How much has Nashville spent in lawsuits against the state? 'It's been exhausting'

As state legislators prepared to pass a flurry of bills targeting Nashville earlier this year, Metro Legal was watching and trying to talk them out of it, Metro Law Director Wally Dietz said.

Eight months after the end of the General Assembly’s 2023 regular session, four of those laws have been successfully challenged by the city, but not without a price.

As of Dec. 12, Metro Legal had spent $682,949 on out-of-pocket costs for its four lawsuits challenging legislation that city leaders say would’ve stripped away Metro Nashville’s ability to fully manage its own affairs, Associate Law Director Allison Bussell told The Tennessean. That includes costs for outside counsel and expert witnesses brought on to help with the cases, filing fees and court reporters, Dietz said.

That figure doesn’t include the time and energy the department’s attorneys have spent on the cases. As of Dec. 27, they have spent 1,645 hours working on these lawsuits, Bussell said.

“It’s been exhausting. We all had a lot to do before filing these lawsuits,” Dietz said.

Six of Metro Legal’s 18 trial attorneys were assigned to work on the lawsuits, split into two teams led by Bussell and Assistant Metro Attorney Melissa Roberge. Because they still had to handle their normal caseload, work on those cases frequently extended into late nights and weekends for those attorneys, Dietz said. Metro’s attorneys are salaried and are not paid per hour worked.

The city also relied on outside counsel in the lawsuits, notably from Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Bob Cooper, former Metro law director and legal counsel to former Gov. Phil Bredesen.

While Dietz has said before that he doesn’t “enjoy suing the state,” he said that city leaders “believe these lawsuits were critical” and added that results of those lawsuits have been “remarkably rewarding.”

“For some reason, I think a lot of legislators … believed that the courts would not enforce the Home Rule Amendment and that they could do exactly what they did,” Dietz said. The Home Rule Amendment to the Tennessee Constitution prohibits state laws from exerting local control without local approval.

“Fortunately, in our system of government with checks and balances, we have an independent judiciary, and they did their job,” Dietz said.

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office in December provided The Tennessean with records of costs for court reporters, transcripts and filing fees totaling $2,096.08 spent on the four lawsuits. In response to a records request, a records custodian told The Tennessean that the office does not track the number of hours its attorneys spend working on cases.

Most saw the bills passed by the General Assembly in 2023 targeting Nashville as Republican lawmakers’ attempt to punish the city after Nashville’s Metro Council in August 2022 voted against provisions seen as critical for holding the 2024 Republican National Convention in Music City.

“They made it clear in comments before the session that they were going to punish Nashville,” Dietz said.

Several lawmakers, including those representing Nashville, were vocally critical of the bills during the session.

“I don’t think we have the constitutional authority," Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, said on March 9 during discussion of a bill to reduce the size of Nashville's Metro Council. "And I’m not sure what’s worse: That we send this up to the courts and they overturn it like they should, or we send it up to the courts and we put them in a place where they are choosing whether they need to be loyal to us or do what’s in [the Constitution].”

The city’s first win came in April, when a three-judge panel temporarily blocked a law that would have reduced the size of the Metro Council from 40 members to 20. That case is still ongoing, and motions for summary judgment filed by both the state and city will be briefed and argued in the first few months of 2024.

Another panel struck down a law in September that would have overridden a provision in Nashville’s charter and made it easier for demolition to begin at the Nashville Fairgrounds. Demolition is necessary before the city can move forward with a proposed $100 million renovation deal with Bristol Motor Speedway. The state did not appeal the court’s judgment.

In October, a panel of three judges blocked a law that would have replaced six of eight members of the locally appointed Metro Nashville Airport Authority board with state-appointed members. The state appealed that decision, and it remains before the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Dietz said Metro Legal hired two expert witnesses — former state budget director Bill Bradley and two-time Federal Aviation Administration appointee Kirk Shaffer — for the airport authority lawsuit.

Days before Christmas, a three-judge panel temporarily blocked a law that would have replaced six of 13 members of the locally appointed Metro Nashville Sports Authority with state members. The sports authority oversees the city’s publicly funded sports stadiums, including the planned new stadium for the Tennessee Titans, approved by the Metro Council in April.

Dietz said he and other local leaders including Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell have been in conversation with state lawmakers and are hopeful that relations between the city and state improve in the 2024 legislative session.

“We respect the state. We would much prefer not having to fight these battles and to be working on common problems and common projects where we're working together,” Dietz said.

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMealins.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville legal battle with TN: Thousands of dollars, hours spent