Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 5/11/17. Neil Thomas speaks to CTFP reporters during a meeting at the newspaper on Thursday, May 11, 2017. At first, he thought it was a joke.
Attorney Neil Thomas was working on a legal brief in 1997 when his secretary said then-Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist was on line 205. For months, people had been exchanging light-hearted jabs about the judicial appointment to Hamilton County's Circuit Court. "Is that the governor?" some lawyers teased one finalist when his phone went off in court one day.
"You can play your games all you want, I'm working on something serious," Thomas, now 73, recalled telling her. The secretary buzzed the call in anyway, and 20 years later, Thomas can still remember Sundquist's opening line:
"Good morning, Judge Thomas."
After presiding over 214 jury trials and thousands of other cases, Thomas announced his resignation from the bench Thursday. He was re-elected for three eight-year terms and will step down Oct. 5.
Thomas said he plans to practice complex business litigation and health care-related ventures with his son, who is also an attorney, and is already turning his energy toward an old passion: highway beautification.
"We have a Fourth Street exit that's always overlooked. Across the river, the Manufacturers Road ramp is a wheat field and a mosquito pond. We don't need Chattanooga to look like that," Thomas said. "So I started talking, and I've spent six months just talking about the concept with people downtown. Not heard a negative comment yet."
During an exclusive interview Thursday with the Times Free Press, Thomas mused about the miracle of juries, his belief that there is no such thing as "tort reform," and the importance of an independent judge.
"Although my political persuasion has been that of a Republican, I have attempted to craft my decisions apolitically, with impartiality and in accordance with the Constitution of the United States and the state of Tennessee," Thomas wrote in his resignation letter to Gov. Bill Haslam, who will select a replacement from a panel of three finalists recommended by a special judicial committee.
Indeed, Thomas railed against a Republican Legislature that approved Haslam's 2011 push to cap personal injury lawsuit payouts for pain and suffering claims at $750,000. Generally speaking, a tort is a civil wrong that causes someone to suffer and results in liability, like a car wreck or medical malpractice. These cases often fill Circuit Court dockets, and plaintiffs have a fundamental right to a jury trial in each of them.
Thomas believes juries can award any amount of noneconomic damages they want, labeling any legislative attempt to control them as "unconstitutional." He outlined his explanation in a 24-page opinion in 2015 during a $22.5 million "pain and suffering" case against AT&T. The Tennessee Supreme Court ultimately shot Thomas down since the issue hadn't popped up enough to make it "ripe" for a ruling.
"But there is no such thing as tort reform," Thomas maintained Thursday. "If you want to call it what it is, it's jury reform."
Juries are a miracle, Thomas said. Twelve strangers walk into a room, listen to technical information for days on end, watch countless people take the witness stand, and then deliberate, sometimes for days on end, to make sure they're returning the correct decision. Oftentimes, he said, they don't return runaway monetary judgments anyway and don't need oversight.
"I won't say firmly that it's a campaign by insurance companies to keep premiums up, but I could sure see that would be an end result when you say we need" - Thomas paused for extra effect - "jury reform."
Thomas said he was not sure who is interested in filling his position. When Jacqueline Bolton announced she would not seek another term as judge in 2014, family law attorney Catherine White and now Circuit Court Judge J.B. Bennett ran for the spot.
"It's been a real privilege to work alongside such a distinguished and dedicated public servant," Bennett said Thursday. "He worked for the people for a long, long time and has done a good job at being absolutely fair to everyone."
In closing, Thomas paraphrased one particular answer that Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch gave during his confirmation hearing in April: "Any judge who issues any decision and who's not somewhat uncomfortable with it is a bad judge."
"And that's true," Thomas said. "That's true."
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.