Custody Jurisdiction for Family Who Moved Often

Tennessee child custody case summary on jurisdiction.

Samat Mitra v. Suneetha Irigreddy

The mother and father in this Shelby County, Tennessee, case were married in India in 2002.  They later moved to North Carolina on the father’s work visa, and they had a child who was born in 2007.  They traveled to India in 2008 when the father’s contract expired.  The mother and child stayed with the mother’s parents, and the father stayed with his parents.  In 2008, the father received a job in Canada and moved there.  The mother followed, but the child remained in India with maternal grandparents until 2009.

In 2010, the parties again moved to the United States, and the mother accepted a job in North Carolina.  The father searched for a job until finding one in Texas in 2010.  The marital relationship had deteriorated, and the father returned to North Carolina in 2011 to attempt to visit the child.  He waited outside the mother’s apartment with a gift, but did not make contact.

At some point, the mother moved to Memphis, and the father again showed up unannounced in 2012.  By this point, he had filed for divorce in Texas, but was able to visit the child.  The visit didn’t go well, and a few months later, the father sent an e-mail in which he said, “you can keep her.”

In 2013, the mother took the child to India to live with her parents, and she obtained a job in New Jersey.  She also started custody proceedings in India.  In 2015, she returned to the U.S. with the child, and the father filed a custody petition in Tennessee.

The trial court, Judge Mary L. Wagner, entered a temporary order naming the mother as the residential parent, but the mother objected to the court’s jurisdiction.  She pointed out that neither of the parents resided in Tennessee, and the child had not resided there since 2013.

After a two-day hearing the court named the mother the primary residential parent, with the father receiving 100 days of co-parenting time.  The mother was to maintain possession of the child’s passport, and the father was ordered to pay $935 per month child support.  The father appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, and both parties raised issues on appeal.

The court first addressed the mother’s claim that the court lacked jurisdiction.  The appeals court noted that when the initial petition was filed, the mother resided in Tennessee, although she soon moved to New Jersey.  The parties eventually consented to jurisdiction, but the mother made a later request to transfer the case.  The lower court had denied this motion on the grounds that it would decide when later issues arose.  The appeals court agreed with this approach.  It noted especially that the parties’ propensity to move for job opportunities meant that the jurisdictional facts might change before the issue arises again.

The mother also argued that the trial court erred in adopting the parenting plan.    She argued that the father received a disproportionate amount of time in the summer and days off of school.    The father, on the other hand, argued that the trial court should not have allowed the mother custody of the passport.

After reviewing the voluminous evidence, the appeals court agreed that the parenting plan adopted by the lower court was appropriate under the circumstances.

The father argued that the child support calculation was incorrect.  He argued that the mother’s income had been miscalculated, resulting in an erroneous award.  But since the lower court had based the ruling off the mother’s W-2 forms, the appeals court held that there was no error.

The appeals court also addressed issues of health insurance and child care.  The mother testified as to the amounts, and the appeals court noted that the lower court had accepted these figures.

After addressing attorney fees, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the lower court.

No. W2017-01423-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 29,  2019).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Child Custody Laws 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.