marks and apostrophes rendered as straight marks throughout. Two apparent slips are left exactly as the reporter printed them, because they may be the speakers’ own words rather than scan errors: “there was certainly evidenced upon which reasonable minds could differ,” in the trial judge’s quoted ruling, and “and void any claim under the policy,” in the final holding. Testimony that the reporter sets off as indented transcript is rendered here as markdown block quotes; the words, and the opening quotation marks the reporter puts before each question and answer, are unchanged. The judge’s name line is bolded.

The full opinion

OPINION

SANDERS, Judge.

Both sides have appealed from the judgment of the court in a suit on a fire insurance policy.

In May, 1982, the Defendant, Continental Insurance Company, issued its policy of insurance to the Plaintiffs, Delbert T. McConkey and wife, insuring their residence against damage by fire in the amount of $40,000, the contents of the residence up to $20,000 and loss of use up to $8,000. On August 6, while the policy was in force, the residence was extensively damaged by fire. Plaintiffs filed a timely proof of loss but the Defendant refused to pay.

The Plaintiffs sued the Defendant for the full coverage of the policy plus 25% bad-faith penalty.

The Defendant, for answer, admitted it had issued its policy on the property and that it was in force on the date of the fire. However, as an affirmative defense, it alleged the Plaintiffs had either set the fire or had procured the setting of it. It also alleged the Plaintiffs had made material misrepresentations concerning the circumstances of the loss, the extent of the loss, and the origin of the loss and that such material misrepresentations voided the policy.

The case was tried before the court without a jury and the court found the issues in favor of the Plaintiffs. He awarded them $34,122 for damages to the house, $7,000 for damages to the contents and $1,500 for living expenses. However, he denied the 25% bad-faith penalty. In his determination of the case, the court said, “With regard to the aspects, the court finds there was certainly evidenced upon which reasonable minds could differ with regard to the claim.”

Both sides have appealed. Continental says the court erred in not finding the Plaintiffs had either set the fire or procured its setting. It also says the court erred in not finding the Plaintiffs had made material misrepresentations as to what was in the house at the time of the fire, thereby voiding the coverage. The McConkeys say the court was in error in not finding that the house was totally destroyed by the fire and awarding them $40,000 for its loss. We find merit in the contentions of Continental but we find no merit in the contentions of the McConkeys.

We first consider the issue of Continental that the court was in error in failing to find the McConkeys had burned or procured the burning of their house. The McConkeys purchased the property in question in May, 1979, for $25,000. They placed a loan on another piece of property they owned with Liberty Bank for $27,000 and used the funds to pay for the residence. They never made any payments on the loan and the deed of trust was foreclosed by the bank, leaving a deficiency of some $13,000. In January, 1980, the McConkeys conveyed the residence to their son but retained a life estate in it. In September, 1981, a decree was entered in the Chancery Court of McMinn County setting the conveyance of the property to the McConkeys’ son aside on the grounds the conveyance was made for the purpose of defrauding creditors. The court also impressed a lien on the property in favor of Earl Cate in the amount of $530.50 and of Liberty Bank in the amount of $13,293.04 and provided that in the event the judgment was not paid within 60 days the property would be sold to satisfy the judgment. The judgment was not paid and the fire occurred on Friday, August 6 prior to Monday, August 9 when the house was scheduled to be sold.

On the morning of the fire the McConkeys had left their house sometime between 7:15 and 7:45. The fire was discovered within a few minutes of eight o’clock. The McConkeys stated they locked the doors when they left the place and no fires were in the stove and all appliances were off. When asked how he accounted for the fire, Mr. McConkey’s answer was, “I don’t know.”

The Defendant called as a witness Mr. Cadden, who was an expert with impressive credentials on the origin and nature of fires. Although no evidence of accelerants was found, he testified the fire was of very high intensity. He located the origin of the fire as being at floor level near a closet in the dining room. After testifying in detail as to his findings and as to what he did to eliminate the possibility of an accidental fire such as an electrical short, he concluded the fire had been deliberately set. In this regard, he testified as follows: “There is no other accidental cause available to have started this fire. You have got to take everything into consideration when you are looking at a fire of this magnitude; that is, how did the fire spread at floor level over a pretty good area of the floor; how did it generate enough heat to burn, you know, clear through the roof and produce the type of heat you had in the house. It was clearly my opinion this was a set fire. There was no indication otherwise. There was no physical indication otherwise other than a set fire, and all other accidental causes were eliminated.”

The Plaintiffs offered no proof to indicate the fire started other than in the manner in which Mr. Cadden testified it did.

Both Mr. and Mrs. McConkey gave rather lengthy sworn statements in the nature of questions and answers before the trial and we find many material contradictions in the statements given before trial and the testimony given at trial. The afternoon before the fire Mrs. McConkey sold their dining room suite to Mrs. Womock, one of their neighbors, for $300. When asked about this matter in his sworn statement, Mr. McConkey denied such a sale had been made. He even denied they owned a dining room suite. He said, “We couldn’t afford to buy one of them.” On trial he admitted he knew about the sale. Mrs. McConkey also sold a rocking chair, a chest of drawers, some dishes and other household items to Mrs. Hutsell, another neighbor, shortly before the fire. However, Mr. McConkey, in his sworn statement, denied they had sold any furniture. He said, “All she sold was a little end table and some do-dads, you call them,” at the flea market. Although both Mr. and Mrs. McConkey stated in their sworn statements they knew the bank was going to sell their house and they were going to have to move, in the trial they both testified they were not aware of this until the day their house was burned.

On the morning of the fire the Plaintiffs went from their home to a flea market where they took a number of items for sale. They were at the flea market at the time they were told their house was on fire. Upon learning of the fire, they loaded the unsold items into their car and returned to the house, but they had sold some $300 worth of items before they left the flea market. Also, the chest of drawers that was sold to Mrs. Hutsell had a number of things in the drawers. These items, including a number of pictures, were removed from the drawers, put in a box and stored in the barn. Mrs. McConkey testified, “Some of the things that was in the barn was some good things, you know, I mean, some things I wanted to keep.” There is no explanation in the record as to why these things were stored in the barn instead of the house.

Shortly after arriving at the fire, and while the house was still burning, the Plaintiffs left the scene of the fire and went to the office of their insurance agent to report the fire. They had their fire insurance in the glove compartment of their car. Although Mr. McConkey stated in his sworn statement that they kept their valuable papers in a dresser drawer, Mrs. McConkey testified they kept their valuable papers in their automobile.

We think the testimony of Mrs. Womock, the neighbor who purchased the dining room suite, is very significant. On direct examination she testified as follows:

“Q. Do you recall the day their house burned?

“A. No, I don’t remember the date.

“Q. Do you recall it being sometime in August of last year?

“A. Yes, and it was a Friday, the day the house burned.

“Q. All right. Did you talk with Mrs. McConkey the day before the house burned?

“A. Yes, sir.

“Q. What time of day did you first talk to her?

“A. Well, she called me and said that the bank was going to foreclose on her house. She wanted to sell me her dining room suite, and I told her I wasn’t interested. I had one.

So later in the day, she called me and asked me if I would come over and look at it. She said she would price it to me. So I went over, and she did price it to me. And I bought it.

“Q. So how many times did she call you that day?

“A. About twice.

“Q. What did she price the dining room set at?

“A. Three hundred dollars.

“Q. Three hundred dollars, is that what you gave for it?

“A. Yes.

“Q. When did you get this dining room suite?

“A. Well, I got it on Thursday before the next morning when the house burned, and I asked her if I could wait until the next morning for me to move it. And she said no, I would have to move it then because she said they were going to the flea market the next morning with a lot of stuff, and they weren’t coming back there. She said they were going to her son’s, Larry McConkey. So I got my brother, and he helped us move the dining room suite down to my house that Thursday night before the house burned the next morning.”

On cross-examination she testified:

“Q. You were living across the street?

“A. Yes, sir.

“Q. And was the dining room suite?

“A. Yes, sir.

“Q. All right. And how did you — did you go down to the house and get it in the daytime or nighttime?

“A. It was getting dark when we moved it.

“Q. All right.

“A. I asked her to wait until the next morning because it was getting dark and so I could get some help to move it. She said we had to move it that night. So I got my brother and my grandson and husband and moved it that night. And it was getting dark. It was Thursday night before the house burned on Friday.”

Aside from the fact that Mrs. McConkey had previously testified that Mrs. Womock had called her inquiring about the dining room suite, Mrs. Womock’s testimony is uncontradicted in the record. It is also interesting to note that the items of furniture sold to Mrs. Hutsell were picked up on the day before the fire.

In the case of Aetna Casualty and Surety Company v. Parton, 609 S.W.2d 518 (Tenn.App.1980), under facts similar to those in the case at bar, this court quoted with approval as follows:

” ‘When a party in a civil case relies upon circumstantial evidence to make out his case, the facts and circumstances shown by the evidence and relied on to sustain his theory must not only be consistent with that theory, but must also be inconsistent with any other reasonable theory. However, they need not be so certain as to exclude all other rational theories. A preponderance of such circumstantial evidence is all that is required in a civil case. And in civil cases a preponderance of evidence carries the burden of proof regardless of whether the evidence is direct or circumstantial. A well-connected train of circumstances may outweigh opposing direct testimony. However, in a civil action, circumstantial evidence which is conflicting is for the trier of facts, governed by the usual rules.’ O’Neil Lee, Tenn. Evidence, p. 338. Also see Bryan v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 174 Tenn. 602, 130 S.W.2d 85 and Pickard v. Berryman, 24 Tenn.App. 263, 142 S.W.2d 764.”

Id. 520.

With all of the attending circumstances, why would Mrs. McConkey insist that Mrs. Womock remove the furniture late in the evening when she asked permission to move it the next day and why would she say to Mrs. Womock “they were not going back there”?

We find the evidence preponderates against the holding of the trial court that the evidence failed to show the Plaintiffs had burned or procured the burning of their house.

Although our holding on the first issue is dispositive of the case, we also find there is merit in the Defendant’s second insistence that the Plaintiffs made material misrepresentations as to the contents of the dwelling at the time of the fire. The Plaintiffs filed with the Defendant an itemized list of contents of the house at the time of the fire. The value placed on these contents was in excess of $20,000, which was the limit of their policy. There was substantial evidence to make the inventory suspect. For example, the inventory on a clothes closet listed 35 shirts, two three-piece men’s suits, six sweaters, 10 dresses, 25 pairs of pants, 13 pairs of shoes, together with a number of other items. Plaintiffs both testified that the closet was a walk-in closet and was so full they could hardly get into it. However, Mr. Judson, who was the insurance adjuster, testified he inspected the residence on Monday after the fire on Friday. He testified he examined the closet in question and he found nothing but the clothes rod with 10 to 15 hangers on it. His testimony about the closet was, in part, as follows:

“Q. What did you see in the way of clothing in that closet?

“A. I didn’t see anything in the way of clothing.

“Q. What did you see in the way of remains in the closet?

“A. I didn’t see anything in the way of remains.

“Q. How many — how long have you been in the insurance business, Mr. Judson?

“A. Ten years, a little over ten years.

“Q. How long have you been an adjuster?

“A. Eleven years.

“Q. How much of that time has been spent adjusting and investigating house fires?

“A. Full time.

“Q. How many would you say that you have investigated a year since you started in the business?

“A. At least a thousand.

“Q. A year?

“A. Oh, since the past ten or eleven years.

“Q. The past ten or eleven years. All right.

What — after a fire, what kind of remains of clothing and so forth is evidenced in a normal fire?

“A. You would see if there was any clothing at all, say a shirt that was on a hanger a metal hanger, or a coat or jacket. You would usually see the remains of the cloth or whatever the item was around the neck where the wire folds on the hanger itself.

“Q. All right. How can you tell that the hanger had any clothing on it prior to the fire?

“A. By the remains of the — whatever material is left on the — at least on that portion of the hanger.

“Q. I will ask you if you saw any remains on hangers that are shown in this picture here, Exhibit Number Eighteen?

“A. Not at all.

“Q. What’s the — when you say remains are you talking about — describe how the clothing leaves certain remains. What does it look like?

“A. Clothing in reference to the hanger itself, as I have explained, some of the cloth is still evidenced on the neck of the hanger itself. There was nothing to indicate anything on the clothes hangers themselves. Also, sometimes, depending on the size of the garment on the wire hanger — I mean specifically a wire hanger — usually from the heat and the weight of the garment itself, the hanger would give, bend down with the weight as the material is burning. There is no indication there was any weight on the hangers themselves or anything on the neck itself.

“Q. What would you expect to find in a closet, Mr. Judson, that is stacked full of clothes and hangers have sometimes as many as two garments or more on the hangers?

“A. I would expect to find debris at least — with actual rod itself. It was still intact, and the hangers — there was absolutely no distension of the metal itself. Any articles of clothing there would leave a residue.”

Mr. Cadden, the fire expert who testified for the Defendant, in speaking about the closet, said:

“Q. Did you look into the closet area of what we have labeled the den here?

“A. Okay. The closet at the end of the den.

“Q. The dining room, excuse me.

“A. Well, the closet that we have labeled at the end of the dining room, I looked in that entire room and the closet. The only thing I noticed of significance, I feel like was that — to me there was a bunch of coat hangers and very few remains of clothing, buttons, zippers, remains of burned cloth, shoe leather, anything of any significance. And the entire room — the remaining portion of the room didn’t have any contents in it. There was nothing there at all.

“Q. When you look at clothes hangers and so forth, is there anything in particular you look for after a fire has occurred?

“A. Well, normally you look for the cloth remains. With the new polyester clothes, you will find just gobs of polyester sometimes attached to clothes hangers. You will find black spider webs from burning polyester or synthetics or fabrics. In this case I didn’t find any significant amount. I drew the impression based on what I saw in the closet and my examination of the dining room area that there were no contents at all in that area period.”

More important than the Plaintiffs’ statement of the contents of the closet, however, are certain items that were claimed to be in the freezer and in the bathroom at the time of the fire. A claim was filed for beef purchased in 1982 at an original cost of $220 and current cost of $600. The Plaintiffs testified they purchased 250 pounds of beef about two weeks before the fire and had eaten only one roast out of it. However, Mr. Judson testified that when he examined the freezer after the fire he found only two packages of ground beef. The Plaintiffs made no effort to explain the absence of the beef from the freezer. Plaintiffs also filed a claim for 125 washcloths at an original cost of $31.25 and a current cost of $50 and 24 bath towels at a cost of $72. Mrs. McConkey testified these items were on a table in the bathroom at the time of the fire. There was no fire damage in the bathroom — only smoke damage. Mr. Judson testified there were no towels or washcloths in the bathroom after the fire. He also said he found the table on which the towels and washcloths were alleged to have been but it was covered with smoke and there was no indication of anything having been on the table during the fire. The policy of insurance, as pertinent here, provides: “We do not provide coverage for any insured who has intentionally concealed or misrepresented any material fact or circumstance relating to this insurance.”

In his determination of the case the court found the Plaintiffs had “exaggerated” their inventory, and reduced their claim from something in excess of $20,000 to $7,000. In doing this, the court said, “I think there is obviously good testimony from Mr. Judson with regard to what was down there in the house to indicate that the contents claim should not be sustained fully.” The court was obviously convinced that all the contents claimed to be in the house were not there, but failed to elaborate further on the issue.

“Policies of fire and property indemnity insurance usually provide that any fraud or false swearing on the part of the insured, whether before or after loss, shall relieve the insurer from liability. Under such a provision, false statements as to material matters wilfully made by the insured in proofs of loss with the intention of thereby deceiving the insurer will preclude any recovery on the policy by the insured; … This rule is applicable, for example, to the following: an overvaluation of the property insured; … the inclusion in the proofs of property not destroyed; …

“If a false statement is knowingly made by the insured with regard to a material matter, the intent to defraud will be inferred. Furthermore, the insured’s knowledge of the falsity of the statements made by him need not be absolute in order to work a forfeiture of his rights under the policy. It is sufficient if he swears with disregard to the truth or swears to matters as true within his knowledge when in fact he knows little or nothing about them.”

44 Am.Jur.2d Insurance § 1371, p. 299-300.

Also see Insurance Cos. v. Scales, 101 Tenn. 628, 49 S.W. 743 (1899); Insurance Co. v. Connelly, 104 Tenn. 93, 56 S.W. 828 (1900); Dossett v. First National Fire Insurance Co., 138 Tenn. 551, 198 S.W. 889 (1917); Trice v. Commercial Union Assurance Company, 397 F.2d 889 (6th Cir. 1968); Columbia Horse & Mule Commission Co. v. American Ins. Co., 173 F.2d 773 (6th Cir.1949).

Under the facts in the case at bar, we think it should be inferred the Plaintiffs knew their claim for the loss of the beef, washcloths and towels was false, and void any claim under the policy.

The judgment of the trial court is reversed and the complaint dismissed. The cost of this appeal, together with the cost of the trial court, is taxed to the Appellees.

GODDARD and FRANKS, JJ., concur.

What it decided

A family won at trial and lost everything on appeal. That is the shape of this case, and it is why we publish it.

The McConkeys’ house burned on Friday, August 6, three days before it was scheduled to be sold to satisfy a judgment. They had a $40,000 dwelling limit, $20,000 on contents, $8,000 for loss of use. The insurer refused to pay and pleaded two defenses: that they set or procured the fire, and that they made material misrepresentations about the loss. The trial judge, sitting without a jury, found for them — $34,122 on the house, $7,000 on contents, $1,500 for living expenses — and denied the 25% bad-faith penalty. The Court of Appeals reversed and dismissed the complaint outright.

The first ground was arson, decided on circumstantial evidence. Under the standard the court took from Aetna Casualty v. Parton, circumstantial evidence in a civil case must be consistent with the claimant’s theory and inconsistent with any other reasonable theory, but “they need not be so certain as to exclude all other rational theories,” and “a preponderance of such circumstantial evidence is all that is required.” The court found the evidence preponderated against the trial judge’s finding.

The second ground is the one that reaches ordinary homeowners. The court held there was also merit in the misrepresentation defense. The contents inventory came in above the $20,000 limit and did not survive contact with the debris. A closet inventoried at 35 shirts, two suits, six sweaters, 10 dresses, 25 pairs of pants and 13 pairs of shoes turned out, according to the adjuster who inspected the Monday after the Friday fire, to hold “nothing but the clothes rod with 10 to 15 hangers on it” — no cloth remains at the necks of the hangers, no distension in the metal from burning garments. Two hundred fifty pounds of beef claimed at $600 turned out to be two packages of ground beef in the freezer, and the plaintiffs “made no effort to explain the absence.” One hundred twenty-five washcloths and 24 bath towels were claimed as sitting on a bathroom table in a room that had smoke damage only; the table was found with “no indication of anything having been on the table during the fire.”

The policy said: “We do not provide coverage for any insured who has intentionally concealed or misrepresented any material fact or circumstance relating to this insurance.”

The court then adopted, word for word from 44 Am.Jur.2d, the rule Tennessee lawyers still cite for post-loss fraud:

If a false statement is knowingly made by the insured with regard to a material matter, the intent to defraud will be inferred. Furthermore, the insured’s knowledge of the falsity of the statements made by him need not be absolute in order to work a forfeiture of his rights under the policy. It is sufficient if he swears with disregard to the truth or swears to matters as true within his knowledge when in fact he knows little or nothing about them.

Applying it: “we think it should be inferred the Plaintiffs knew their claim for the loss of the beef, washcloths and towels was false, and void any claim under the policy.”

Note the last three words. Not reduced. Not paid in part. Void. The trial judge had tried to split the difference by cutting the contents claim from over $20,000 to $7,000. The Court of Appeals treated that as the wrong remedy entirely.

The sworn statements mattered as much as the inventory. The court found “many material contradictions” between what the McConkeys swore before trial and what they said at trial: he denied a furniture sale had happened and even denied owning a dining room suite, then admitted at trial he knew about the sale; both swore they knew the bank was selling the house, then testified they did not learn of it until the day of the fire.

What it did NOT decide

• It is not a Tennessee Supreme Court decision. It is the Court of Appeals, Eastern Section. The Supreme Court denied permission to appeal, which leaves the opinion standing but is not an endorsement of its reasoning.
• The false-swearing holding was an alternative ground. The court said so: “Although our holding on the first issue is dispositive of the case, we also find there is merit in the Defendant’s second insistence.” The case was already over on arson. Anyone citing McConkey as the controlling statement of Tennessee’s fraud rule should say that out loud.
• It did not hold that an error in an inventory forfeits a claim. The rule requires a false statement about a material matter that is knowingly made, or swearing “with disregard to the truth.” An honest mistake, a good-faith estimate, a forgotten item, or a number you label as an estimate is not what happened here. What happened here was a claim for property the adjuster showed was not in the house, with no explanation offered.
• It did not define materiality. No test, no threshold, no discussion of whether a small item can be material. The court simply treated the beef, washcloths and towels as material.
• It did not address the innocent co-insured. The policy language quoted voids coverage for “any insured who has intentionally concealed or misrepresented.” Whether one spouse’s false swearing forfeits the other spouse’s coverage is a real question, and this opinion does not touch it.
• It did not analyze the McConkeys’ own appeal. They argued the house was a total loss worth the full $40,000. The court disposed of that in one sentence — “we find no merit in the contentions of the McConkeys” — with no reasoning. Do not read this case as authority on total-loss valuation.
• It says nothing about the modern claim-handling rules. Tennessee’s regulation on claim deadlines, the matching requirement, and the depreciation worksheet came later. So did the bad-faith framework in Palmer v. Nationwide (1986). This is a 1984 decision about the insured’s conduct, not the insurer’s.

Why it matters to policyholders

This is a rule that can cost you your claim if you ignore it. A homeowner with a real fire, a real policy, and a real loss walked out of the courthouse with a judgment and walked out of the Court of Appeals with nothing. There is no partial credit in the doctrine the court applied. A material false statement voids the claim.

Build the contents inventory from evidence, not from memory. Memory after a fire is unreliable and generous. Work from what you can prove: photographs and videos of the rooms taken before the loss, phone backups, receipts, credit-card and bank statements, warranty registrations, delivery confirmations, insurance schedules for jewelry and firearms, and the debris itself. Photograph what survived before anything is moved.

Label estimates as estimates, and say “I don’t know” when you don’t. Nothing in this rule punishes a homeowner for not knowing the exact purchase price of a sofa. It punishes swearing to something as true when you know little or nothing about it. Write “approximate” where it is approximate. Leave a line blank rather than guess.

The adjuster reads the debris. The testimony in this case is a free education. An experienced fire adjuster looks for cloth remains at the neck of a wire hanger, for the sag in the wire from a garment’s weight as it burns, for zippers, buttons and shoe leather. Claims that do not match the physical remains get flagged, and the flag becomes a fraud defense. Do not add items. Do not round up.

Never sign a sworn proof of loss you have not read line by line. A proof of loss is a sworn document. So is a recorded statement given under oath and an examination under oath. Under this rule they are all places where a careless answer can become a forfeiture. Read every schedule attached to your signature and correct anything that is wrong before you sign.

Fix a mistake immediately and in writing. If you find an error in something you already submitted, send a written correction with the reason. The court in McConkey noted the plaintiffs “made no effort to explain the absence of the beef.” An unexplained discrepancy is the one that hurts.

Where a public adjuster fits. We build contents inventories that hold up: room by room, sourced, with values documented and estimates marked as estimates. We will not pad one, and no honest adjuster will. We document the damage, prepare the estimate the carrier has to answer, negotiate, and handle appraisal. Tennessee caps what a public adjuster may charge — see § 56-6-913. If an insurer raises fraud, arson, or false swearing, that is no longer negotiation; it is litigation with your credibility as the issue, and you need a lawyer. We refer those out. The same is true of a bad-faith penalty claim under § 56-7-105, which requires a formal demand and a 60-day wait. If your fight is instead about how much the repair costs, that is a valuation question, and Tennessee has answered part of it in your favor — see Lammert v. Auto-Owners. More Tennessee law, in full text, is on the Tennessee claim-law page.

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