Tennessee Mother Jailed for Ignoring Parenting Plan

Tennessee law case summary on contempt and parenting plan law in divorce and family law from the Court of Appeals.

S.A.M.D. v. J.P.D. – Tennessee divorce criminal contempt—failure to comply with parenting plan.

The husband and wife were married in 2001, had one son in 2003, and divorced in 2010.  Under the permanent parenting plan, the wife was named the primary residential parent.  Because the husband traveled extensively for his work, the parenting plan called for him to receive flexible parenting time of six days per month when his work permitted.  The parties divided summer and holiday parenting time.

The husband soon filed a contempt petition, alleging that the wife was not cooperating as required by the parenting plan.  The trial court found the wife guilty of contempt and sentenced her to 50 days in jail, but suspended the sentence, conditioned on her compliance with court orders.

A few months later, the husband filed a second contempt petition, alleging that the wife had continued to disregard the court’s orders.  He alleged that she had failed to cooperate in scheduling parenting time, interfered with daily phone access, failed to provide a copy of a required psychological evaluation, failing to take the son to speech therapy, and failed to pay attorney fees as ordered.

The trial court agreed with husband, noting that the wife “only complies when she has to.”  Therefore, it partially lifted the suspension of the jail sentence, and ordered her to serve three days in jail.

The trial court had based its original parenting plan on the fact that it didn’t want to place the 7-year-old with a parent who traveled the world regularly.  But after considering the mother’s failure to cooperate, the trial court held that this constituted a change of circumstances warranting a change in the parenting plan.  Therefore, it named the husband as primary residential parent.  The mother appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals first held that the finding of criminal contempt was proper.  There was either undisputed evidence or admissions to support the finding.  Specifically, calling the other spouse late at night and failing to pay attorney fees, both in violation of a court order, were sufficient to support jailing the wife for criminal contempt.

The Court of Appeals also affirmed the modification of the parenting plan.   The Court of Appeals first noted that the question of whether there was a material change of circumstances is a factual question, and that there is a presumption that those findings were correct, and that an appellate court is reluctant to disturb those findings.   In this case, the Court of Appeals agreed that the wife’s behavior adversely affected the son.  The Court also agreed that there had been a change of circumstances, because that behavior had not been present when the original parenting plan was adopted.  The Court of Appeals was most troubled by the wife’s chronic failure to get the son to school on time every day.  Overall, the Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court that the wife had failed to live up to her responsibilities as a parent.

The Court of Appeals affirmed, and remanded the case only to determine the amount of attorney fees.

No. W2011-01256-COA-R3-CV (Tenn.Ct. App. Oct. 25, 2012).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

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