How do judges of the Supreme Court of Tennessee reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Supreme Court of Tennessee / Joined 1935 / Served to 1943

David William Dehaven

Justice, Supreme Court of Tennessee

David William Dehaven was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, who joined the court in 1935. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1872–1943
Tenure: 1935–1943 · 8 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1935	Supreme Court of Tennessee	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Dehaven authored 197 published opinions for the court (1935–1943), plus 9 dissents and 1 concurrence. Most cited: Tennessee Electric Power Co. v. City of Chattanooga (85 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1937	Tennessee Electric Power Co. v. City of Chattanooga	114 S.W.2d 441	85
1939	Willard v. State	130 S.W.2d 99	47
1937	State Ex Rel. Allen v. Cook	106 S.W.2d 858	46
1943	Law v. Louisville N.R. Co.· Dissent	170 S.W.2d 360	43
1939	Rucker v. State	129 S.W.2d 208	28
1936	Corn v. Fort	95 S.W.2d 620	27
1938	Clark v. State Ex Rel. Bobo	113 S.W.2d 374	26
1942	Dunlap v. Dixie Greyhound Lines, Inc.	160 S.W.2d 413	25
1941	State Ex Rel. Saperstein v. Bass	152 S.W.2d 236	25
1937	Scott v. Shinn	105 S.W.2d 103	24
1940	McBrayer v. Dixie Mercerizing Co.	144 S.W.2d 764	23
1939	Carter v. Hodges	132 S.W.2d 211	23
1938	City of Chattanooga v. Tennessee Electric Power, Co.	112 S.W.2d 385	23
1942	Tennessee Marble & Brick Co. v. Young	163 S.W.2d 71	22
1940	Tarwater v. Atlanta Co., Inc.	144 S.W.2d 746	22

Showing the 15 most-cited of 207 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Supreme Court of Tennessee reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was David William Dehaven on?: David William Dehaven was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

8 years on the Supreme Court of Tennessee. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).