TN Mom Can Relocate With Child to MS Due to Lack of Jobs
Tennessee law case summary on parent relocation in divorce and family law from the Court of Appeals.
Lisa Rawlings Redmon v. Brent Alan Redmon – Tennessee parental relocation granted
Lisa and Brent Redmon were divorced in 2011 and had one daughter who was born in 2008, they lived in McNairy County, Tennessee, The mother was named the primary residential parent and was granted 254 days parenting time per year, with the dad receiving the remaining 111 days.
At the time of the divorce, the mother worked at a hospital and earned $44,000 per year. She was also going to school at Union University in Jackson in the nurse practitioner program, where she was to graduate in December 2012. She found a job in Oxford, Mississippi, which was closer to her family. She sent a certified letter to the father proposing that she relocate there.
The father objected, and a hearing was held before McNairy County Judge Van McMahan. The mother testified that she had been offered a job in Mississippi with a salary of $80,000, and that she had family in the area. The move would be about 92 miles from her current home in McNairy County.
The father took the position that the move didn’t have a reasonable purpose, since the mother had not applied for any local nurse practitioner jobs in Tennessee or the surrounding area.
The trial judge agreed with the father and held that the move did not have a reasonable purpose, since the mother did not make reasonable efforts to find a similar job closer to home. With the relocation denied, the mother appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
In a case where the parents do not spend substantially equal time with the children, the move is permitted unless the other spouse shows that the move did not have a reasonable purpose.
The father argued that the move was unreasonable because the mother did not look “hard enough” for local jobs. But the Court of Appeals noted that under the parental relocation statute, he had the burden of proof. But the father never offered any evidence of available nurse practitioner jobs in the area. He merely stated that such jobs must “surely” exist, without pointing to any. The appeals court held that this did not meet the burden of proof.
For this reason, the Court of Appeals reversed, and remanded the case for an appropriate modification of the parenting schedule.
No. W2013-01017-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Apr. 29, 2014).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
Miles Mason, Sr. is the author of Tennessee Parent Relocation Law available on Amazon and Kindle. To learn more, see Tennessee Parent Relocation Statute Law | Modifying the Parenting Plan and the MemphisDivorce.com Tennessee Family Law Blog with more detailed cases sorted by relocation cases granted and denied.
