Facts: Mother and Father are the unmarried parents of two children (“Children”) born in 2017 and 2019. After incidents of abuse and neglect, both Children were removed from Mother’s and Father’s custody in 2019 and placed with Mother’s sister and her wife.

Later that year, Mother and Father were arrested for robbing two banks. Mother served over three years in federal prison, and Father received an 11.6-year sentence.

During the parents’ incarceration, Children remained in the relatives’ care, where they had significant medical and developmental needs that the relatives managed. Mother had brief video contact with the younger Child while incarcerated, but all visitation ended by early 2022. Neither parent provided any financial support for the Children after 2019.

In late 2022, the relatives filed a petition to terminate the parental rights of Mother and Father. They alleged, among other things, that Mother and Father abandoned the Children by willfully failing to visit or support them in the period before the incarceration. The petition also alleged that the conditions leading to the Children’s removal persisted and that Father’s lengthy incarceration was an additional ground for abandonment.

The trial court found clear and convincing evidence of two grounds against Mother (abandonment by failure to visit/support and persistence of conditions) and three grounds against Father (the same two grounds plus abandonment by incarceration due to his 11.6-year sentence). The trial court also found that terminating both parents’ rights was in the Children’s best interest.

Mother and Father appealed.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s finding of abandonment by failure to visit or support but affirmed the termination of parental rights on the remaining grounds and the Children’s best interests.

In Tennessee, “abandonment” as a ground for terminating parental rights is defined by statute. Because Mother and Father were incarcerated when the petition was filed, the law required examining their conduct in the four months immediately preceding their incarceration. A change in the law in July 2024 shortened this period to three months for children under age four, but this case was filed in 2022.

Tennessee courts generally apply the law that was in effect at the time the petition was filed. Under the applicable law, the determinative period was the four months before Mother and Father were jailed on September 26, 2019. The Court noted that during this time, Mother and Father made no in-person visits or support payments for the older Child, and the younger Child was an infant who had not even been alive for the whole four-month period.

The trial court, however, mistakenly treated the relevant period for the younger Child as only three months, based on the newer law, and it only made findings covering roughly three months for the older Child as well. Because the trial court applied the wrong time frame and failed to consider the full four-month period required by the statute, the Court of Appeals concluded that this ground was not proven by clear and convincing evidence:

As this period relates to [Younger Child], the child was born on June 28, 2019. Thus, [Younger Child] was not alive for the requisite four-month period prior to Mother and Father’s incarceration. As a result, we reverse the trial court’s finding that Mother and Father abandoned [Younger Child] by their failure to visit or support [Younger Child] for four months prior to their incarceration.

Regarding [Older Child], the trial court … evaluated Mother and Father’s conduct between June 25, 2019 and September 25, 2019…. As a result, we reverse the ground of abandonment as it relates to [Older Child] as well due to the lack of sufficient findings for the entire determinative period.

With the abandonment-by-failure-to-visit/support ground reversed, the Court of Appeals examined the other grounds. It affirmed the trial court’s other grounds (persistent conditions and, as to Father, abandonment by incarceration). Finally, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s determination that terminating Mother’s and Father’s parental rights was in the Children’s best interest. The Children had lived nearly their entire lives with the relatives, who provided a safe, stable home and met all the Children’s medical and emotional needs. In contrast, Mother and Father had not maintained meaningful relationships with the Children and were unable to care for them. Because at least one ground for termination (specifically, two grounds for Mother and three for Father) was proven, and because the best-interest analysis strongly favored termination, the reversal of the one abandonment ground did not change the outcome. The termination of Mother’s and Father’s parental rights was affirmed.

K.O.’s Comment: Here, the trial court mistakenly applied a new law (the 2024 amendment that introduced a three-month period for younger children) to a petition that was filed well before that law took effect. Tennessee law generally does not apply new statutes retroactively in termination-of-parental-rights cases. Had the petition been filed after the 2024 change, the trial court’s approach would have been correct; however, because it wasn’t, that “shortcut” ended up backfiring and forced a reversal of that ground.

Tennessee courts generally presume that new laws apply only prospectively unless the legislature clearly indicates otherwise. In family law matters, this means a substantive change in the law (like redefining “abandonment,” altering custody criteria, or creating a new ground for termination) will usually not affect cases that arose before the change. A new statute will not be imposed on past conduct if it would create a new legal liability or take away a right that existed under the old law. Only if the legislature expressly says a law is retroactive, or if the change is purely procedural and doesn’t impair substantive rights, might a new law apply to pending cases. Here, the switch from a four-month to a three-month abandonment period is a substantive change in the grounds for termination, so it could only apply to petitions filed after it became law.

Source: In re Zae’Alei R., No. M2024-01312-COA-R3-PT (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 30, 2025).

If you find this helpful, please share it using the buttons below.