Mom Gets to Move Away w/ Kids for Job Without Looking in TN
Tennessee parental relocation law case summary in Tennessee divorce and family law from the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Mother allowed to relocate with children.
Hudson v. Hudson – Tennessee Parent Relocation Law – Move Away Allowed
Mother and Father were divorced in January 2007 on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. This case involves an appeal concerning the relocation of Elizabeth Hudson (“Mother”) and her two minor children from Nashville to Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Larson Hudson (“Father”) opposed the relocation. The trial court granted Mother’s request to relocate after finding, pursuant to Tennessee statutes that the relocation was reasonable and not vindictive.
The divorce was contentious; the acrimony between Father and Mother continued after the divorce and eventually spilled over into the relocation dispute. Father alleged, without any concrete proof, that Mother was having overnight male guests while the children were present. Around March 2007, Father resigned from his employment, although he remained employed there in a limited capacity until June 30 of 2007. Father did not immediately disclose his resignation to Mother.
About four and a half months after the divorce was finalized, Mother filed a Petition to Relocate (“Petition”). The Petition contained the following reasons for the relocation: (i) Mother could no longer afford to stay in her home in Nashville, and was forced to place the property for sale; (ii) Mother needed secure employment and a flexible work schedule not available to her in the vicinity of Nashville; (iii) the cost of living in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was less than the cost of living in Nashville, Tennessee; (iv) Mother had family members In Hopkinsville, Kentucky, as an additional support system that was not available to her in Nashville; and (v) Mother felt there was such hostility toward her in the community where she and the children resided that it was advisable for her and the children to relocate. Father opposed the relocation.
Mother testified that she was a trained nurse. Mother admitted that she did not start looking for a job in Hopkinsville until after she filed the Petition. She found a job there as a “Home Health Nurse” that had very flexible hours, allowing her to only work during the hours when the children were in school. Significantly, Mother admitted that she did not look for any nursing jobs in Nashville. When questioned about why she did not look for work in Nashville, she responded that, based on her previous experience as a nurse in Nashville, she would not be able to find a job that met her hourly requirements.
Father responded to that testimony by calling two expert witnesses, both of whom claimed that a nurse with Mother’s skills could have almost certainly found a job in Nashville to fit her needs. Edwina Temple, the Human Resources Director for “All About Staffing,” testified there was a “very high probability” of finding shifts for Mother on the days when the children were in Father’s custody. Michelle Jarrett, a regional manager for a nursing staffing company in Nashville, testified that Mother’s preferred hours from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. existed in doctor’s offices, clinics, home health, hospice, and outpatient surgery centers, and that such jobs would pay more than their counterparts in Hopkinsville. She also claimed that these jobs would offer Mother career advancement, while the job in Hopkinsville would not.
The trial court held that there was a reasonable purpose for Mother’s relocation based on: 1) Father’s premature resignation from the Company; 2) Mother’s difficulty in gaining membership in the country club; 3) Father’s improper and controlling behavior towards Mother; 4) the existence of support from her extended family; and 5) the relative closeness of Hopkinsville to Nashville.
The court found that the relocation would be in the best interest of the children, even though the relocation statute did not require such a finding once it is found that the relocation had a reasonable purpose, does not threaten the children, and is not vindictive. Father filed a timely appeal.
The court of appeals concluded that the trial court was correct in its ultimate decision to allow the relocation based upon familial support in Hopkinsville. Mother was only moving about sixty 60 miles to be near her mother and other relatives who had lived in Hopkinsville for some time.
The trial court found that the short distance between the two cities militated towards the reasonableness of the relocation, and the appellate court agreed.
Father complained that it was improper for the trial court to put emphasis on his controlling nature and poor behavior towards Mother because such a ground was not contained in the original Petition. The court of appeals agreed that, in the absence of such a ground in the Petition, those interactions by themselves do not constitute a reasonable purpose for relocation. However, the court of appeals found that those past interactions had a direct bearing on the amount of support Mother believes she could receive from Father in Nashville. Although Father made a compelling case that the relocation would cause a net loss of support because of Father’s absence, it was clear from Father’s argument that he was thinking in terms of pure logistical support. At the same time, the “support” Mother referred to undoubtedly had an emotional component.
If a relocation has a reasonable purpose, does not threaten the child, and is not vindictive, then the parent shall be allowed to move. Having determined that Mother has satisfied all three of these requirements, there was no reason for the court of appeals to make a best interest inquiry because it would not affect the outcome of this appeal.
Although Mother presented sufficient proof to justify the relocation petition, the proof also revealed that the relocation favored Mother’s interests more than the children’s interests. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling allowing Mother to relocate from Nashville to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in that the relocation served a reasonable purpose and was not for a vindictive purpose.
Hudson v. Hudson, No. M2008-01143-COA-R3-CV, 2009 Tenn. App. LEXIS 660 (Tenn. Ct. App. Sep. 29, 2009).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, buy Miles Mason, Sr.’s book, Tennessee Parent Relocation Law, available on Amazon and Kindle and see Tennessee Parent Relocation Statute Law | Modifying the Parenting Plan and the MemphisDivorce.com Tennessee Family Law Blog with more detailed cases sorted by relocation cases granted and denied.
Memphis divorce lawyer, Miles Mason, Sr., JD, CPA practices family law exclusively and is founder of the Miles Mason Family Law Group, PLC, which handles Tennessee family law matters including contested relocation matters.
