Facts: Father and Mother, the parents of four children, divorced after 16 years of marriage.

Mother and their two daughters testified about the emotional and physical abuse Father inflicted on the family. The trial court found that Father physically injured Mother, engaged in emotional abuse by damaging the home in fits of anger, broke furniture, installed a tracker on Mother’s car, and placed cameras in the house to monitor her activities, among other offenses.

Things came to a head when Father kidnapped and violently assaulted a man he falsely believed Mother was having an affair with.

Father was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to serve 17 years in prison for the felonies of aggravated kidnapping, especially aggravated kidnapping, and two counts of aggravated assault.

The trial court entered a parenting plan that awarded Father no parenting time. It prohibited Father from having any physical contact with the children, including no prison visits or videoconferences. Father was also banned from giving information about his children to other prisoners and encouraging other inmates to contact the children on his behalf.

The trial court also struck all the “Parent’s Bill of Rights” from the parenting plan because of “Father’s history of violent felonies.”

Father appealed.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court.

Every Tennessee parenting plan contains a boilerplate list of rights that every parent has. These include things like the right to:

• unimpeded telephone conversations with the child at least twice a week;
• send mail without interference from the other parent;
• receive notice and information about the child’s healthcare or education; and
• notice about the child’s extracurricular, athletic, or church activities.

Tennessee courts and lawyers refer to this list as the “Parent’s [or Parental] Bill of Rights.” The full list of rights is found at Tennessee Code Annotated § 36-6-101(a)(3)(B).

Subsection -101(a)(3)(A) says every order relating to child custody in a divorce must include these rights “[e]xcept when the court finds it not to be in the best interests of the affected child.”

The Court found no error in the trial court’s decisions:

The trial court concluded that the provisions limiting contact “are necessary for the protection of the parties’ minor children and . . . consistent with their best interests.” In light of the evidence in the record of [Father’s] abusive behavior and lack of concern for the financial, emotional, and physical safety of the children and [Mother], we discern no abuse of discretion in the court’s decision to include the [no-contact provision], ordering that [Father] shall have no physical contact or video calls or to give out his children’s contact information.

*     *     *     *     *

[I]n light of the evidence in the record of [Father’s] abusive behavior and lack of concern for the financial, emotional, and physical safety of the children and [Mother], we discern no abuse of discretion in the court’s decision to not grant [Father] the rights set forth in [the Parent’s Bill of Rights].

The Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment in its entirety.

Sekik v. Abdelnabi (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Eastern Section, November 18, 2020).

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