Dad’s Tough Work Schedule Not Enough To Limit Parenting Time in Tennessee Divorce
- At June 03, 2015
- By Miles Mason
- In Child Custody
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Tennessee law case summary on parenting time in family law from the Court of Appeals.
In re Blaklyn M. – Tennessee divorce visitation – maximum amount
Blaklyn M. was born in 2013, and in July of that year, the father filed a petition with the Sumner County, Tennessee, Juvenile Court seeking visitation. The court granted him only limited parenting time on alternate weekends. The father, believing that the amount of parenting time was insufficient, appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The trial court had noted from the bench that the father had to work at 6:00, and the judge didn’t like the idea of a baby having to get up at 4:30 and still have very little time with the parent. However, the Court of Appeals expressed frustration that there were no factual findings made, and noted that this impeded review of the order.
Because of the lack of findings, the appeals court carefully reviewed the testimony of both parents. After doing so, it concluded that the evidence preponderated against the lower court’s ruling. It held that the statement of the trial judge regarding the father’s work time was, by itself, insufficient grounds for so severely limiting his parenting time.
For this reason, the Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s ruling. It sent the case back for the lower court to adopt a schedule with more parenting time for the father.
The appeals court reminded the lower court that the Tennessee statutes favor parenting schedules that give each parent the maximum amount of time with the child, consistent only with the child’s best interests.
No. M2014-00503-COA-R3-JV (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 24, 2015).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Tennessee Child Custody Law. See also Miles Mason’s book available on Amazon.com Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring actual examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases.
