Husband’s Contempt Conviction Upheld, Case Sent Back for Re-sentencing
- At January 31, 2025
- By Kathryn Owen
- In Child Custody, Divorce
0
Tennessee case summary on criminal contempt in divorce.

Husband guilty of contempt, but wins another look at sentence
Lisa Ann Welch v. William Mark Welch
The wife in this Shelby County, Tennessee, case was concerned that the husband was using drugs and alcohol around the children, so she petitioned the court for an injunction requiring him to submit to testing. At the hearing, the husband admitted drinking, but denied that it was to an excess.
Initial test results revealed excessive alcohol and opioid use. He was ordered to take additional tests, including blowing into a breathalyzer in front of his cell phone camera. These tests took place randomly three times per day and immediately before in-person contact with his children.
The wife was named primary residential parent and the husband was granted unsupervised visitation, conditioned on passing the breathalyzer test.
After the husband failed to comply fully with the testing, the wife made a series of petitions for criminal contempt. The husband did not respond to these petitions.
After hearing all of the testimony, the trial court found the husband in contempt, based upon his failure to take 125 tests. He was sentenced to jail over fifteen consecutive weekends, and the court also ordered that he would not have in-person parenting time with the younger child until the sentence was complete. The husband appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The husband first argued that the trial court had not made sufficient factual findings. But the appeals court quickly dealt with this issue, noting that the findings were sufficient to show the husband’s compliance.
It then looked to the merits of the case, and recited the elements of the offense of contempt. The husband conceded that he had violated lawful orders, but argued that the orders were confusing and ambiguous. An order is vague or ambiguous if it is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation. While the court’s oral pronouncements might have been confusing, these were reduced to written orders, and a court speaks through its written orders. Those orders were held to be sufficiently clear.
On one point, the written order was “inartfully drafted”, but the appeals court nonetheless agreed that it was clear.
The husband argued that the evidence was insufficient to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt. But upon reviewing the evidence, the appeals court agreed with the lower court that it was sufficient to convict on most of the counts.
Because some of the counts were reversed, and because the appeals court modified the amount of the fine, it did determine that the husband should be re-sentenced. It therefore remanded the case for resentencing.
No. W2022-00227-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 30, 2024).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.
To learn more, see Child Custody Laws in Tennessee and our video, How is child custody determined in Tennessee?