Grandparents Must Show Substantial Harm to Children In Order to Retain Custody

Tennessee child custody case summary on grandparent opposition to parent.

John Beaumont Jones v. Samantha Rose Jones

Parents have a fundamental right to the care of his or her own child.  Persons who are not biological parents do not have that same constitutional right.

The mother and father in this Maury County, Tennessee, case were married in 2013 and had two children, born in 2010 and 2016.  In 2018, the father filed for divorce.  Because of the divorce and drug issues, the children were at that time in the custody of their maternal grandparents.

The mother did not file an answer in the case, and the father asked for a default judgment.  He proposed a parenting plan.  The trial court granted his motion for default, and held that custody issues would be determined by the juvenile court, which previously had jurisdiction over the children.

In 2020, the father made a motion for custody, or to transfer the case to the chancery court from the juvenile court.  Ultimately, the case was transferred to the chancery court, and a hearing was held in late 2020, and again in early 2021, before Judge Christopher V. Sockwell.

The maternal grandparents retained custody, with the father having visitation on weekends.

After a few more hearings, the trial court issued its final order, based upon the best interests of the children.  It ruled that the children would remain with the grandparents.  The father was awarded 54 days per year of parenting time.  From that final order, he appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  None of the parties to the appeal were represented by an attorney.

The father stated 17 issues for consideration, but the appeals court concluded that the case boiled down to one issue, namely, whether the lower court had applied the correct legal standard.  The lower court had applied the “best interests of the child” standard called for under the Tennessee statutes for divorce cases.  But the appeals court noted that this wasn’t a mere divorce case, where two parents were competing for custody.  It was a case in which custody had been awarded to a non-parent.  In such a case, under the constitution, the parent has a fundamental right to the care of his or her own child.  Persons who are not biological parents do not have that same constitutional right.

In such a case, even before considering the “best interest of the child,” as the court did here, the court must first find that there has been a finding of substantial harm to the child if the parent is granted custody.

While there might be some departure from this standard in a case where the non-parent has already been granted custody, and the parent is seeking a change, the court held that the exception did not apply in this case.  The exception applies only in extraordinary circumstances, and the appeals court found that this was not the case here.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded.  It instructed the lower court that before denying the father’s request for custody, it would first need to have a showing, by clear and convincing evidence, that the children would be exposed to substantial harm if placed in the custody of the father.

No. M2021-00788-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 23, 2022).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Child Custody Laws in Tennessee and our video, How is child custody determined 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.