Mom Falsely Accused TN Dad of Abuse of Special-Needs Son
Tennessee law case summary on post-divorce custody and social media from the Court of Appeals.
In re: Conservatorship of Turner – Tennessee divorce conservatorship, defamation, Facebook.
The ward in this conservatorship case was born in 1988 and suffered from Downs Syndrome. The boys’ parents were divorced in Texas in 1994. The father and children later moved to Tennessee, and the mother followed. The father and children subsequently moved to Michigan, but the mother remained in Nashville. Over the Christmas holiday in 2011-12, the mother brought the son to Tennessee for a pre-arranged visitation. Once in Tennessee, she asked the Davidson County, Tennessee, Circuit Court for an order of protection. In that petition, she alleged that she and the son were afraid of the father, and that the father drugged him and kept him locked in the basement. The father then filed a petition for conservatorship in the same court, asking that he be appointed the conservator. A guardian ad litem investigated, and concluded that there was no evidence of abuse or neglect, that a conservator was needed, and that the father was the most suitable choice. The trial court agreed, but granted the mother liberal visitation rights. The mother responded with an emergency motion in which she alleged that the father had sexually assaulted the son. Circuit Judge David Randall Kennedy heard the evidence and concluded that there was no evidence of any sexual assault.
The father then filed a petition asking that the mother’s parenting time be supervised. He noted that the mother had joined an organization which did not recognize the authority of civil courts.
Judge Kennedy once again heard the evidence and told the mother from the bench that she was a troubled person who was unwilling to accept what the court imposed. He then limited her visitation to four supervised hours a month. To this, the mother responded with more accusations of sexual abuse, this time by the brother, some of which she repeated on social media. Judge Kennedy found these claims to be baseless, meritless, and not based on any fact whatsoever.
The trial court re-imposed the requirement of supervision of visits, and also gave the father authority to record any telephone conversations between the son and his father. Judge Kennedy also enjoined the mother from making any communications about alleged sexual abuse.
The mother then took her grievances to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. She first argued that the injunction was an unconstitutional prior restrain on her free speech. The appeals court, however, noted that the trial court’s ruling was based on its conclusion that the allegations were false and made for a fraudulent and harmful purpose, and that the injunction was necessary to protect the son and his brother from further harm.
The appeals court examined both state and federal case law and concluded that injunctions against defamatory statements can be proper. After carefully examining these cases, it concluded that the “modern rule” stated in those cases would allow a prior restraint of defamatory speech in this case. It carefully reviewed the evidence before the trial court and held that the injunction was proper.
The appeals court then went on to examine the modification of the conservatorship order itself, and once again concluded that the evidence supported the trial court’s limitation of the mother’s visitation. The appeals court quoted a Facebook post made by the mother in which she falsely stated that the order allowed the use of psychotropic drugs, and that the father was administering such drugs. This elicited a comment from one Facebook “friend” that the mother ought to “beat the [profanity] out of” Judge Kennedy and the father.
For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed, and assessed the costs of the appeal against the mother.
No. M2013-01665-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 9, 2014).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Tennessee Divorce, Facebook & Social Media Evidence.
