Facts: Mother and Father divorced in 2018, and Mother became the primary residential parent of their two young daughters. Father moved out of the country the following year for his new wife’s career, while Mother remained in the United States with the children. A Colorado court’s parenting plan (entered before Mother and the children relocated to Tennessee) allowed Father to have weekly video-call visitation with the children. Father regularly exercised video calls with the children.

In May 2021, Father traveled to Tennessee to visit the children over several days.

In September 2021, Father made a work-related trip to the United States but did not see the children. Around that time, Father asked Mother to schedule visits during the child’s upcoming spring break in early 2022. Mother tentatively agreed to supervised visits, but no specific schedule was set. Shortly thereafter, Mother—now remarried to Stepfather—filed in Tennessee to terminate Father’s parental rights so Stepfather could adopt the children. Mother alleged grounds of abandonment by failure to visit, claiming Father engaged in only “token visitation.”

During the four months preceding the termination filing, Father had no in-person visits with the children because of the long distance. He did, however, participate in 16 of 17 scheduled video-call visits. Mother prevented one video call and, after deciding to pursue termination, stopped allowing any additional “bonus” video chats (such as extra calls on the children’s birthdays) that she had previously allowed. Father tried to maximize contact within the court-ordered virtual visitation framework, but Mother limited the calls to early-morning sessions before school, which effectively capped each call at roughly 30 minutes.

It was undisputed that the Colorado court granted Father a week of unsupervised in-person visitation in Tennessee, and Mother ignored that order.

In the termination and adoption trial, Mother acknowledged that Father had consistently made the weekly video calls and followed the visitation plan. However, Mother insisted those virtual visits were insufficient for a real parent-child relationship, describing Father as nothing more than “a face on a screen.” Mother and Stepfather also admitted they had discussed the pending adoption and even a planned move to Australia with the children, telling the children that their last names would change and they would no longer be related to Father.

The trial court found that Father’s efforts amounted to more than token visitation. It noted Father participated in all the video visits allowed (aside from those Mother prevented) and that the virtual time was meaningful, given the circumstances. The trial court also found that, to the extent Father’s in-person contact was lacking, Mother’s interference was a significant factor; it was not a willful choice by Father to avoid visiting. Because no statutory ground for termination was proven, the trial court denied Mother and Stepfather’s petition to terminate Father’s parental rights.

Mother and Stepfather appealed.

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

Tennessee law requires anyone seeking to terminate parental rights to prove at least one ground for termination by clear and convincing evidence and also prove that termination is in the child’s best interest.

One such ground is abandonment by failure to visit. Tennessee law defines “failure to visit” as a parent’s failure to visit or engage in more than token visitation during the four months immediately preceding the filing of the termination petition. “Token visitation” means visits that are so infrequent, short, or insubstantial that they merely establish minimal contact with the child. Courts examine the frequency, duration, and quality of visits, along with the circumstances, to determine whether visitation was token.

Additionally, if a parent proves that any failure to visit was not willful (for example, if the other parent interfered with or prevented visitation), then by law the failure to visit cannot be held against them as a ground for termination. A parent’s conduct is willful only when it’s a product of free choice, not forced by someone else’s actions.

Applying these principles here, the Court of Appeals concluded that Father’s consistent video-call visitation, given the geographic distance and Mother’s behavior, was more than merely token, and that any lack of in-person visits was not willful due to Mother’s interference:

There is no question that during the relevant period, Father exercised every video call with the children allowed by the agreed parenting plan … save for one call that was prevented by Mother. There was no evidence that Father had any aim for the calls other than building a relationship with the children, or that Father was distracted from this purpose or otherwise acted inappropriately during the calls. While there was testimony that the children struggled with having only video visitation with Father, there was also testimony that the children were excited to see Father and they were able to be silly together on the calls. Despite her reservations regarding the lack of in-person visitation, [the counselor] agreed that Father was able to establish a positive relationship with the children through the video visits. Thus, the record shows that the video calls were of both sufficient quantity and quality to be considered more than merely “perfunctory visitation” and to establish more than “minimal or insubstantial contact” with the children. As a whole, we cannot conclude that the evidence preponderates against the trial court’s finding that Father’s visits were more than token under the circumstances.

As we agree that there was no failure to visit, our review could stop here….

There is no question that Mother prevented Father from exercising the regularly scheduled video call on January 7, 2022. Mother also prevented Father from exercising court-ordered in-person visitation with the children in February 2022. And Mother admittedly began limiting Father’s video calls with the children to only once per week after [Mother and Stepfather] filed to terminate his rights, even though she had previously allowed additional calls for the children’s birthdays and other holidays. Beyond reducing the frequency of the visits, Mother also decided that the video calls would occur before the school day, thereby unilaterally instituting a thirty-minute time limit on the visits. So although we agree that Father initially made choices that prioritized his wife’s career and their mutual financial opportunities over his ability to visit with the children in person, Mother then made choices that actually prevented him from exercising additional visits and significantly interfered with his efforts to develop a closer connection with the children…. We therefore affirm the trial court’s ruling that the limited visitation exercised by Father during the relevant period was the result of Mother’s efforts, and thus, not willful.

*     *     *     *     *

Because [Mother and Stepfather] have failed to establish clear and convincing evidence that Father abandoned the children, we conclude that no ground exists to support terminating Father’s parental rights. And as no ground for termination was proven, we need not address whether the children’s best interests would support termination.

The Court affirmed the trial court’s denial of the petition to terminate Father’s parental rights. Father was not awarded his attorney’s fees because he only sought them for a frivolous appeal (TCA § 27-1-122) instead of the easier and more likely remedy afforded by TCA § 36-5-103(c).

K.O.’s Comment: Tennessee courts do not look kindly on a parent who thwarts court-ordered visitation and then claims the other parent failed to visit. In this case, Mother’s decision to block Father’s visits backfired spectacularly. It became a key reason the court refused to terminate Father’s rights. As the Court of Appeals noted, termination of parental rights isn’t meant to be a reward for one parent or a punishment for the other. It’s about the child’s best interests, not scoring points.

Source: Autumn L. v. James C. (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Middle Section, December 16, 2025).

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