Becky Barnes, administrator of Hamilton County, Tenn., health department. She is pursuing remedies for an epidemic although the department has not declared an epidemic though Gov. Bill Lee claims the state is in a “pandemic.”This letter shows the health department mumbling its way around the law it is supposed to follow.
Dr. Paul Hendricks of the Hamilton County health department offers no evidence that his agency has obeyed the Tennessee health law on quarantine power and epidemics.
The demurrer is a letter to me dated Sept. 2 in response to my demand letter for documentary evidence of obedience to Tenn. Code Ann. § Title 68 that requires the state and local health departments to confirm and establish a diagnosis of the purported disease Covid-19, presumably the symptoms of a condition called SARS-CoV2.
“I can answer your questions in general terms,” Dr. Hendricks says, pretending that I had asked questions. I hadn’t asked questions. What my demand letter did was make statements of duty and claim that, indeed, as the sovereign gets the benefit of the doubt, the department truly obeyed black-letter law — and then I demanded proofs of this presumed obedience.
‘Confirm, establish, determine source?’
Why all the trouble? Why not just accept the “health crisis,” the “Covid-19 emergency,” and go along to get along — you know, in the interest of saving lives?
Given that cases of CV-19 are not a cause, and that I did not find official documents required by law for the “source or cause” of the disease called CoViD-19, nor did I find documents on the Internet relied upon by the government to support its claims of a purported public health necessity, I demanded “immediate responsive production” of evidence of compliance with the law, as follows:
1. The health authority received “a report of a [Hamilton County] case, or suspected case, of disease declared to be communicable, contagious, or one which has been declared by the commissioner of health to be subject to isolation or quarantine”, pursuant to TCA §68-5-104.
2. The department did “confirm or establish the diagnosis”, pursuant to TCA § 68-5-104.
3. The department did “determine the source or cause of the disease”, pursuant to TCA §68-5-104.
A). And by which testing method[s]
4. Of any communication or report of the initial case in question No. 1 above, in anticipation of compliance with TCA § 68-1-202, the cause, or “contagious principle” or transmission mode to the commissioner, or governor, or any other government official.
5. The department did “take such steps as may be necessary to isolate or quarantine the case or premise upon which the case, cause or source may be found, as may be required by the rules and regulations of the state department of health”, and of the “contagious principle” or transmission mode and sent its findings to the Commissioner or governor or any other government official, pursuant to either TCA § 68-5-104 or TCA § 68-1-202. (emphasis added)
Since Dr. Hendricks’ answer is, effectively “there is no evidence,” I am ready to insist on the rights of the people as against Gov. Bill Lee’s and local administrator Becky Barnes’ “government by emergency.”
It is lawlessness writ as large as can be, in letters as tall as the skyscrapers in downtown Chattanooga.
Pivoting power upon you
The evidence of a disease — and a contagious disease — is to be local. The process is lococentric. For there to be a “pandemic,” there must first be an epidemic. For there to be an epidemic, there has to be a first local case. We did not have any evidence a “first local case” that meets the requirements of the law (that law, as obeyed, preserves due process rights and prosperity).
A “public health emergency” has to have a local base, and a local epidemic. No epidemic has been called for Hamilton County, pursuant to the law. Meanwhile, the state is in control of a governor using absolutist emergency powers on the basis of seven words and a period by which he pretends to have lawful control over the lives of every one of 6.8 million people of the state of Tennessee, apart from having to consider any of their lawful rights under state and federal law.
This act is a mass tort, at very best, a mass indictable crime, at worst, violating multiple provisions of the health law I cite in my letter. The offense against the people, in short form, is that the governor has pivoted the police powers expressed in the health law at Title 68.
The pivoting comes with a bit of squeaking and growling, because the law forbids it.
He takes the power — like a giant, melting searchlight — intended to be aimed specifically upon the sick and focused narrowly upon them under quarantine power — and pointed it promiscuously an widely and inclusively upon the healthy.
Hence our state’s economic depression, a result forbidden in the emergency title (Tenn. Code Ann. § Title 58) that he offers as the basis for his sweeping executive violence in putting the entire population under house arrest April 2.
The Tulis Report is 1 p.m. weekdays, live and lococentric.
David Tulis is live on the air weekdays 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. on NoogaRadio 96.9 FM and other NoogaRadio Network stations, covering local economy and free markets in Chattanooga and beyond. Nothing here is legal advice; if you want legal advice, find a law firm downtown or on another planet — where the law actually matters.
