TN Dad Jailed for Violating No-Contact Order With Mom

Tennessee case summary on orders of protection.

The mother and father in this Tennessee case had three children, ages six, eight, and eleven, at the time of their 2009 divorce. The permanent parenting plan ordered both of them to “behave with each other and each child so as to provide a loving, stable, consistent and nurturing relationship with the child even though they are divorced.” Much litigation followed, and in 2011, the court entered a restraining order allowing for social contact at school and sporting events, but required the parents to maintain a distance of at least ten feet. The order also called for all necessary communication to take place via e-mail or text message.

Eventually, the mother filed a petition to hold the father in contempt. She alleged that the father spoke badly about the mother. For example, she alleged that he said that the mother and her husband had cheated on their taxes and would be going to jail. On another occasion, the father handed the mother a medication, even though she asked him to leave it in the mailbox.

The trial court found the father guilty of criminal contempt and ordered him jailed for 48 hours. The father then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The father first argued that he hadn’t been put on adequate notice that he was subject to criminal contempt. But the Court of Appeals noted that he hadn’t raised this issue in the lower court, and that the issue was waived.

On the father discussing the mother’s tax return with the child, the appeals court held that there was sufficient evidence. As part of the divorce proceedings, the father had a copy of the tax return. And the child knew details of the return about which the mother had never told the child.

The appeals court also found the evidence sufficient as to the charge of approaching the mother to deliver the medicine. The mother had told the father in an e-mail that he should leave it in the mailbox. In addition, the court cited times when the father had taken the phone away from the children and spoken directly to the mother, in violation of the order. Despite the father’s claim that the order was “vague and ambiguous,” the court disagreed and found that there had been a violation.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s conviction.

No. M2014-02504-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 13, 2015).

See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Domestic Violence in Tennessee.