Tennessee Court Can Enforce Child Support Even If a Custody Action is Pending in Nevada
Tennessee law case summary on child support enforcement jurisdiction in family law from the Court of Appeals.
Barbara Jean Blake v. Russell Alan Blake – Tennessee child support enforcement jurisdiction
The husband and wife in this Tennessee divorce case had two children and were divorced in 2006. The mother was named the primary residential parent. In 2010, the mother wrote the father a letter stating that she intended to move with the children to Nevada. After a hearing in 2011, the mother was named the primary residential parent of the daughter and was allowed to move to Nevada. The father was named primary residential parent of the son and remained in Tennessee. After the son turned 18, the mother filed a petition in Nevada asking the court in Clark County, Nevada, to assume jurisdiction over custody, since Nevada was now the daughter’s home state. The Nevada court agreed and assumed jurisdiction over custody matters.
In 2014, the mother filed a contempt petition in Tennessee asking that the father be held in contempt for failing to pay certain debts, take a parenting class, maintain health insurance, and provide tax documents and other proof of income. The father filed a cross petition stating that the mother had interfered with his visitation. The Tennessee court dismissed both petitions on the grounds that Nevada now had jurisdiction and the case should be heard there. The mother appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, and argued that the Tennessee court still had jurisdiction over her petition.
The appeals court agreed that the Nevada court now had jurisdiction over child custody matters, due to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA). However, it noted that the case involved much more than child custody. For that reason, the case was governed by the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), and the appeals court held that the Tennessee courts had jurisdiction over the wife’s petition under that law.
The court first noted that the father had never consented in writing to the case being transferred to Nevada. In that circumstance, the appeals court noted that cases can arise where there are parallel proceedings in two states.
In this case, since the petition involved matters other than custody, the Court of Appeals held that Tennessee still had jurisdiction. Therefore, while it affirmed the dismissal of the father’s counter petition, it also reversed the dismissal of the mother’s petition, and remanded the case.
No. M2014-01016-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 30, 2015).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
For more information, see Tennessee Child Support Laws. See also Miles Mason’s book available on Amazon.com 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.
