Injunction hearing hits ‘mandatory insurance’ fraud creating up to 40,832 false convictions a year
Lawsuit says financial responsibility law applies to people under suspension from department of safety and those in qualifying accidents
IMMEDIATE RELEASE — David Tulis (423) 544-2285 davidtuliseditor@gmail.com
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025 — A radio journalist is asking a Hamilton County judge to slam shut the eyelid of a surveillance eyeball used to revoke poor people’s auto tags because they are not customers of the insurance industry.
Radio journalist David Tulis, who has been fighting more than two years to end what he calls “the Eye of Sauron” program in the department of revenue, is telling Circuit Court Judge J.B. Bennett that the electronic insurance verification system, or EIVS, is surveilling and revoking motor vehicle registrants who are not subject to the Tennessee financial responsibility of 1977.
The special hearing in Bennett’s division 1 courtroom is set for 1:30 p.m., with Nick Barca of the attorney general’s office defending the mandatory auto insurance scheme operating since 2002 with high-tech support by EIVS starting Jan. 1, 2017.
Tulis says in filings he is defending the law that “shows that Tennessee is a voluntary insurance, after-accident, first-bite-at-the-apple state and is not a mandatory insurance state like others where insurance is a prerequisite to registration or use of a motor vehicle.”
Tulis is asking Judge Bennett to order Commissioner David Gerregano to decertify EIVS and halt the weekly mailing of 12,000 inquiry and revocation notices to people who are poor and whom administrative judge Brad Buchanan says in a 62-page order are intended to be barred from using the public right of way.
The complaint filed July 21 makes 36 demands for injunctive relief and assignment of a special master to bring the department into compliance with the law. The department is running “a rogue corporate capture program guaranteeing a free $2 billion a year in premiums to insurance industry titans and small fry corporate hangers-on happy to have Mr. Gerregano be their bagman in a longstanding extortion operation. Maybe you’re as tired of this racket as I am.”
The departments of safety and revenue report annually to the legislature about the success of their compulsory program. Courts convict an average 40,832 people a year, mostly not in the category of high-risk drivers who must show proof of financial responsibility. The financial responsibility law lets a person under driver license suspension keep the privilege if he maintains a special insurance under a “financial responsibility insurance certificate,” or SR-22 form, for the duration of the suspension.
Filings say revenue abrogates 28 provisions of the law and violates nine provisions of the Tennessee constitution bill of rights.
The hearing is the reschedule of an earlier hearing canceled in a courthouse mixup.
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This is an important case, and I'm pulling for you over here, David! Keep going!