65-21-112 - Failure to relinquish telephone line for emergency call. - Tennessee Statutes

65-21-112. Failure to relinquish telephone line for emergency call.

(a)  Any person who fails to relinquish a telephone party line or a public pay telephone after having been requested to do so to permit another to place an emergency call to a fire department or police department, or for medical aid or ambulance service, commits a Class C misdemeanor.

(b)  It is a defense to a prosecution under this section that the accused did not know or did not have reason to know of the emergency in question, or that the accused was also using the telephone party line or public pay telephone for such an emergency call.

(c)  Any person who requests another to relinquish a telephone party line or a public pay telephone on the pretext that such person must place an emergency call, knowing such pretext to be false, commits a Class C misdemeanor.

(d)  Every telephone company doing business in this state shall print a statement of the substance of this section in a permanent place in each telephone directory published by it.

[Acts 1955, ch. 272, §§ 1-3; T.C.A. (orig. ed.), §§ 65-2120 65-2122; Acts 1989, ch. 591, § 113.]