Court Has Power to Modify Parent’s Duty to Pay Private School Tuition

Tennessee child support case summary on private school tuition.

Maryam Ghorashi-Bajestani v. Masoud Bajestani

The husband and wife in this Hamilton County, Tennessee, case were divorced in 2009.  The wife was named the primary residential parent, and the husband was ordered to pay child support and to pay private school expenses through 12^th grade.  A first appeal followed, and the Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s rulings in part and modified them in part.

After the first appeal, the husband lost his well paying job with the TVA, and he made a petition to modify his child support and tuition obligations.  The trial court agreed, and granted the husband a modification.  The wife brought a second appeal, and the Tennessee Court of Appeals modified the judgment and remanded the case.

The case was sent back to the trial court, and the wife filed a petition to modify the child support on the grounds that the husband had pleaded guilty to a crime.

The trial court heard various issues, including the husband’s obligation to pay private school tuition.  On this issue, the trial court found that the husband was contractually obligated to pay the tuition and refused to modify.

The husband filed a petition to modify that order after he alleged that his daughter had been expelled from the school.  The trial court again refused to modify the obligation, calling it a contractual obligation.

Both parties then brought a third appeal to the Tennessee Court of Appeals and raised various issues.  Among those issues was the question of private school tuition.

In Tennessee, a trial court has no authority to order a parent to pay college tuition.  However, a parent may assume such a duty by agreement, and that agreement will be enforced by the courts.  But since that agreement is outside the legal duty of support, it remains a contractual obligation even when incorporated into a divorce decree.  For that reason, they cannot be modified by the court.

But the Court of Appeals noted that elementary or secondary school tuition is treated differently, because it may fall within the parent’s duty to support the child.  Therefore, unlike the case of college tuition, an agreement to pay these expenses, if adopted into a divorce decree, merges into the judgment and loses its contractual nature.  For that reason, the obligation is subject to subsequent modification by the court.

Therefore, the Court of Appeals held that the lower court did possess authority to modify the tuition obligation, and had erred in dismissing the issue out of hand.  For that reason, the Court of Appeals reversed that portion of the lower court’s order and remanded that portion of the case to determine whether a modification was warranted under the circumstances.

After addressing a number of other issues in the case, the appeals court sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.

No. E2014-00063-COA-R3-CV  (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 1, 2017).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Child Support Modification in Tennessee | How to Modify Child Support.

See also Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring actual examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases available on Amazon.com.