Mom Has Burden of Proof To Show Dad’s Move Unreasonable

Tennessee parent relocation law on burden of proof case summary.

Sonya Mae Stanley v. Colin Richard Stanley

The mother and father in this Davidson County, Tennessee, parental relocation case were married in California in 1998 and later moved to Oklahoma, where they had two children.  In 2005, they moved to Tennessee.  In 2008, they were divorced.  The mother was named the primary residential parent, but they split time with the two children equally.  In 2011, the father was named the primary residential parent, and awarded 255 days per year of parenting time.

In 2015, the father sent the mother a notice stating that he intended to move back to Oklahoma with the children.  The mother received the notice, but the father was under the mistaken belief that she was attempting to avoid receipt.  Therefore, he filed a petition with the court seeking permission to move.   His grounds for relocating to Oklahoma was to work on his family’s farm, which he hoped to inherit.

The mother filed an answer to the petition opposing the move.  She argued that his purpose was not reasonable, and that there had been misstatements in the notice letter.

Near the beginning of the trial, the trial judge had remarked that the burden of proof was on the father to establish a reasonable purpose for the move, since “the burden is always on the petitioner.”  The judge also remarked that if the case had followed the normal procedure, with the mother filing a petition in opposition, that the burden of proof would have been on her to establish that the move was unreasonable.

Applying this burden of proof, the trial court denied the father’s petition to move.  The father then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The appeals court began by turning to the Tennessee parental relocation statute, which governs moves out of state or more than 50 miles within the state.  Different tests apply depending on whether the children are spending substantially equal time with both parents.  In this case, the court focused on the portion of the statute governing parents who spend the greater amount of time.  They are allowed to relocate, even if the other parent objects, unless one of the specific grounds listed in the statute is met.  In this case, the relevant test was that relocation should be denied if the move does not have a reasonable purpose.

Normally, the parent objecting to the move files a petition to disallow the move.  If the objecting parent does not file such a petition, then the move is automatically allowed.  And the objecting parent in such a case has the burden of proof to show that the move’s purpose is unreasonable.

The Court of Appeals noted that in most cases, the party filing a petition bears the burden of proof, and even cited some parental relocation cases applying that rule.  However, those cases were decided prior to the enactment of the parental relocation statute.  It read the statute as defining the burden of proof based upon the statutory factors, and held that the party filing the petition did not automatically bear the burden of proof.  Therefore, it held that the lower court had improperly placed the burden of proof on the father.  It then cited a number of cases holding that a misapplied burden of proof was reversible error, and held that the rule applied in this case.

The appeals court also noted that the trial court had failed to consider some of the statutory factors relating to the best interests of the children.  Since it was remanding the case, it instructed the lower court to address these factors as well.

Because the lower court had misapplied the burden of proof and not addressed all of the relevant factors, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case.

No. M2015-01964-COA-R3-CV  (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 30, 2016).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Tennessee Parent Relocation Statute Law.

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.