Tennessee Father’s Parental Rights Terminated After Abandonment

Tennessee law case summary on parental rights termination in divorce and family law from the Court of Appeals.

In re Victoria G.  – Tennessee divorce parental rights termination

The mother and father of two children were divorced in 2004 and the mother was awarded primary custody.  A year later, she suffered a recurrence of cancer, and the children moved in with her sister and the sister’s husband.

The mother passed away that same year, and the father did not seek custody until 2006.  At the 2006 hearing, the court found that the father had not inquired about the mother’s condition, but had instead by totally absorbed with his own issues.  The court also concluded that the father’s choice to remain in an abusive marriage with his then wife was not in the children’s best interests.  The court denied him custody, and found that custody was properly granted to the sister and her husband.

The father was granted visitation, but the visits did not go well.  Eventually, the children refused to go with the father.  He was subsequently arrested for assault during one of the exchanges of the children, and he did not seek visitation after that time.  In 2012, the sister’s husband filed a petition seeking to terminate the father’s rights on the ground of abandonment.  Based upon evidence that the father had not visited for at least four months, the trial court granted the petition.   The court also cited earlier instances of the father having failed to exercise his visitation rights.  It also cited the testimony of the children’s therapist, who had testified that the father had not followed any recommendations to re-establish the relationship with the children or adjust his behaviors.  The children were thriving, according to the trial court, and that it was in the children’s best interest to remain in the home of the sister and her husband.

After his parental rights were terminated, the father appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  The court first acknowledged that the rights of a parent were constitutional in dimension.

Because the father had lost his “superior parental rights” in the earlier custody proceeding, he was required to show a material change of circumstances at the parental rights termination proceeding.  He argued that this improperly placed the burden of proof on him.  The Court of Appeals, however, examined the record and concluded that he had received a full evidentiary hearing with the proper burden of proof.

On the issue of abandonment, the Court of Appeals first noted that the father had admitted to not seeing the children in almost a year.  He had not been to any school functions, ball games, or therapy appointments, and he did not know what grades the children had received at school.  The children’s therapist had suggested that he attend these events in the children’s “spheres of living,” but he had failed to do so.  The children, who were 14 and 11, also testified, and stated that the father was never available for them.

The court noted that the father had never had his visitation attempts thwarted in any way.  He was free to see the children but failed to do so.  Based upon this evidence, the court concluded that abandonment had been established.  It also found that there was clear and convincing evidence that termination of the father’s rights was in the best interest of the children.  For those reasons, it affirmed the judgment of the lower court.

No. E2012-01522-COA-R3-PT (Tenn. Ct. App. May 29, 2013).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

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