Premises Liability Lawsuit Funding in Tennessee

One year from the date of injury for a personal-injury claim (Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104) — one of the shortest statutes of limitations in the country.

Tennessee applies modified comparative fault with a 50% bar — a plaintiff found 50% or more at fault recovers nothing (McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn. 1992)). For negligent security specifically, the Tennessee Supreme Court in Staples v. CBL & Associates, Inc., 15 S.W.3d 83 (Tenn. 2000), adopted a balancing test that weighs the foreseeability of the harm against the burden the proposed security measure would place on the business — the greater the foreseeability of criminal activity, based on the totality of circumstances including prior incidents on or near the property, the greater the corresponding burden a business can be required to bear. Tennessee's one-year filing deadline is what makes this case type distinctly difficult to litigate well in the state: a negligent-security claim depends on time-intensive investigation — pulling police-incident histories, preserving security-camera footage before standard retention cycles overwrite it, and often retaining a security-industry expert to evaluate what precautions were reasonable — all of which is compressed into a fraction of the time available in nearly every other state on this list.

Non-economic damages are capped at $750,000 (or $1 million for catastrophic injury) under Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-39-102, a cap the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld in McClay v. Airport Mgmt. Servs., LLC, 596 S.W.3d 686 (Tenn. 2020).

Discretionary with the court under Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-14-123, rather than automatic or categorically unavailable.

Proper in the county where the claim arose or where the defendant resides (Tenn. Code Ann. § 20-4-101).

Tennessee regulates consumer litigation funding under the Litigation Financing Consumer Protection Act, Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 47-16-101–110. A litigation financier may charge a consumer an annual fee of no more than 10% of the original amount provided — structured as a maximum yearly fee of $360 per $1,000 provided — for up to 3 years, charged only once per year per claim regardless of the number of transactions on that claim.

Why is Tennessee's one-year deadline especially difficult for a negligent security claim?

A negligent-security case depends on evidence that takes time to gather — the property's prior-incident history, preserved surveillance footage, and often a security-industry expert's assessment — and Tennessee gives only one year to investigate and file, far less time than the two or three years available in most other states.

Retail, apartment, and hospitality defendants frequently overwrite surveillance footage on short retention cycles, so a preservation demand sent within days of the incident can be the difference between having and not having the central evidence by the time a Staples v. CBL & Associates foreseeability case is built and filed.

What does the Staples balancing test require to establish a duty to provide security?

Staples weighs how foreseeable the criminal activity was against how burdensome the proposed security measure would be — a business facing well-documented, frequent prior incidents can be held to a higher standard than one with a thin or ambiguous incident history.

This means the same short filing window that makes it hard to build a Tennessee case also determines how strong the foreseeability side of that balancing test can become, since the record of prior incidents and any responsive security changes needs to be assembled quickly.

How does the 50% bar interact with Tennessee's compressed timeline?

Because a plaintiff found 50% or more at fault recovers nothing, and the short filing window leaves less time to develop rebuttal evidence on a comparative-fault defense, building that record early is especially important in Tennessee.

A case where the plaintiff's own conduct is contested benefits disproportionately from prompt witness statements and scene documentation, given how little time exists to develop that record later.