Grace Thru Faith v. Caldwell

944 S.W.2d 607, 1996 Tenn. App. LEXIS 643, 1996 WL 881769
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedOctober 9, 1996
Docket02A01-9502-CH-00026
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 944 S.W.2d 607 (Grace Thru Faith v. Caldwell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Grace Thru Faith v. Caldwell, 944 S.W.2d 607, 1996 Tenn. App. LEXIS 643, 1996 WL 881769 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinion

OPINION

LILLARD, Judge.

This is a ease involving a trustee’s improper accounting procedures and misuse of funds regarding a trust set up to receive Soeial Security Insurance payments. At issue is whether Tennessee state courts have subject matter jurisdiction to hear a dispute between a beneficiary and his representative payee over alleged misuse of Social Security benefits. The trial court found it had jurisdiction. We affirm.

*608 Edward Irwin, an ordained minister, and his wife, Rebecca Irwin (“the Irwins”), are officers in a non-profit organization named Grace Thru Faith Ministries (“Grace Thru Faith”). In 1989, Edward Irwin (“Irwin”) met Tony Caldwell (“Caldwell”). Caldwell had been receiving Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”). Irwin and Caldwell ultimately agreed that Irwin would become CaldweU’s representative payee, and the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) subsequently certified Irwin as such. As representative payee, Irwin received Caldwell’s benefit payments on behalf of Caldwell and for his use.

Later, the SSA determined that Caldwell was entitled to back payments totaling approximately $40,000. Receipt of this lump-sum payment, however, would put Caldwell in danger of losing his SSI benefits. The SSA recommended ways to avoid this result, including establishing a trust for receipt of the lump-sum payment, with the trust to be administered by someone besides Caldwell. Irwin set up an irrevocable trust, with Grace Thru Faith as trustee, for the benefit of Caldwell and his wife, Joann. The Irwins and the Caldwells all moved to Weakley County, Tennessee. After the move, Irwin purchased a home, an automobile, and various furnishings and appliances for Caldwell with trust funds. These items became trust assets.

The Irwins later alleged that Caldwell sold some of the furnishings purchased with Social Security proceeds and caused or permitted damage to the residence. Irwin no longer wanted to be associated with Caldwell. He informed the SSA of his desire to be removed as representative payee for Caldwell. He made a final accounting to the SSA, which the SSA approved. Grace Thru Faith, as trustee, filed suit against Caldwell, alleging waste of trust assets. Caldwell filed a counterclaim, alleging the misappropriation of trust funds. Caldwell and his wife intervened as the Caldwell Trust and sought to make the Irwins party defendants. The Ir-wins intervened as party plaintiffs and claimed that Caldwell owed the Irwins personally $1,956.80.

After a bench trial, the trial court found in favor of Caldwell on all issues. The court found that the Irwins had failed to properly document their use of trust funds and that consequently they could not account for certain funds. The court found that the Irwins and Grace Thru Faith had misused trust funds, awarded Caldwell a judgment against Grace Thru Faith and the Irwins in the amount of $5,656.50, and removed Grace Thru Faith as trustee.

Grace Thru Faith and the Irwins then filed a Motion to Alter, Amend or Vacate Judgment for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction. The Irwins maintained that they had made an accounting to the SSA and that the SSA had approved of their accounting methods as well as their use of funds. They argued that federal law preempted state jurisdiction in this case and that Caldwell’s only remedy was an administrative hearing and subsequent review in federal court. The trial court denied the motion, and the Irwins filed this appeal.

The only issue on appeal is that of subject matter jurisdiction. The Irwins maintain that the trial court had no jurisdiction over the accounting method prescribed by and approved by the SSA, no jurisdiction to determine whether the Irwins misused Social Security benefits, and no jurisdiction to change accounting methods after Irwin’s accounting had been accepted and approved by the SSA.

The issue of whether the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction in this case is a question of law. Therefore, our review of the judgment below is de novo upon the record without a presumption of correctness. Tenn. RApp.P. 18(d); see also Marriott Employees’ Fed. Credit Union v. Harris, 897 S.W.2d 723, 727 (Tenn.App.1994).

To decide whether federal law has preempted Tennessee law or the subject matter jurisdiction of Tennessee courts, we start “with the presumption that state courts enjoy concurrent jurisdiction” with federal courts. Watson v. Cleveland Chair Co., 789 S.W.2d 538, 542 (Tenn.1989). The U.S. Supreme Court has explained:

*609 We start with the premise that nothing in the concept of our federal system prevents state courts from enforcing rights created by federal law. Concurrent jurisdiction has been a common phenomenon in our judicial history, and exclusive federal court jurisdiction over cases arising under federal law has been the exception rather than the rule.

Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney, 368 U.S. 502, 507-08, 82 S.Ct. 519, 522-28, 7 L.Ed.2d 483 (1962). The Court has described three circumstances in which the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, U.S. Const, art. VI, cl. 2, preempts state law:

First, Congress can define explicitly the extent to which its enactments pre-empt state law. Pre-emption fundamentally is a question of congressional intent, and when Congress has made its intent known through explicit statutory language, the courts’ task is an easy one.
Second, in the absence of explicit statutory language, state law is pre-empted where it regulates conduct in a field that Congress intended the Federal Government to occupy exclusively. Such an intent may he inferred from a “scheme of federal regulation ... so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it,” or where an Act of Congress “touch[es] a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject.”
Finally, state law is pre-empted to the extent that it actually conflicts with federal law.

English v. General Elec. Co., 496 U.S. 72, 78-79, 110 S.Ct. 2270, 2275, 110 L.Ed.2d 65 (1990) (citations omitted) (quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230, 67 S.Ct. 1146, 1152, 91 L.Ed. 1447 (1947)). Field preemption arising from a pervasive scheme of federal regulation will not be found in a field that includes areas traditionally occupied by state law, unless there is clear and manifest congressional intent to preempt. Id.

This is a case of first impression in Tennessee.

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Bluebook (online)
944 S.W.2d 607, 1996 Tenn. App. LEXIS 643, 1996 WL 881769, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/grace-thru-faith-v-caldwell-tennctapp-1996.