Rule 63.Inability of a Judge to Proceed

Rule 63 addresses what happens when the judge presiding over a trial or hearing that has already started cannot finish it — through death, illness, disqualification, or any other reason. A different judge can step in and carry the case to completion, but only after certifying familiarity with the record and determining that the case can be completed without prejudice to the parties. That certification is not optional paperwork; a successor judge who rules on pending matters without making it, or without ordering a new trial instead, has committed reversible error even if no party raised the issue.

In a trial or hearing without a jury, the rule gives a party an enforceable right: if a party requests it, the successor judge has to recall any witness whose testimony is material, disputed, and reasonably available to testify again — a requirement tied to Tennessee’s rule that the trial judge, not just the jury, must be independently satisfied the evidence supports the outcome, since a successor cannot form that independent judgment about a witness’s credibility from a paper transcript alone. In any proceeding, with or without a jury, the successor judge also has discretion to recall any witness even without a request, though recalling a witness in a jury trial is left to that discretion rather than required outright the way it is in a nonjury case.

A successor judge is not limited to picking up where the trial left off; the same authority that lets a court revise its own interlocutory rulings before final judgment lets a successor judge revisit rulings the original judge made before turning the case over, such as reversing an earlier summary judgment ruling that had not yet become final.