Mom Allowed to Relocate, Despite Court Applying Wrong Statute
Tennessee child custody case summary on relocation.
Mom allowed to relocate, even though court looked at wrong statute.
Gabriel Calleja v. Whitney Bradfield
The parties in this Knox County, Tennessee, case were the unwed parents of a child born in 2017. They agreed to a permanent parenting plan under which each parent would have the child for one week alternating, with the mother being the primary residential parent. The mother became involved in a relationship with a soldier who received orders to report to Alabama. She decided to follow, and she notified the father of her intention to relocate.
The father filed an opposition to that request. The trial of the matter was delayed by COVID-19, but the parties agreed to an interim solution. Because of the pandemic, the soldier’s deployment was delayed, and the mother moved in with him in North Carolina. The parties agreed that they would swap the child every two weeks, instead of every week.
Two years later, the mother moved for contempt against the father. She alleged that he had the child vaccinated, without her consent, and that he had taken her for behavioral therapy, also without her consent.
The trial court ultimately approved the relocation request, but denied the mother’s request for contempt. It also reduced the father’s parenting time to 105 days per year. The father appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The trial court had applied the normal custody statute, and the father argued that it should have instead applied the Tennessee parental relocation statute. The appeals court agreed that the wrong statute had been applied, but ultimately held that the result would have been the same.
The appeals court noted that at the heart of both statutes was the child’s best interests. Thus, it found that the lower court had applied the essential requirements of the correct statute.
The appeals court then went on to review the best-interest standard as applied to the case. It acknowledged that the father had some legitimate concerns, but that overall, the lower court’s finding was supported by the evidence.
Therefore, it affirmed the lower court’s ruling.
No. E2022-01074-COA-R3-JV (Tenn. Ct. App. Apr. 17, 2024).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Tennessee Parent Relocation Statute Law.
