Veteran attorney Conners dead at 89

Colleagues remember last living name partner of Boult Cummings as consummate trial lawyer

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

09-09-2009 6:41 AM —

Current and former law partners of John Conners, who died yesterday at the age of 89, have described him as a man of understated kindness and peerless capabilities.

Conners was the last survivor among the four founding attorneys who gave their names to old-line Nashville law firm Boult Cummings Conners & Berry, which merged at the beginning of this year with an Alabama firm to become Bradley Arant Boult Cummings. He practiced law with that firm and its predecessors from 1948 until just a few years ago, when ill health limited his ability to continue.

"He was the best in everything he did," recalled Bobby Thomas, a longtime BA-Boult Cummings partner who currently serves as vice chairman of the Tennessee Board of Regents. "In law and in personal relationships, he was one of a kind."

Litigator Bill Leader, formerly of Boult and now of Leader Bulso Nolan & Burnstein, called Conners "a great mentor, a great role model and a great man." Conners, he recalled, "lived the life that he preached. His priorities were his God, his family and his profession, in that order. He wasn't a prude, but he lived a very moral life and treated people the way he'd want to be treated."

Leader remembered his mentor as a "meticulous and conscientious" practitioner of the legal craft. John Day of Day & Blair, another local attorney who credits Conners as a major influence, recalled him yesterday as "an exquisite trial lawyer and a wonderful human being" who was "the preeminent plaintiff's lawyer in town for the last 25 years of his practice."

Day noted that Conners had spent many years as primarily a defense lawyer in civil lawsuits but decided to go to the other side in the 1970s, taking on personal-injury and medical malpractice clients. "He loved people and wanted to represent individuals rather than insurance companies," Day said.

Leader echoed that explanation for Conners' mid-career shift. "He liked helping people, and he always wanted to help the underdog," Leader said.

Former colleagues noted several major cases Conners took on over the years. In a 1983 lawsuit against the Ruby Tuesday's restaurant chain, representing a woman harmed by a flaming drink, he won the first $1 million jury verdict ever in Nashville in a personal-injury case.

Day recalled that Conners secured settlements in excess of $1 million for victims and their families after the Waverly train disaster of February 1978, when rail cars carrying propane gas derailed in the Humphreys County town and then exploded during cleanup operations two days later, killing 16 workers, officials and town residents. 

He was also among the lawyers representing those affected by the 1980 MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas, which killed 85 people.

Conners was born in Nashville on March 25, 1920, a son of the late Mary Gilmore and John Thomas Conners Sr. After attending local public grade schools and graduating in 1937 from Father Ryan High School, he earned his undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt University in 1941.

Conners served as a First Lieutenant in the Army Air Forces and was an aerial observer instructor at Brooks Field in San Antonio. After attending Air Intelligence School in Harrisburg, Pa., he was sent overseas in 1944. He flew as a photo intelligence officer with the 15th Air Force in Italy.

Returning to his studies after the war, he earned his law degree from Vanderbilt Law School in 1948 and entered into private practice.

He was a member of the Nashville, Tennessee and American Bar Association as well as The Association of Trial Lawyers. He was a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Tennessee Bar Foundation. He was active in the Nashville Bar Association's Medico-Legal Committee, the Circuit Court Committee, the Federal Disciplinary Board and the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Conners formerly served on the associate board of directors of Saint Thomas Hospital and was an auxiliary member of the Daughters of Charity as well as the first president of the Middle Tennessee Medical Center.

He was a founding member of St. Henry Catholic Church, where he was a parishioner for more than 50 years.

Preceding him in death was his wife of 39 years, Ann Chisholm Conners, who passed away in 1989, as well as sister Mary Margaret Conners. Surviving him are his nine children; Ginny (Dr. Robert) Ripley, John (Margaret) Conners III, Elly (Warren) McLain, Jeanne Schaedle, David (Teresa) Conners, Richard Gilmore (Holly) Conners, Nancy (Dr. George) Goldin, Jim (Maureen) Conners, and Amy Murphree, his siblings, Anne Broden of St. Louis, Dr. James J. (Jackie) Conners of Jacksonville, Fla., and Catherine A. Conners, his 29 grandchildren, Dr. R.Taylor (Anna), Ann and Peter (Katherine) Ripley, Boone (Larissa) Pitts, Leah and Dan Conners, Matthew, Eleanor, and Frances McLain, Scott (Anna), Ben, Will, Anna Mary, and Virginia Schaedle, David (Leigh) and Emily Conners, Gilmore, Rebecca and Virginia Conners, Betsy, Will, John, and Eleanor Goldin, Joseph, Haden, Davis and Robert Conners, and Sarah and Andy Murphree, and his great-grandchildren, Roby and Jake Ripley, Ginger and Crockett Pitts, and Mason and John Conners. He is also survived by many nieces and nephews and brothers- and sisters-in-law.

The family has stated that, in lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Father Ryan High School, 700 Norwood Drive, Nashville, TN 37214, or St. Henry Catholic Church, 6401 Harding Pike, Nashville, TN 37205, or the charity of one's choice.

The family will receive friends on Thursday, Sept. 10 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Henry with the funeral mass to follow. Burial will follow at Calvary Cemetery.