Court Tosses Out Appeal When Brief Fails to Minimally Comply With Rules
Tennessee child support collection case and appeals court process summary.
This was an appeal of a juvenile case from Davidson County, Tennessee. After a contentious trial of the mother’s motion for modification of parenting time, Judge Sheila Calloway issued a detailed order containing findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a detailed analysis of the relevant statutory factors. Dissatisfied with the outcome of the case, the mother, acting through her attorney, appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Unfortunately, the Court of Appeals was not pleased with the quality of the brief prepared by the mother’s attorney. It noted a number of deficiencies by turning to the court rule governing appellate briefs and concluding that the brief failed to comply with the rule in any meaningful way.
It started by noting that the brief must contain a table of authorities listing the cases, statutes, and other authorities cited. It must also contain a statement of facts with appropriate citations to the record. Finally, it must contain an argument that includes the reasons and references to the record.
The appeals court first pointed out that the brief contained no table of authorities. It did note, however, that the absence was “not all that surprising,” since the brief failed to cite any legal authority whatsoever.
The brief did contain a statement of facts, but there were absolutely no references to the record. There was one cite to the mother’s petition, but there was absolutely no citation to any evidence that supported her allegations. There had been an electronic recording of the hearing, but the brief failed to include references to any relevant portion of the recording. Under the rule, the brief must show the exact time and date of the portions of the recording cited.
Similarly, the argument contained no references to the trial court record or to any legal authorities. For example, even though the mother argued that the court’s findings “don’t match” the testimony of a therapist who testified, the mother failed to specify how they failed to match.
Citing an earlier case, the appeals court stated that it was not under any duty to “minutely search a voluminous record to verify unsupported allegations in a brief.”
The appeals court was also troubled by a typewritten exhibit that appeared to be specific text messages. But since the brief failed to show anything in the record regarding these text messages, the appeals court held that it was unable to place them in context.
Since the appeals court found it impossible to conduct a realistic review of the trial, it held that the mother had waived the issues she tried to raise. Accordingly, the appeals court affirmed the lower court’s judgment, and remanded the case for collection of costs, which now included the costs of the unsuccessful appeal.
No. M2017-01184-COA-R3-JV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 22 2018).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Child Support Collection & Enforcement in Tennessee.
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.
