Grandmother Not Entitled to Visit Even to Facilitate Visit with Incarcerated Dad

Tennessee child custody case summary on parentage, visitation rights, and grandparent visitation law.

The child in this Madison County, Tennessee, case was born in 2011, a month after the father was sentenced to 17 years in prison for aggravated assault. The father signed a notarized statement acknowledging paternity, and the mother took the child to visits in prison until 2013. Later that year, she filed a petition asking to be named the child’s primary custodian, and that was granted.

In 2014, the father filed a motion for visitations rights, but that motion was dismissed for lack of standing. The father asked for that order to be set aside, pointing to the acknowledgment of paternity. In 2018, the trial court granted him some communication rights with the child and granted his mother visitation rights to facilitate future prison visits. The mother then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

After addressing the issue of whether there was a final judgment, the court turned to the issue of whether the father had standing, and held that he did. While the court pointed out that the mere existence of the acknowledgment of paternity did not convey standing, there was more in this case. Because both parents signed the document, it was held to be sufficient to confer standing.

The appeals court then turned to the issue of whether the trial court should have awarded the father parenting time. The trial court had held that the mother’s unilateral decision to stop prison visits was not in the best interest of the child, and that the father had the right to write to and talk to the child. Because the father was satisfied with that outcome, there was no further issue as to visitation, and the appeals court affirmed this portion of the lower court’s order.

The court then turned to the issue of whether it was proper to award parenting time to the grandmother, in order to facilitate the prison visits. The appeals court held that this was improper. The appeals court noted that there is a grandparent visitation statute, but that this statute had not been followed. In this case, the grandmother wasn’t even a party to the case, and there was no authority to award her any visitation.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals, in an opinion authored by Judge Arnold Goldin, affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Judge Kenny Armstrong authored a separate concurring opinion. Judge Armstrong expressed concerns as to the procedural mechanism employed in the trial court.

No. W2018-02209-COA-R3-JV (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 15, 2020).

See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Child Custody Laws in Tennessee.

To learn more, see Grandparent Visitation Rights Law in Tennessee.

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.