Was Tennessee AG Opinion 10-013 withdrawn, and what does that mean for anyone relying on it?

Plain-English summary

Tennessee AG opinions sometimes carry an opinion number that was assigned but later withdrawn before the substantive opinion was finalized or published. That happened with Opinion No. 10-013. The published record consists of a one-page document on the Office's letterhead that says only:

February 2, 2010
Opinion No. 10-013
This opinion has been withdrawn.

There is no published analysis, no question presented, no answer, and no signing officials. The Office did not explain why the opinion was withdrawn. Possible reasons in cases like this include: the requesting official rescinded the request, intervening events made the question moot, the underlying facts changed, the question was reformulated and answered under a different opinion number, or the office concluded after research that no opinion should issue.

The practical effect is that there is no AG guidance on whatever Opinion 10-013 would have addressed. Anyone who happened to see a draft or pre-publication version of the opinion should not treat it as the position of the Tennessee Attorney General. Researchers may want to look at adjacent Tennessee AG opinions issued in early 2010 to see whether the underlying question was answered elsewhere.

Common questions

Q: Why does an Attorney General publish a withdrawal notice rather than just deleting the opinion number?
A: Numbered AG opinions are tracked in chronological order. Publishing a withdrawal notice keeps the numbering sequence intact and creates a public record that the number was used, considered, and then withdrawn, rather than leaving an unexplained gap.

Q: Can I find what the original opinion was about?
A: Not from the published record. The withdrawal notice gives no subject line. If the request to the AG's office was made by a state legislator, that legislator's office or the Tennessee General Assembly's records may show what the underlying question was. The Tennessee State Library and Archives also maintains some legislative correspondence.

Q: Are there other Tennessee AG opinions that were withdrawn?
A: Yes. The Tennessee AG has occasionally withdrawn opinions, sometimes years after issuance and with a separate substantive opinion replacing them. A withdrawal at the time of issue (as with Opinion 10-013) usually reflects an issue with the request itself, not a reconsidered legal position.

Q: If I rely on something I saw in a draft of this opinion, what's my exposure?
A: A withdrawn opinion is not the official position of the Attorney General. Tennessee courts and Tennessee state agencies treat withdrawn opinions as having no precedential or persuasive value. A practitioner relying on a draft would be relying on something the AG's office expressly disowned.

Source

• Landing page: https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/opinions.html
• Original PDF: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/ops/2010/op10-013.pdf

Original opinion text

STATE OF TENNESSEE
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
PO BOX 20207
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE 37202

February 2, 2010

Opinion No. 10-013

This opinion has been withdrawn.