Dad’s sentence reduced in Contempt Case
Tennessee child custody case summary on grandparent visitation in divorce and family law.
Dad gets sentence reduced in contempt case arising from grandparent visitation.
Justin Zachery Conners v. Kelly Suzanne Hahn
The parents in this Williamson County, Tennessee, grandparent visitation case were divorced in 2017. Justin Zachery Conners v. Kelly Suzanne Hahn
The parents in this Williamson County, Tennessee grandparent visitation case divorced in 2017. Three months later the mother was killed by an accident. In 2019, the maternal grandmothers filed a request for grandparent visitation. This was granted in 2020. Visitation was granted on Mother’s Day, the closest weekend to the mother’s birthdate, the weekend before Thanksgiving and up to 10 days in July. They were also given one FaceTime call per week, and information on extracurricular activities.
Various conflicts and allegations followed, resulting in the grandparents filing a petition for criminal contempt. The father did not appear at several hearings. The father finally appeared, but the order stated incorrectly that he faced civil contempt. The father replied, incorrectly, he thought that he had chosen the dates. The father responded that the child was taking tennis lessons that day. The grandparents went to court to get an order setting dates, but the dad refused. The father claimed that the child was taking a swimming class. Ultimately, the visitation didn’t take place.
There was also evidence that the father hadn’t notified the grandparents of various extracurricular events, and of missed FaceTime calls.
Ultimately, the trial court found the father guilty of 23 counts of contempt. The court found that the grandparents were credible, while the father was a liar and had a bad temper. The father appealed the case to the Tennessee Court of Appeals and bond was set to $30,000 pending the appeal. The court then addressed the father’s argument that the trial judge had used the incorrect standard to find willfulness. The father argued, in particular, that the trial court did not consider his intent. But the appeals court looked at the lower court’s order, including the cases that it had cited, and found that there was no evidence of misunderstanding.
The father also argued that some of the terms of the order were not clear and specific. The appeals court dismissed a few counts. The appeals court dismissed the counts relating to summer visitation that conflicted with tennis lessons.
The appeals court pointed out that “scheduling of a new regularly scheduled activity during summer visitation may be obnoxious does not render it a criminally contemptuous violation.”
The father’s arguments were less availing when it came to the Thanksgiving visitation. The father argued that his real concern was transportation after the swimming lesson, but the appeals court found that the order did not give the father grounds to approve the transportation plans.
Ultimately, the Court of Appeals reversed twelve of the counts of contempt, leaving eleven intact. The Court of Appeals then remanded this case to the district court for a resentencing on these eleven counts.
