Facts: Mother and Father are the divorced parents of three children. Father received 110 days of parenting time and was ordered to pay $970 per month in child support.

One year later, Mother petitioned that Father’s parenting time be supervised.

Father responded with a petition to modify the parenting plan and change custody. He argued that Mother’s conduct after the divorce showed her “bad character.”

• He alleged that Mother did not follow the parenting plan, citing one time when Father’s parenting time was delayed by “a few days” after one child was diagnosed with COVID-19 and another time when she delivered the children two hours late.
• He complained that Mother did not let the children keep the smartphones Father gave them in her house. Mother gave the children a flip phone to use in her home to communicate with Father. Father claimed this “deprived him of the ability to freely communicate with the children.”
• Father claimed Mother’s failure to tell him when she received substantial pay raises that could have affected his child-support obligation was evidence of her “dishonesty.”

Still, Father conceded that “it’s really hard to say anything bad about [Mother] as far as her parenting.”

Both parents testified that the children were doing well in and out of school. During interviews with the judge, each child said they knew both parents loved them, liked being at both parents’ homes, and made positive comments about their schools, friends, and extracurricular activities.

The trial court denied each parent’s petition to change the parenting plan after determining that no material change of circumstances had occurred. Even if a material change had occurred, the trial court observed that the best-interest analysis would not favor a change.

Father’s request to modify child support was granted. Considering the parents’ fluctuating incomes, the trial court calculated child support over five periods. However, the trial court concluded that the Child Support Guidelines require a minimum child support order of $100 per child. Thus, the trial court set Father’s child-support obligation for two of the five periods at $300.

Father appealed.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Parenting Plan. The threshold issue in any parenting plan modification is whether a material change in circumstances has occurred since the court adopted the current plan. A material change in circumstance may include, but is not limited to, failures to follow the parenting plan or circumstances that make the parenting plan no longer in the best interest of the child. The threshold to change the parenting schedule is lower, i.e., one must merely show that the existing arrangement is unworkable for the parties.

The Court affirmed the trial court’s decision to keep the parenting plan as is:

Father offered evidence that Mother failed to follow the parenting plan by exchanging the children late on two occasions and by failing to timely update her salary. And he demonstrated that he and Mother had disagreements about how to raise the children, such as their different opinions about phone usage….

The evidence does not preponderate against the trial court’s finding of no material change in circumstance. Father failed to demonstrate anything that affected the children’s well-being significantly enough to warrant a change in custody. The court found that the children were “generally well-adjusted.” They had stability under the current parenting plan. They were succeeding in their academics and extracurriculars. They love both parents and knew both parents loved them.

Because there was no material change in circumstance, the Court did not address Father’s argument that the trial court erred in its analysis of the children’s best interests.

Child support. Tennessee courts must make decisions regarding child support within the strictures of the Child Support Guidelines. The Guidelines create a rebuttable presumption of the proper award. The presumptive amount is calculated based on the parents’ combined gross income after allowable adjustments. Once a significant variance is found, the court must increase or decrease the support order as appropriate.

In most cases, the Guidelines require that all parents must contribute to the support of their children with “a minimum child support order of at least at least $100 per month.” This typically applies to people who are unemployed or unable to earn income. For two of the five periods in which it calculated Father’s obligation, the trial court found Father qualified for the “minimum” obligation but set it at $100 per child, i.e., $300 per month.

The Court disagreed with the trial court’s interpretation of the Guidelines provision:

Under the Guidelines, in most cases, “[i]t is the obligation of all parents to contribute to the support of their children with a minimum child support order of at least one hundred ($100) per month.” Applying the plain meaning of these words, we conclude that the minimum child support order is $100 per month, not per child. To interpret the regulation as a per child minimum impermissibly adds words to the regulation.

Because the increase of Father’s child-support obligation from the presumptive amount in the Guidelines resulted from a misunderstanding of the minimum child support order provision, we conclude there was error. While the [trial] court had discretion to deviate from the presumptive amount, there is no indication that the trial court intended to order a deviation here.

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Although the final order indicates that the court may have used child support worksheets to calculate Father’s obligation, the completed worksheets were not attached as exhibits to the order. Nor do they appear elsewhere in the appellate record. Under these circumstances, we deem it appropriate to vacate the child support awards…. We remand this matter to the trial court for entry of a new final order setting child support for these two periods. After making its calculations, the court should attach the completed child support worksheets as exhibits to the new order.

Because the trial court erred in its application of the Child Support Guidelines as to two periods of time, the Court vacated the award of child support as to those two periods and remanded that issue to the trial court for recalculation.

Source: Wisemueller v. Oliver (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Middle Section, March 28, 2025).

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