Facts: Mother and Father divorced in Virginia. Their divorce decree incorporated an agreement providing that they would alternate parenting time with Child every three weeks. The agreement also provided that, when Child reached school age, Child would attend school where Father lived so long as Father remained in Virginia or Minnesota.
Mother moved to Tennessee on November 1, 2023. The Virginia divorce decree was entered on December 8, 2023, and Father moved to Minnesota eight days later.
After ten months in Tennessee, Mother filed a petition asking the Tennessee court to accept jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), modify the Virginia decree to designate her the primary residential parent, and hold Father in contempt for allegedly violating the FaceTime provisions (In the summer of 2024, Father refused Mother’s requests for FaceTime calls because Father believed the calls left Child agitated and wanting Mother. Mother believed Father was trying to create a barrier between her and Child.).
Father later filed paperwork in Minnesota, but the document attached to his motion was a request to register the Virginia decree, not a request to modify it. Father argued Tennessee should decline jurisdiction because Minnesota was the more appropriate forum, relying heavily on the school-enrollment provision, arguing that the parties contemplated and agreed that Minnesota would be Child’s home state when Child reached school age.
After an evidentiary hearing, the Tennessee court found that Virginia lost exclusive continuing jurisdiction because neither Child nor either parent still lived there and that Tennessee qualified as Child’s home state for the six months preceding Mother’s petition. The trial court concluded it had jurisdiction to modify the Virginia custody determination but declined to exercise jurisdiction because it found Tennessee was an inconvenient forum and Minnesota was more appropriate.
The forum-related evidence centered on the fact that Child received all his medical care in Tennessee. The trial court found that seven of the eight factors in TCA § 36-6-222(b) were neutral. It found only one factor favored Minnesota, the parties’ purported agreement about which state should assume jurisdiction. The trial court treated the school-enrollment provision as such an agreement. It dismissed Mother’s petition and ordered her to pay one-half of Father’s attorney fees incurred in defending against it.
Mother appealed.
On Appeal: The Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and attorney-fee award, finding that the trial court abused its discretion by declining to exercise jurisdiction under the inconvenient-forum statute.
The UCCJEA, codified at TCA § 36-6-201 et seq., governs jurisdiction between Tennessee and other states in child-custody proceedings. It establishes standards for initial custody jurisdiction, modification of another state’s custody determination, enforcement of foreign custody orders, and prevention of contradictory orders from different states.
TCA § 36-6-222(b) requires a Tennessee court to consider all relevant circumstances before determining that Tennessee is an inconvenient forum and another state is more appropriate. The statutory factors include the time Child has lived outside Tennessee, the distance between the courts, the parties’ financial circumstances, any agreement about which state should assume jurisdiction, the nature and location of the evidence, each court’s ability to resolve the dispute expeditiously, domestic violence, and each court’s familiarity with the case.
The Court held that the trial court applied the wrong legal standard when it treated the school-enrollment provision as an agreement selecting Minnesota as the forum for future custody litigation:
The trial court seems to have interpreted the parties’ agreement regarding where the child would attend school as some type of implicit agreement regarding jurisdiction for purposes of Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-6-222. This was not the correct legal standard. The statute requires consideration of “[a]ny agreement of the parties as to which state should assume jurisdiction.” There is no such agreement in this case.
After eliminating the inapplicable agreement factor, the Court independently reviewed the remaining factors. It found that Child’s additional time in Tennessee caused the residency factor to favor Tennessee slightly. The distance between the courts and the parties’ financial circumstances were neutral. The domestic-violence factor did not favor either state because the alleged conduct was unlikely to continue and the parents generally saw each other only during airport exchanges.
The nature and location of the evidence heavily favored Tennessee. Child’s severe eczema required numerous medical appointments in Tennessee, and Child had been hospitalized here. Mother had been trained to administer injections, Child’s treating physicians were in Tennessee, and Mother was unaware of Child ever seeing a doctor in Minnesota. The Court reasoned that the Tennessee medical proof would likely be important because the parties were already disputing Child’s condition following parenting time in Minnesota.
The ability to decide the dispute expeditiously and each court’s familiarity with the case also favored Tennessee. Mother had already filed a modification petition in Tennessee. The Tennessee court had found that it possessed modification jurisdiction, conducted an evidentiary hearing, heard several witnesses, and became familiar with the facts. No modification petition had been filed in Minnesota. Proceeding there would require the parties to start over.
The Minnesota court reached similar conclusions after the Tennessee dismissal. It registered the Virginia decree but stayed its proceedings pending the Tennessee appeal. It disagreed that Minnesota was the more appropriate forum and found that the medical evidence, procedural posture, and Tennessee court’s familiarity with the case favored Tennessee.
The Court of Appeals summarized its inconvenient-forum analysis:
In conclusion, the trial court erroneously gave outcome determinative weight to factor four, which we have found inapplicable. We find that four of the seven remaining factors weigh in favor of Tennessee. Consequently, the trial court abused its discretion in declining to exercise its jurisdiction on the basis that Tennessee is an inconvenient forum pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-6-222.
Because the Court reversed the trial court’s decision to grant Father’s motion to dismiss, it also reversed the trial court’s attorney-fee award to Father. The case was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.
K.O.’s Comment: A sentence about where a child will attend school is not a sentence choosing where the parents will litigate future custody disputes. Residence, school enrollment, choice of law, and forum selection are different concepts. Lawyers drafting interstate parenting agreements should say precisely what they mean, while recognizing that parties cannot create subject-matter jurisdiction by contract.
Even if there had been an express agreement selecting a forum, that would not control the analysis. TCA § 36-6-222(b) makes such an agreement only one of several factors to consider. The UCCJEA still requires the court to examine the evidence, the litigation’s procedural history, the courts’ relative familiarity with the dispute, domestic violence, the parties’ financial circumstances, and the other relevant factors.
Source: Codino v. Codino (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Western Section, July 22, 2026).
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