Background
This matter arises from a termination of parental rights proceeding in the Chancery Court for Washington County, Tennessee, presided over by Judge Suzanne Cook. The mother, proceeding pro se from Austin, Texas, filed a series of recusal motions against the trial judge throughout the litigation. Shortly before trial on December 2, 2025, she filed her 12th motion to recuse; the trial court denied it and proceeded to trial. On December 12, 2025, the trial court entered judgment terminating the mother’s parental rights.
On December 22, 2025, the mother filed her 13th motion to recuse, which the trial court denied by order entered December 30, 2025. On January 5, 2026, the mother filed an accelerated interlocutory appeal of that denial pursuant to Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 10B. Meanwhile, her appeal of the underlying final judgment terminating her parental rights was already pending before the Court of Appeals.
This pattern of serial recusal motions had previously generated related appellate proceedings. In February 2026, the Court of Appeals dismissed the mother’s Rule 10B appeal of the denial of her 14th recusal motion, holding that once a final judgment has been appealed, recusal issues can and should be folded into that appeal of the final judgment. The Court of Appeals had also dismissed the Rule 10B appeal concerning the 12th recusal motion on the same basis.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals dismissed the Rule 10B appeal of the denial of the mother’s 13th motion to recuse. The court reasoned that because a final judgment had already been entered in the underlying termination of parental rights case, and the mother had separately perfected an appeal of that final judgment, there was no practical basis for addressing the recusal denial on an accelerated interlocutory basis.
Relying on its earlier ruling dismissing the appeal of the 14th recusal denial — which itself quoted First American Trust Co. v. Franklin-Murray Development Co., 59 S.W.3d 135, 141 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2001) — the court emphasized that once a party perfects an appeal from a final judgment, the trial court effectively loses authority to act in the case without leave of the appellate court. Because the trial judge has no further role in the matter, addressing the recusal question on an accelerated basis serves no meaningful purpose. Any issues with interlocutory orders, including the recusal denials, may be raised in the pending appeal of the final judgment. All pending motions were denied.
Key Takeaways
- Once a final judgment is appealed, Tennessee appellate courts will dismiss accelerated Rule 10B recusal appeals as unnecessary — the recusal issues can be raised within the final-judgment appeal.
- The trial court loses effective authority to act after a party perfects an appeal from a final judgment, making accelerated recusal review superfluous at that stage.
- Serial recusal motions filed after entry of a final judgment will not independently sustain Rule 10B interlocutory appeals; the proper vehicle is the appeal already pending from the final judgment.
Why It Matters
This memorandum opinion reinforces the principle that Tennessee’s Rule 10B accelerated recusal procedure is not a vehicle for serial or duplicative appeals once a case has reached final judgment and is already on appeal. Practitioners should be aware that filing successive recusal motions after final judgment — and attempting to pursue each denial through separate Rule 10B appeals — will not survive scrutiny; the Court of Appeals will channel all such issues into the pending final-judgment appeal.
For litigants in parental rights termination cases, the decision underscores the importance of consolidating all appellate arguments, including challenges to a trial judge’s impartiality, within the primary appeal of the final judgment rather than pursuing piecemeal interlocutory review.