Get Ready to Deliberate: Jury Duty Exemption Eliminated for Tennessee Physicians
Knoxville Academy of Medicine Bulletin – February 2009
By Jennifer Pearson Taylor and Ian P. Hennessey

Effective January 1, 2009, physicians are no longer exempt from jury duty.  Previously, physicians (and other professionals) were allowed to delay or avoid jury service.  However, the Tennessee legislature recently concluded that the jury pool needed to represent a broader cross-section of the state’s population. 

Accordingly, the legislature amended T.C.A. § 22-1-103 and removed all exemptions, except for a person who has a mental or physical condition rendering them “incapable of performing jury service,” and a person for whom jury duty “will constitute an undue or extreme physical or financial hardship” to that person or someone under that person’s care or supervision.  This hardship exemption will provide little means to defer or eliminate service on a jury because the hardship is defined as service which:

• Requires someone to abandon a person dependent on his caregiving;
• Causes someone to incur costs that would have a substantial adverse impact on daily living expenses;
• Causes someone to suffer physical hardship that would result in illness or disease; or
• Causes someone to serve without compensation because his employer is not required to compensate during the absence (only those employers with five or more employees must compensate an individual for jury service).

Most significantly, a person requesting an excuse based on the hardship exemption must provide the judge with documentation, such as income tax returns, medical statements or affidavits to clearly support the request to be excused.

Even an individual who is excused for hardship remains eligible to serve on a jury following a period ordered by the court, which will not exceed 24 months.  A judge does have the discretion, however, to rule that the hardship grounds are permanent in nature.  However, for sole practitioners, the financial hardship exclusion no longer exists “solely” because of absence from the workplace.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is strictly informational; it is not to be construed as legal advice.