Background
The Withers Family Trust was established in 2007 by Ernest C. Withers, a photographer renowned for documenting the Civil Rights Movement. The trust corpus includes real property and, most significantly, Withers’s photography library. Upon the death of both Ernest and his wife in 2007 and 2008, their daughter Rosalind became trustee. Disputes among the beneficiaries — particularly between Rosalind and her brother Andrew — have generated litigation since 2008, including a 2012 chancery court settlement that barred Andrew from challenging Rosalind’s authority as trustee or seeking to terminate the trust.
Notwithstanding that settlement, Andrew filed a new complaint in April 2018 seeking Rosalind’s removal as trustee on grounds of breach of fiduciary duty, breach of trust, conversion, and related claims. The assigned chancellor identified a conflict of interest and recused himself; the other two chancellors in the 30th Judicial District likewise recused. Rather than arranging for a judge to sit by interchange in the chancery court, Chancellor Kyle entered an order transferring the case outright to Division 5 of the Shelby County Circuit Court, where it was assigned to Judge Rhynette Hurd.
After years of proceedings in circuit court, Judge Hurd entered an order in August 2024 removing Rosalind as trustee and appointing a successor, finding that Rosalind had improperly used trust assets to pay for personal housing, an automobile, and other expenses. Rosalind and Withers Collection, Inc. moved to set aside the judgment for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The circuit court denied the motion, reasoning that jurisdiction had been “transferred by interchange” and that the court independently had jurisdiction because the action was styled as one for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. Defendants appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals vacated the circuit court’s trustee-removal order and all other orders entered by that court, holding that the circuit court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Under Tennessee Code Annotated section 35-15-203(1) of the Tennessee Uniform Trust Code (TUTC), chancery courts and probate courts have exclusive jurisdiction over proceedings “concerning the administration of a trust.” The court rejected the argument that Andrew’s claims fell outside that grant because they were framed as seeking declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and damages. Examining the nature of the causes of action, the relief sought, and the statutory provisions relied upon, the court found each element squarely implicated trust administration: the claims turned on Rosalind’s conduct as trustee, the remedies included voiding transactions, compelling an accounting, and removing the trustee, and the circuit court’s own order cited a TUTC provision governing a trustee’s duty to administer the trust in beneficiaries’ interests.
The court also rejected the circuit court’s alternative holding that Judge Hurd had sat by interchange and thereby retained chancery court jurisdiction. An interchange requires a judge to travel to and sit in another court — it is not effected by transferring a case from one court to another. The record showed the opposite of an interchange: the docket number was changed to a circuit court number, all orders bore the circuit court caption and were filed by the circuit court clerk, and no order designated Judge Hurd as acting in the capacity of a chancellor. Because the transfer was not a proper interchange, the circuit court exercised jurisdiction it did not possess, rendering its orders void.
Rather than dismissing the action outright — which is the typical remedy when a court acts without subject matter jurisdiction — the court of appeals ordered the case remanded for transfer back to the chancery court, since the complaint had originally been filed in the correct forum and the improper transfer was not the fault of either party. The Presiding Judge was directed to designate a sitting chancellor to hear the case or, if necessary, to arrange a proper interchange designation.
Key Takeaways
- Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 35-15-203(1), chancery and probate courts hold exclusive jurisdiction over all proceedings “concerning the administration of a trust” — a phrase the court construed broadly to encompass any action requiring assessment of a trustee’s conduct, interpretation of trust terms, or grant of trust-specific remedies such as removal of a trustee or compelled accounting.
- Styling a trust-administration claim as a declaratory judgment or injunctive relief action does not relocate jurisdiction to the circuit court; courts must look to the substance of the claims and remedies, not the caption.
- A proper judicial interchange requires the substitute judge to physically sit in the original court acting in that court’s capacity — transferring the case file to a different court is not an interchange and does not carry the originating court’s subject matter jurisdiction along with it.
- Orders entered by a court without subject matter jurisdiction are void and must be vacated; however, a court of appeals may remand for transfer rather than dismissal when the case was originally filed in the proper tribunal and the misfiling was not the fault of any party.
Why It Matters
This decision provides important guidance for Tennessee trust litigants and practitioners on two frequently confused procedural mechanisms. First, it firmly establishes that fiduciary-duty and breach-of-trust claims do not escape the TUTC’s jurisdictional grant merely by being packaged in a complaint that also seeks general equitable relief; the substance of the dispute controls. Attorneys filing or defending trust-related claims in Tennessee must ensure they are in chancery or probate court regardless of how the pleadings are framed.
Second, the opinion clarifies the procedural requirements for judicial recusal and interchange in Tennessee. When all judges in a chancery district are conflicted, the solution is to designate another judge — whether a circuit judge or otherwise — to sit by interchange in the chancery court, not to transfer the case to a different court of record. Bypassing the interchange process will strip the substitute tribunal of the originating court’s exclusive jurisdiction, potentially voiding years of proceedings and requiring the parties to start over, as occurred here after more than six years of circuit court litigation.