TN Court Still Has Custody Jurisdiction After Parents Moved to Florida

Tennessee law case summary on interstate jurisdiction in divorce and family law from the Court of Appeals.

Willard Harrison Iman, Jr., v. Megan Blanchfield Iman – Tennessee divorce Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act.

The mother and father had one child and were divorced in Tennessee in 2011. The divorce was based upon the mother’s extramarital affair and the fact that she had brought the child around a registered sex offender.  While the divorce was pending, the father moved to Florida for his job in the military.  During this time, the mother was named the primary residential parent, and both parents had equal visitation.

This arrangement had gone well, and when the trial court made a permanent parenting plan, it named the father the primary residential parent.  The trial court allowed the child to move to Florida after the end of that school year.  After the child moved to Florida, the mother would be allowed parenting time on all three-day weekends.  The court also noted that its intention was that both parents would have equal parenting time if the mother ever moved to Florida, although she expressed no desire to do so.

The mother did subsequently move to Florida, and she went back to the Tennessee court to modify the parenting plan.  The father moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.  He argued that Florida now had jurisdiction, and was the more convenient forum.

The father testified that there had been problems after the parenting plan was made.  Also, both parents objected to the amount of time the child spent with the other parent’s significant other.

After hearing all of the evidence, the trial court concluded that it had jurisdiction, and modified the parenting plan to allow equal parenting time.  Dissatisfied with this outcome, the father appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals and argued that the Tennessee Court no longer had jurisdiction.

The Court of Appeals first noted that the case must be decided with regard to the Uniform Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA).  Under that act, the original court retains jurisdiction unless certain requirements are met.  For the act to come into play, a Tennessee court must determine that there is no longer a substantial connection with the state and the evidence is no longer available in the state.  Or, in the alternative, a court in any state can find that neither the parents nor child are residents of the state.

The father argued that nobody resided in Tennessee at the time of the trial and that jurisdiction was lost for this reason.  But the court examined the statute and determined that the relevant time was when the motion was filed.  And at that time, the mother still resided in Tennessee.

The Court of Appeals also concluded that most of the relevant evidence in the case was in Tennessee at the time of trial.  The court noted, for example, that the school records were all in Tennessee.

The father next argued that Tennessee was an inconvenient forum, and the case should have been heard in Florida for that reason.  Again, the Court of Appeals noted that most of the evidence was in Tennessee, since the child lived there for eight years, but only 13 weeks in Florida at the time of trial.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals held that it was proper to hear the case in Tennessee.

The Court then examined the new parenting plan and did reverse some portions of it.  It remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

No. M2012-02388-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 19, 2013).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

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