TN Parental Relocation Statute Takes Precedence Over PPP Language

Tennessee parent relocation case summary.

In re Blake A., et al.

The parents in this Tennessee case lived together until their 2011 separation.  They were the parents of a son and a daughter.  At the time of their separation, the Montgomery County court legitimated the children and entered a permanent parenting plan.  Among other things, that plan ordered that neither party could relocate with the children without the other parent’s consent.

In 2014, the mother notified the father that he planned to relocated with the children to Ohio.  The father went to court to object to the move.

The first issue was whether the specific provision of the parenting plan barring relocation took precedence over the Tennessee parental relocation statute, which specifies the conditions under which a parent may relocate.  The mother immediately appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals arguing that the statute took precedence.  The Court of Appeals agreed to hear the case, but first allowed the lower court to make the determinations necessary under the statute.  The lower court denied the mother permission to move, and she again appealed.  The appeals court first tackled the issue of whether the statute applied.

The appeals court cited an earlier decision of the court holding that parents did not have the power to bargain away the rights under the statute.  That case had held that a parenting agreement could not modify the statute.  And the Court of Appeals agreed with the mother that the same rationale applied in this case, where the provision had been ordered as part of the original parenting plan.

For this reason, the appeals court held that the relocation statute should have been applied, and reversed the lower court’s holding on that point.  Since the lower court had also addressed the statute as an alternative holding, the appeals court went on to review that decision.  The lower court had held that the relocation was not in the children’s best interest.  It had based its ruling under the portion of the statute governing parents who spend substantially equal periods of time with the children, and noted that this meant the “time actually spent” with the children.

In this case, based upon the record, it was not clear whether the lower court had applied the correct standard of “time actually spent.”  Therefore, it remanded the case for the lower court to make clear what standard was used, and which portion of the statute was employed.

No. M2016-01621-COA-R10-JV  (Tenn. Ct. App. Jul. 19, 2018).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Tennessee Parent Relocation Statute Law.

See also Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases available on Amazon.com.