A case of custody must be re-tried after the trial judge limited evidence

Tennessee case summary on custody in divorce.

Custody battle needs to be retried after Judge limited evidence.

In re Remington G.

The child in this Maury County, Tennessee case was born a month after the mother married her partner, and the child took the spouse’s surname. The child’s birth certificate listed this stepmother as the father. The mother did not initially inform the biological father of the child’s arrival. He learned about the birth two months later and requested a DNA test. The results showed that he was 99.99% certain to be the father. He was a Texas resident and began to travel to Tennessee to visit the child. He claimed that about a year later, the mother had cut off contact. Two days later, he filed a petition establishing parentage and setting up a permanent parenting schedule. In 2020, the father filed a motion to establish parenting time. In this petition, the father alleged that his mother had told him she aborted her child when she was 10 weeks pregnant. This was later extended to allow overnight parenting time. The mother voluntarily dropped the termination action in 2021 and only the father’s request was before the court.

Since the case had already been heard, the trial judge limited the evidence to facts that occurred after the prior hearing.

Since the previous hearing was held, the trial judge limited the evidence to facts that occurred after the prior hearing. The evidence at trial showed that the child was on the autism spectrum, and required various therapies.

After the hearing, the trial judge ruled from the bench that the child would have the father’s surname. The father was determined to be the biological parent, and child support was established. The father also received $45,000 in attorney fees due to the “vindictive” nature of the mother’s opposition against his paternity. The mother appealed the decision to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

Both sides raised a number of questions on appeal, but only one was addressed by the appeals court, namely whether the trial court abused its discretion by limiting the evidence to those events that occurred after the first hearing.

The court concluded that the trial judge erred by excluding this evidence and that the case should be reversed and sent back to the trial court for that reason. At the prior hearing, however, the only question was whether or not the father would be allowed overnight visitation during the pending case. The parties disagreed about how to treat the child’s major health issues. The Court of Appeals ruled that this evidence was not covered at the initial hearing and that it was an error to exclude it at the final hearing.

The court also noted that the judge who presided over the original hearing retired during the appeal’s pending period. It was for these reasons that it ordered a new trial on remand.