Facts: Father and Mother divorced in Alabama when their child was around two years old. Father was given physical custody of the child, and Mother, who lived in Michigan, received a long-distance visitation schedule, including monthly visits in the child’s hometown, a week at Christmas, and two months in the summer.

The Alabama divorce decree required each parent to notify the other of any change in address or any relocation of the child. This relocation provision had an exception: if the move was within 60 miles or resulted in the child living closer to the other parent and did not involve moving to a different state, then the formal notice requirements would not apply. In all other cases, the parent was required to provide detailed advance notice of the move and the new address, especially if the child would be living in a different state.

About a year after the divorce, Mother discovered Father had moved with the child to Tennessee without informing her. She only learned Father’s and the child’s whereabouts through a private investigator.

Mother registered the Alabama decree in Tennessee and petitioned to enforce and modify the parenting plan. She alleged Father secretly relocated to Tennessee, withheld the child from her in-person visits, and even cut off FaceTime sessions and phone calls. Mother asked the Tennessee court to name her the primary residential parent and allow her to relocate the child to Michigan.

Father filed a counter-petition to reduce Mother’s summer parenting time, citing the child’s enrollment in an intensive therapy program as an “emergency” reason. Mother disagreed that this was an emergency, noting the parenting plan already required both parents to coordinate the child’s therapy across state lines.

When Mother arrived at the agreed public meeting place to pick up the child for her summer parenting time, Father and the child never showed up. Mother could not go find the child at Father’s home because Father still had not provided Mother with his address.

Mother filed a petition to hold Father in criminal contempt and to immediately return the child to her. She claimed Father willfully violated the divorce decree by failing to give her his current address. By the time of this filing, Father had moved at least two more times within Tennessee. Mother discovered one of Father’s prior addresses only by stumbling across an eviction case against him. It appeared Father was actively concealing his and the child’s whereabouts to prevent Mother from exercising parenting time.

Father’s response to the contempt petition admitted he had not given Mother his address, acknowledging he was “in violation of th[e] provision” of the divorce decree that required him to notify the other parent of any address change. He explained that he was “in the midst of a move” at the time, providing yet another new address.

After a hearing on the contempt petition, the trial court found Father guilty of criminal contempt for willfully failing to give Mother his current address as required. Father was fined $50 and sentenced to 10 days in jail, with the sentence suspended on the condition of his compliance with court orders during the ongoing custody case. The trial court also ordered Father to pay $2,500 toward Mother’s attorney’s fees incurred in prosecuting that count of contempt.

Father appealed, arguing the divorce decree’s relocation-notice provision was ambiguous.

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

In Tennessee, a person may be found in criminal contempt for willfully disobeying a clear and specific court order. Four elements must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt:

• the order violated must be lawful;
• the order’s requirements must be clear, definite, and unambiguous;
• the person actually violated the order; and
• the violation was willful.

An ambiguous or vague order, i.e., one that can be reasonably interpreted in more than one way, cannot support a contempt conviction because a person cannot be willfully in contempt of an order if its meaning is unclear. Any ambiguity in an order must be resolved in favor of the person facing the contempt charge.

The Court of Appeals concluded that the evidence supported Father’s contempt conviction and that the relocation-notice provision was enforceable against him as written:

Even assuming arguendo that Father is correct that the divorce decree’s notice requirement is ambiguous as applied to circumstances wherein Father’s relocation resulted in the child residing closer to Mother, the question of whether Father’s moves in Tennessee brought him closer to Mother presents a question of fact. The record on appeal contains no factual findings as to Father’s address following his eviction, whether Father completed the move to the address he claimed to be “in the midst of” moving to, or the relative locations of Father’s various residences. In its final order, the trial court considered whether Father had advised Mother of his current address before the proposed change or within 10 days of obtaining information about a new address, and it found Father had not. The proof in the record was that Father “did not provide and had not advised on his current address at the time of filing the contempt petition.”

The Court affirmed the trial court and awarded Mother her attorney’s fees on appeal.

K.O.’s Comment: It should go without saying, but if you’re obligated by a court order to share your address, share your address. Here, Father’s attempt to play hide-and-seek with his location was a terrible strategy. The relocation clause in the divorce decree was clear that moving the child to a different state triggered the notice requirement, no matter how close to Mother’s state line he might have been. Even if Father genuinely misunderstood the order, the proper response would have been to seek clarification from the court, not to decide the order didn’t apply to him. Assuming an order means what you want it to mean is a risky gamble, as Father learned here. He may still have some lessons to learn when the custody modification is tried.

Source: Georgopulos v. Ferrell (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Middle Section, November 5, 2025).

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