Dad Not Liable for Private School Tuition When Excluded From Choice

Tennessee child support case summary on private school tuition in family law.

Zynia Pua-Vines v. Michael Blane Vines

The mother and father in this Hamilton County, Tennessee, case were the parents of two daughters, born in 2002 and 2006, and were divorced in Alabama in 2007.  Their divorce decree incorporated an agreement under which they shared joint custody of the children, with the mother being named the primary residential parent.  The father was to pay child support of $1,200 per month and provide medical and dental insurance.

In 2012, the mother moved to Tennessee, and the divorce decree was enrolled in Tennessee in 2013.  In 2014, the mother made a petition to modify the 2007 agreement.

One of the disputes centered around private school tuition.  The 2007 agreement provided that each parent would pay half of all tuition, and contained a provision that expenses would be agreed upon in advance.  The mother argued that the father had taken the position that he would not pay the tuition of the older child, who was entering high school.

The father answered that the mother had enrolled the daughter in a school without first obtaining his agreement.

The trial court ordered that the girl would attend the school chosen by the mother, and ordered the father to pay an amount which was equal to 100% of the tuition which would have been charged by another school.

The father appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  He argued that the order to pay tuition was contrary to the 2007 agreement.

The appeals court first focused on the language of the agreement, which required joint decision making prior to incurring expenses.  The father argued that the mother had unilaterally enrolled the daughter in a school, and had ignored this provision.  The appeals court agreed with the father, and held that the evidence preponderated against the lower court’s findings.

In particular, the court cited testimony of the mother that the parties had agreed to Catholic education, and that the daughter had been enrolled in a non-Catholic school.  It noted that the mother was thus in clear violation of the agreement.  Therefore, it held that the father should be required to pay only half the tuition of the Catholic school, rather than the full amount he had been assessed.

The Court went on to review a number of other issues including dental expenses and extra-curricular activities, ruling in the father’s favor on some of those issues.

It then remanded the case to the lower court, with instructions to modify the father’s tuition obligation.

No. E2016-02472-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 2, 2017).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Child Support Laws in Tennessee and Child Support Modification in Tennessee | How to Modify Child Support.

See also 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 available on Amazon.com.