Custody Case Must Be Re-Tried After Trial Judge Limited Evidence

The child in this Maury County, Tennessee case was born a month after the mother married her partner, and the child took the spouse’s surname.  This stepmother was also listed as the child’s father on the birth certificate.  The mother initially didn’t make the biological father aware of the child’s birth.  When he learned of it about two months later, he requested a DNA paternity test, which established a 99.99% certainty that he was the father.  The father resided in Texas, and he began traveling to Tennessee to see the child.  But about a year after the child’s birth, he alleged that the mother cut off this contact.

When the child was several months old, the mother and stepmother filed a petition to terminate the father’s parental rights, and for adoption by the stepmother.  Two days later, the father filed a petition to establish parentage and set up a permanent parenting plan.  The two cases were subsequently combined in the Chancery Court.

In 2020, the father made a motion for parenting time.  In this petition, he alleged that the mother told him that she had aborted the child when she was ten weeks pregnant.  The trial court granted the father regular parenting time while the case was pending, and the amount of parenting time was subsequently extended.  This was later extended to allow overnight parenting time.

In 2021, the mother voluntarily dismissed the termination action, and only the father’s petition was before the court.

Since there had been a prior hearing in the case, the trial court limited the evidence at the hearing to facts occurring after that date.  The evidence at trial showed that the child was on the autism spectrum, and required various therapies.

After the hearing, the trial judge ruled from the bench that the child would have the father’s surname.  The father was found to be the biological father, and child support was set.  The father was also awarded $45,000 in attorney’s fees, because of the “vindictive nature” of the mother’s opposition to his paternity.  The mother then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

Both parties raised a number of issues on appeal, but the appeals court addressed only one of them, namely, whether the trial court had abused its discretion in limiting the evidence to events that happened after the first hearing.  It concluded that the trial court had erred in excluding that evidence, and that the case would need to be reversed and remanded for that reason.

The trial court’s only reason for excluding the evidence was that the mother already had a chance to provide the evidence.  But at the prior hearing, the only issue was whether the father would get overnight visitation while the case was pending.  It was much more limited than a final hearing, and there was less focus on the long-term implications of a permanent parenting plan.

The child had major health issues, and the parties disagreed on how they should be treated.  This had not been covered at the original hearing, and the Court of Appeals held that it was error to exclude such evidence at the final hearing.

The appeals court noted that the trial judge had retired while the case was pending, and the appeal had been pending for a lengthy time.  For these reasons, it ordered that a new trial was required on remand.

The opinion of the Court of Appeals was written by Judge Andy D. Bennett, and Judge Jeffrey Usman and Presiding Judge Frank G. Clement, Jr., joined.

No. M2021-00680-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan 13, 2025).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Child Custody Laws in Tennessee and our video, How is child custody determined in Tennessee?

See also Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases available on Amazon.com.