Tennessee · Snapshot open-us-law v2026.08, retrieved 2026-09-17

Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-4-101: Right to receive visitors - Right to communicate with family, attorney, physician, minister and courts

(a) A person with mental illness or serious emotional disturbance is entitled to: (1) Receive visitors during regular visiting hours; and (2) Communicate, orally or by sending and receiving uncensored mail, with the service recipient's family, attorney, personal physician, minister, and the courts. (b) All other incoming mail or parcels may be read or opened before being delivered to a service recipient, if the chief officer of the facility believes the action is necessary for the physical or mental health of the service recipient who is the intended recipient. Mail or other communication that is not delivered to the service recipient for whom it is intended shall be returned immediately to the sender. (c) The chief officer may make reasonable rules regarding visitors, visiting hours, and the use of communication resources. Amended by 2024 Tenn. Acts, ch. 688,s 84, eff. 7/1/2024. Acts 2000, ch. 947, § 1.
(a) A person with mental illness or serious emotional disturbance is entitled to: (1) Receive visitors during regular visiting hours; and (2) Communicate, orally or by sending and receiving uncensored mail, with the service recipient's family, attorney, personal physician, minister, and the courts.
(1) Receive visitors during regular visiting hours; and
(2) Communicate, orally or by sending and receiving uncensored mail, with the service recipient's family, attorney, personal physician, minister, and the courts.
(b) All other incoming mail or parcels may be read or opened before being delivered to a service recipient, if the chief officer of the facility believes the action is necessary for the physical or mental health of the service recipient who is the intended recipient. Mail or other communication that is not delivered to the service recipient for whom it is intended shall be returned immediately to the sender.
(c) The chief officer may make reasonable rules regarding visitors, visiting hours, and the use of communication resources.

Where this section sits in the code

TN Code
Title 33
Chapter 4

(1) Receive visitors during regular visiting hours; and

(2) Communicate, orally or by sending and receiving uncensored mail, with the service recipient's family, attorney, personal physician, minister, and the courts.

(b) All other incoming mail or parcels may be read or opened before being delivered to a service recipient, if the chief officer of the facility believes the action is necessary for the physical or mental health of the service recipient who is the intended recipient. Mail or other communication that is not delivered to the service recipient for whom it is intended shall be returned immediately to the sender.

(c) The chief officer may make reasonable rules regarding visitors, visiting hours, and the use of communication resources.

Collected 2026-09-17T21:51:56Z. Source file · JSON

Compilation CC BY 4.0, Open US Law (Vaquill AI). GroundRules uses only the releases published under CC BY 4.0: from v2026.09 the compilation is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0, and GroundRules does not use those releases. Each affected row names its release in its vintage label. GroundRules parsed and filtered the compilation to retain enacted text. Source · License

Tennessee electronic product files were republished by Public.Resource.Org under a public-domain mark. GroundRules uses enacted text from Release 76 only as a labeled supplement to the newer Open US Law rows. Source

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