Johnson v. Johnson

165 S.W.3d 640, 2004 Tenn. App. LEXIS 733, 2004 WL 2533762
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedNovember 9, 2004
DocketE2003-01962-COA-R3-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 165 S.W.3d 640 (Johnson v. Johnson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Johnson v. Johnson, 165 S.W.3d 640, 2004 Tenn. App. LEXIS 733, 2004 WL 2533762 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

*642 OPINION

D. MICHAEL SWINEY, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court,

in which HERSCHEL P. FRANKS, P.J., and SHARON G. LEE, J., joined.

Brent G. Johnson (“Father”) and Kimberly S. Johnson (“Mother”) were married with their only child, a daughter, being born in October of 2000. The child was born with a rare metabolic disorder resulting in developmental delays, among other things. The parties separated shortly after their daughter was born. Mother then moved to West Virginia with the parties’ daughter. Father filed for divorce and Mother counterclaimed also seeking a divorce. Both parties sought to be designated as the primary residential parent of their young daughter. At a hearing to determine temporary custody, the parties reached an agreement whereby Mother would return to Tennessee within three months and Mother would be designated as the primary residential parent pending the trial. The Trial Court entered an order setting forth this accord and establishing Father’s visitation schedule pending Mother’s return. Mother reneged on her agreement, refused to return to Tennessee, and then set about to systematically and intentionally prevent Father from having any meaningful co-parenting time. The Trial Court later entered a final judgment designating Mother as the primary residential parent, but requiring Mother to return with the child to Tennessee and to stop interfering with Father’s co-parenting time. Mother appeals claiming the Trial Court was without authority to order her to return to Tennessee. The Trial Court’s order designating Mother as the primary residential parent is affirmed if Mother voluntarily returns to Tennessee. If Mother chooses not to return, the Trial Court’s judgment designating Mother as the primary residential parent is vacated, and the Trial Court is instructed to determine which parent then should be designated as the primary residential parent consistent with the best interest of the minor child, with the understanding that should primary residential custody remain with Mother in West Virginia, Mother will continue to.do her best to prevent Father from having any meaningful relationship with his daughter.

Background

Mother and Father were married on May 28, 1995. The parties lived in Union County, Tennessee, when their daughter was born on October 23, 2000, but the parties separated two months later. The parties’ daughter was born with a rare metabolic disorder known as Galactosemia. The child has a variant form of Galactose-mia which is less severe, but which nevertheless has resulted in her exhibiting developmental delays in speech and motor skills, as well as social and emotional delays.

In February of 2001, Father filed a complaint in the Union County Chancery Court seeking a divorce from Mother. Father still lived in Union County when the complaint was filed, but Mother recently had moved to West Virginia and had taken the young child with her. Mother answered the complaint and filed a counterclaim asserting that she was entitled to a divorce. Father and Mother each sought to be designated the primary residential parent of their young daughter.

A hearing was held in May of 2001 and the Trial Court entered an Order in July memorializing its findings from that hearing. In relevant part, the Order provides as follows:

[I]t duly appeared to the Court that temporary custody of the parties’ minor child should be placed with the Mother, that the Father should have co-parenting time with the child under one of two arrangements that were presented to *643 counsel and the parties, with the hope that the parties could, after discussion, decide upon an arrangement for co-parenting, and absent an agreement, the Court would decree an arrangement. Whereupon, the parties discussed the options outlined by the Court and reached an accord concerning which of the options under which they would proceed, and it is therefore ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED as follows:
1. The Mother is hereby granted custody of the parties’ child ... pending the trial of this cause;
2. The Mother shall have a period of three months from the date of the hearing to make arrangements to obtain employment and resume her residence in Tennessee.

The Trial Court then established Father’s co-parenting time which the Trial Court noted would provide Father the opportunity to educate himself regarding treatment of the child’s medical condition. Upon Mother’s return to Tennessee, Father would begin exercising standard eo-parent-ing time.

Less than a month after the above Order was entered, Father filed a Petition for Contempt claiming that Mother was refusing to allow him co-parenting time in violation of the July 2001 Order. Six days after Father filed the Petition for Contempt and one day before the deadline agreed to by Mother for her return to Tennessee, Mother filed a motion asking the Trial Court to reconsider its previous Order requiring her to move back to Tennessee. According to Mother:

[At the May 16 hearing,] this Court instructed [Mother] to seek employment, temporary living arrangements, and child care arrangements in Tennessee. [Mother] has not been able to comply with this directive and does not have the economic ability to relocate.
Further, it is not in the best interest of the parties’ minor child to relocate from West Virginia back to Tennessee.

Mother also filed a response to the Petition for Contempt, generally denying that she engaged in any contemptuous behavior or that she interfered with Father’s co-parenting time. Father later filed another Petition for Contempt based on Mother’s failure to return to Tennessee within the time frame as agreed to by the parties and as previously ordered by the Trial Court.

A hearing was held on the various pending motions and the Trial Court entered an Order on March 12, 2002, setting forth its findings and conclusions. Due to the nature of some of the Trial Court’s findings, we will quote at length from this Order:

1. This case is the same situation as on May 16, 2001. The court has made a mistake in hearing this matter any further. The Order of May 16 is, in all respects, confirmed. (For the record, this matter gets down to what the Court faced then, that ninety-nine times out of a hundred if a Mother moves out of the State of Tennessee, the Court approves it, it being ordinarily to the best interest of the child, and in most cases it is.)
2. In this case we’ve had a terrible experience with visitation. There has been a concerted effort by Mother to stop and interfere with Father’s visitation. There has been no meaningful visitation, no meaningful co-parenting in this matter. There’s been no meaningful effort to comply with this Order of May 16, and had there been a meaningful visitation type situation, at least some co-parenting at a distance, this Court would have considered other alternatives. The Court would have considered that back in May. There’s a lot of good reasons why Mother should not have been back in Knoxville, should not have to be in Knoxville. But not only *644

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
165 S.W.3d 640, 2004 Tenn. App. LEXIS 733, 2004 WL 2533762, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/johnson-v-johnson-tennctapp-2004.