Tennessee Surgeon Can Relocate With Daughter for Subspecialty Training

Tennessee law case summary on relocation granted in post-divorce relocation law from the Court of Appeals.

John Daniel Rudd v. Debra Ann Gonzalez – Tennessee post-divorce relocation granted.

The mother and father in this Tennessee parental relocation case were both physicians.  They were the parents of one daughter who was adopted as an infant in 1999, and were divorced in Davidson County in 2010.  The mother was a board-certified otolaryngologist, but suffered from MS which forced her to cease practicing in her specialty.  The father was trained as an internist, but because of a physical disability, he operated a business as in administrative correctional medicine in Rutherford County.

The mother was named the daughter’s primary residential parent, and the father was to enjoy 120 days per year of residential parenting time.

In 2011, the mother’s dietary changes had abated her symptoms enough to allow her to return to the practice of medicine.  She sent a certified letter to the father to notify him that she planned to relocate to Springfield, Illinois, where she planned to retrain in her subspecialty at Southern Illinois University medical school.

The father objected to these plans, and filed a petition in opposition to the relocation.  He claimed that the relocation had no reasonable purpose, but was vindictive and posed a threat of harm to the daughter.  About this same time, the mother’s lawyer accused the father of secretly sending the mother’s medical records to an MS expert, and that the father had failed to disclose that the MS diagnosis might have been incorrect.  The lawyer informed the father that the mother was willing to dismiss this lawsuit if he dropped his objection to the relocation.  When the father refused to do so, she commenced a separate lawsuit, which she eventually dropped.

The relocation dispute was heard by Judge Philip E. Smith of the Davidson County Circuit Court.  Judge Smith first had to determine whether the parents had previously had substantially equal parenting time, since this determination affects the test to be used in applying the Tennessee parental relocation statute.  The court found that the father had 154 days of parenting time in the previous year, or 42% of the total.  The court held that this did not amount to substantially equal time.

A trial was held, and the father took the position that the separate lawsuit was evidence of the mother’s vindictiveness.  But Judge Smith held that this lawsuit did not fit within the definition of a vindictive motive for purposes of the parental relocation law.

The father also argued that the purpose of the relocation was not reasonable.  He argued that it was not necessary since the mother could have taken a position closer to Nashville.  The mother had been in discussions regarding potential positions with Vanderbilt University, but none of these had led to a job offer.  She had, however, removed herself from consideration for a position in Franklin, Tennessee, because it did not take advantage of her advanced subspecialty training.

The father also argued that the mother didn’t have a firm job offer in Springfield, but the mother introduced evidence showing that she would receive a salary of about $58,000 per year while training, with the possibility of a faculty appointment with a salary of about $250,000 per year.

Judge Smith granted the mother permission to relocate to Illinois.  The father than appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  He first argued that Judge Smith erred in not allowing evidence of the separate lawsuit.  But the Court of Appeals agreed that the definition of “vindictive” in the relocation statute means only that the parent wants to defeat the visitation rights of the other parent.  In this case, the separate lawsuit did not relate to that issue and was not relevant.  The appeals court then reviewed the evidence and held that there were no grounds for finding the mother’s relocation to be vindictive for purposes of the statute.  The court agreed with the trial judge’s observation that there is no requirement that the parents be friends.

The father next argued that the purpose of the relocation was not reasonable, since the mother did not have an actual job offer.  But the appeals court examined the evidence and held that it supported the trial judge’s ruling, especially in light of the finding that it would be highly likely that she would be offered a faculty position in Illinois.

The Court of Appeals agreed that parental relocation cases are frequently heartbreaking and can have profound effects on both parents and children.  But based upon the evidence, the Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Smith’s ruling.

No. M2012-02714-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb 28, 2014).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.