Mom Gets Custody After Year On/Year Off Plan Held Unworkable
Tennessee child custody modification case summary.
Jamie Gravatt v. Michael Barczykowski
Mom Gets Custody After Year On/Year Off Plan Held Unworkable
The mother and father in this Montgomery County, Tennessee, case were the parents of a child born in 2012. When they divorced in 2016, the father was named the primary residential parent, with equal parenting time, following a wee on/week off schedule.
In 2017, the father relocated to Maryland, and the trial court ordered a parenting schedule of one year on, one year off.
In 2018, while the child was living with the mother in Tennessee, she petitioned to modify the parenting plan. She alleged a material change of circumstances in the father’s unreasonable demands and disagreements.
The trial court concluded that the year on/year off parenting schedule was not workable and was not in the child’s best interest. In particular, the mother pointed to the child’s struggle to adapt to a new school every year. The trial court, Judge Ross H. Hicks, granted the mother’s petition and named her the primary residential parent. The father was awarded 100 days per year of parenting time. He was also ordered to pay child support of $955 per month. The father then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The appeals court first pointed out that the first prerequisite to modifying a parenting plan is finding a material change of circumstances. It noted that the standard for modifying a parenting schedule is a showing that the existing arrangement is unworkable. In this case, that test was met, since both parents agreed that the current plan was not working.
Then, the court turned to the question of whether the change was in the child’s best interest. After listing the statutory factors, the appeals court agreed with the lower court that they favored the mother’s position. Even though factors favored both parents, one important one was that the child was currently in a stable environment in a Tennessee school. It noted that since the mother worked in the same school system, this meant that their days off were the same, which was not true of the father.
After reviewing both the parenting plan and the child support award, the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the lower court.
No. M2019–01481-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 25, 2021).
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.
