Jessica Smith from Hixson, Tennessee, an honors student attending UT on scholarship with dreams of becoming a veterinarian, parked her bright orange Volkswagen in the Lake Avenue Parking Garage on the night of November 13, 2002, and started walking to her residence hall. She was talking on her cell phone to her boyfriend when Christopher Gann, age 25, of Knoxville came up from behind and attempted to take her car keys. He hit her, she got away, and he pursued her, caught up, and hit her repeatedly in the head with a brick.
Students walking on campus found Smith unconscious behind a former residence being used as music offices on Terrace Avenue. The attack initially left Smith unable to walk or talk and left her with permanent brain damage, deaf in one ear, and partially paralyzed on one side of her body. Gann, who had a criminal record, including assault, burglary, and aggravated robbery, was being questioned about thefts from cars from the Lake Avenue Garage when he exhibited knowledge of the crime that only the perpetrator would know. He was arrested for the assault on Smith in May 2003. An admitted drug addict, he was held on $200,000 bond and bound over to a grand jury on May 15. Gann was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Smith and her parents sued UT and the State (the State was dismissed since UT is an arm of the State) before the Tennessee Claims Commission, asserting inadequate lighting in the area and that it was, therefore, foreseeable that such an incident could occur. Claims Commissioner Vance W. Cheek Jr. found UT responsible for the maximum award of $300,000 in March 2006. UT requested an en banc review of the commissioner’s decision, and in March 2007, the commission upheld the award. UT appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, which upheld the decisions of the Claims Commission in March 2008 that $300,000 should be awarded.