Tennessee Code Annotated
Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-15-210 (2026)
Vacancy in office of judge - Filling
✓ current as of May 2026
- (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), any vacancy in the office of judge of the court of general sessions shall be filled by the county legislative body as provided in § 5-1-104.
- (b)
- (1) In a multi-county court, the vacancy shall be filled by concurring resolutions of the legislative bodies of the affected counties.
- (2) In the event of nonconcurrence, the vacancy shall be filled by resolution of the legislative body of the county of residence of the last judge of the multi-county court.
- (c)
- (1) In the event of an interim suspension of a general sessions court or juvenile court judge pursuant to § 17-5-306(f), the county legislative body shall appoint a temporary replacement to serve until the interim suspension is lifted or the office becomes vacant.
- (2) In a multi-county court, the temporary replacement shall be appointed by concurring resolutions of the legislative bodies of the affected counties. In the event of nonconcurrence, the temporary replacement shall be appointed by resolution of the legislative body of the county of residence of the judge who has been suspended.
Acts 1959, ch. 109, § 15; T.C.A., § 16-1115; Acts 1993, ch. 241, § 7; 1998, ch. 669, § 1.
Notes of Decisions
Cited in 2
cases, 1994–2007 · leading case: Jordan v. Knox Cnty., 213 S.W.3d 751 (Tenn. 2007).
Jordan v. Knox Cnty., 213 S.W.3d 751 (Tenn. 2007). “The enabling legislation at Tennessee Code Annotated section 5-1-204(f)(1), specifically provides as follows: Nothing contained within the provisions of this section shall be construed to affect the judicial system in any county adopting a charter form of government except as…”
State Ex Rel. Witcher v. Bilbrey, 878 S.W.2d 567 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1994). “7, § 2 rather than Tenn.Code Ann. § 16-15-210 (amended 1993), provided the procedure for filling vacancies on the general sessions bench since general sessions court judges were county officers.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.