Father Returned from Temporary Kuwait Job | No Change

Tennessee child custody modification case summary.

Jessica Hartmann v. Brian Hartmann

The mother and father in this Montgomery County, Tennessee, case were divorced in Arizona in 2016, at which time the mother and three children moved to Tennessee.  The father had agreed to this since he obtained temporary employment in Kuwait.  The parents agreed that when the father returned, the mother and children would move to an agreed upon location, and if they couldn’t agree, the move would be to Raleigh, North Carolina, Norfolk, Virginia, or Augusta, Georgia.  In 2017, the father returned from Kuwait and moved to Augusta.

The Tennessee Court, Judge Ted A. Crozier, held that there had been a material change of circumstances, and adopted the mother’s proposed parenting plan.  The father then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The appeals court first turned to the question of whether there had been a material change of circumstances.  In this case, the mother argued that there was a material change on the grounds that the children were thriving in Tennessee, were doing well in school, and were ingrained in the community.  The trial court agreed, but the father argued that even if these findings were correct, they did not constitute a material change of circumstances.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the father’s reasoning.  In particular, it noted that almost all of the allegedly new circumstances had been in place even before the Arizona decree was made.

The Court of Appeals thus held that the evidence preponderated against the lower court’s findings, and there had been no substantial change of circumstances.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings.  The appeals court also declined to award attorney fees to either party.

No. M2018-00891-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Sep. 4,  2019).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Modifying Custody & Parenting Plans.

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.