Move to TN Does Not Relieve Dad’s Obligation for College Age Children
Tennessee child support law case law summary on applicable child support law from the Court of Appeals.
Geret Jesse Johnston v. Susan Harwell – Tennessee divorce child support jurisdiction and applicable state law
The mother and father were divorced in Hawaii in 2003. The Hawaii decree reflected that the parties intended to move to Newport News, Virginia, at the end of that school year, and that they should share joint physical custody.
The Hawaii decree provided that the father would pay child support of $1010 per month, and that the obligation would continue as long as the children finished their post-high school education, or until they reached 23 years of age. The father moved to Virginia, but contrary to the expectation stated in the decree, the mother made her residence in Columbia, Tennessee.
In 2006, the father, then residing in Virginia, filed a petition in Maury County, Tennessee, to enroll the Hawaii divorce, and to have the mother held in contempt. The mother filed a response and a counterpetition asking to have the father held in contempt. The case was litigated for three years, and at some point during that time, the father also moved to Tennessee. The parties finally agreed to various terms, and the father’s support obligation was increased to $1329 per month. However, unlike the Hawaii decree, the Tennessee order was silent as to duration.
After the father returned from a military deployment in 2011, the parties again experienced disputes, the result of which was another order. In May, 2012, the father filed a motion to modify his child support obligation, to terminate as of the date each child turned 18 or graduated from high school. He argued that the 2009 parenting plan superseded the earlier Hawaii order, which called for child support while the children attended college. The trial court agreed with the father, and held that the child support obligation, under the 2009 parenting plan,
terminated when the children reached 18 or graduated from high school. Dissatisfied with this outcome, the mother appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The mother first argued that under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), the Tennessee court had no jurisdiction to modify the Hawaii judgment. She also argued that under Hawaii law, this provision could not be modified.
On the jurisdictional argument, the Court of Appeals noted that Hawaii had continuing exclusive jurisdiction unless that continuing jurisdiction was lost for one of the reasons stated in the statute. In this case, however, Hawaii lost its continuing exclusive jurisdiction because all of the parties moved to Tennessee and consented to the Tennessee order enrolling the Hawaii decree. For that reason, the UIFSA did not apply.
The court then turned to the issue of whether the original decree could be modified. The court noted that since Hawaii no longer had continuing jurisdiction, then Hawaii law generally did not apply. Under Tennessee law, a child support obligation generally ends when the child reaches 18, as happened in this case. The issue, then, was whether the father’s 2009 agreement included an obligation to support the children past that age. That order did reference the Hawaii decree, and the Court of Appeals found that it included adopting the duration provision, which would keep the support obligation in effect while the children were in college. Since the father was not able to show any other change of circumstances, the Court of Appeals held that he had agreed to the longer duration. Therefore, it remanded the case to the trial court.
No. M2012-01808-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 16, 2013).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
For more information, see Tennessee Child Support Answers to FAQ’s. For legal updates, news, analysis, and commentary, visit our Tennessee Family Law Blog and its Child Support category. A Memphis child support attorney from the Miles Mason Family Law Group can help you with setting or modifying child support. To schedule your confidential consultation about Tennessee child support, call us today at (901) 683-1850.
