Mom Allowed to Relocate With Child to Canada
Tennessee child custody relocation granted case summary.
The parties to this Williamson County, case, were never married, but were the parents of a child born in 2015. The mother was a Canadian citizen who had come to the U.S. several years earlier.
Initially, the juvenile court had issued an order prohibiting the mother from leaving the state with the child, but she was later allowed visits with the child to visit her family in Canada.
The mother’s work visa expired in 2016, and she was required to leave the country within six months. The parents obtained a marriage license, but the marriage never took place.
In 2017, the mother notified the father that she intended to relocate with the child to Canada. She later filed a petition seeking approval for the move, and she noted that the father had never made any objection as required by the Tennessee parental relocation statute. The father then filed an answer and objected to the proposed move.
The magistrate granted the mother’s motion, and she moved to Canada with the child in 2020. The father appealed to the Juvenile Court, which conducted a video hearing.
A forensic psychiatrist from Vanderbilt University was appointed by the court, and this expert testified that it would be in the child’s best interest to remain with the father in Tennessee.
The trial court found that the expert’s conclusions were reliable, but that the information was outdated, because the child had already moved to Canada and had been residing there for about two months at the time of trial.
Neither party was employed at the time of trial, but the mother had income of about $2000 per month, including Canadian public assistance. The father, who was an attorney, was unable to work due to a back injury. His license had been suspended due to his failure to pay fees and keep up with his continuing legal education classes, but this had been taken care of by the time of trial. He believed he was ready to go back to work and expected to be able to find a job within a month. Unfortunately for father, the juvenile court found that the father didn’t have a concrete plan in place for caring for the child.
After considering the statutory factors, the trial court concluded that the relocation to Canada was in the child’s best interest. The father then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The appellate court first noted that the trial court had questioned the father’s credibility on some points, finding that some of the answers sounded too rehearsed. After reviewing the trial court’s findings and the statutory factors, the Court of Appeals held that the evidence had not preponderated against the lower court’s findings. Therefore, it affirmed.
The father also argued that the video software used by the trial court had inhibited the court’s ability to understand and apply the evidence. But the Court of Appeals first pointed out that because of COVID-19, video proceedings were actively encouraged by the Tennessee Supreme Court, and that there were no major issues.
For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed and allowed the mother’s relocation.
No. M2020-01214-COA-R3-JV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 29, 2022).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Tennessee Parent Relocation Statute Law.
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.
