Facts: Mother and Father divorced in 2014. Their 2015 parenting plan designated Mother as the primary residential parent and gave Father 125 days of parenting time, primarily every other weekend and every Tuesday overnight. Mother had final decision-making authority.

Father stopped exercising parenting time in May 2020 after a dispute over his requiring the six-year-old Child to perform push-ups as punishment. Mother claimed the parties agreed to suspend parenting time during an investigation by the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Father claimed Mother interfered with his parenting time.

Father had no parenting time with Child for almost three years.

Father’s telephone records showed Mother called him several times after the push-up incident, while Father did not call Mother until January 2023. Father introduced emails in which he purportedly requested parenting time, but he sent them to an email address Mother had never used. Evidence showed that the address did not exist.

In December 2022, Father petitioned to modify the parenting plan, requesting equal parenting time on alternating weeks. Mother requested a graduated schedule and reunification counseling.

The parties agreed to participate in reunification counseling with a court-appointed counselor. The reunification initially went well. Child enjoyed the early visits with Father and expressed interest in spending more time with him.

Over time, however, the counselor observed that Child became guarded and felt caught between his parents. The counselor also observed that Father sometimes became defensive, focused on obtaining more parenting time, and struggled to empathize with Child.

The relationship deteriorated further after Father missed scheduled visits. During one counseling session, Father responded defensively when Child expressed sadness over a missed visit. The counselor believed Father was more interested in explaining why the missed visit was not his fault than in acknowledging Child’s feelings.

In December 2023, Child alleged that Father grabbed him by the collar and pushed him against a wall during an argument. Father denied grabbing Child by the collar but acknowledged turning Child by the shoulders.

The counselor recommended that Father and Child continue therapy. He also recommended that Father’s parenting time remain supervised until Child felt safe, followed by incremental increases from daytime visits to overnight visits.

Child testified in chambers. He said he previously enjoyed time with Father but became frightened by Father’s approach to discipline. Child preferred to see Father every other weekend. He did not want an alternating-week schedule, although he said he would accept it if required.

During Child’s testimony, the trial court repeatedly encouraged Child to consider Father’s desire for more parenting time. The trial court also minimized the significance of Father’s almost-three-year absence and Child’s concerns about Father’s discipline.

The trial court found a material change in circumstances and modified the parenting plan. Mother received the first and third weeks of each month, while Father received the second and fourth weeks. Because some months have a fifth week, Mother received approximately three additional weeks each year.

The trial court also awarded joint decision-making authority. The parents had to discuss major decisions in good faith, even though the trial court expressly found they could not communicate effectively.

Mother appealed.

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

In Tennessee, parenting decisions must focus on the best interest of the child, not fairness to either parent. Tennessee’s directive to maximize each parent’s participation does not create a preference for equal parenting time. Maximum participation is required only to the extent it is consistent with the statutory best-interest factors, the child’s need for stability, and the child’s other circumstances.

An alternating-week arrangement ordinarily requires parents who can communicate and cooperate. The trial court expressly found that these parents could not communicate, yet it ordered a schedule that required frequent transitions and joint decision-making.

The Court held that the trial court’s findings did not support its parenting plan:

The parents’ inability to communicate is a serious impediment to the type of cooperation required to successfully navigate a week-on, week-off parenting schedule. Awarding the parents essentially joint custody despite their obvious inability to cooperate does not seem to be in furtherance of the child’s best interest.

The appellate court compared the case to Burden v. Burden, 250 S.W.3d 899 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2007), perm. app. denied (Tenn. 2008), where a trial court retained an alternating-week schedule despite an unequal parent-child relationship, evidence favoring the primary caregiver, and a court-appointed expert’s contrary recommendation. The Burden Court reversed because the trial court placed the father’s interests above the child’s welfare and selectively credited the expert proof.

The same problem occurred here.

A trial court is not bound by expert testimony. But when it accepts some parts of an expert’s testimony and rejects others, it must have a valid evidentiary basis for doing so.

The trial court relied on the counselor’s early observations that reunification was progressing well. It gave little weight to his later observations about Child’s fear, Father’s defensiveness, Father’s lack of empathy, and the need for gradual increases in parenting time.

The trial court never found that the counselor lacked credibility or expertise. Nor did it identify contrary evidence supporting its inconsistent treatment of his testimony.

The Court of Appeals explained:

Respectfully, the trial court appears to have credited [the counselor’s] testimony only as far as it benefitted Father and aligned with his goal of increased parenting time and discredited the rest, notwithstanding the weight of evidence.

The trial court’s treatment of Child’s testimony presented a similar problem.

Because Child was younger than 12, Tennessee law did not require the trial court to consider his preference. But the court could hear his preference, and it did. Once Child testified, the court could assign appropriate weight to his testimony, but it still had to consider what his reasons revealed about his welfare.

Child was not asking to eliminate Father’s parenting time. He preferred every other weekend because Father’s physical approach to discipline frightened him.

Instead of focusing on Child’s reasons, the trial court repeatedly redirected Child toward Father’s feelings. The Court of Appeals observed:

On the one hand, the child is being told to shield Father’s feelings, while being told to suppress his own on the other. And it does not seem particularly child-focused to not only equate a child’s words with a parent’s physical aggression, but to also call the child’s expression of discomfort a “threat” against the parent.

The Court of Appeals also rejected the trial court’s view that the reason for Father’s lengthy absence was unimportant.

Father’s telephone records showed that Mother called him several times after the 2020 incident and that Father made no calls to Mother until January 2023. His purported emails seeking parenting time were sent to an address Mother had never used.

The evidence preponderated against Father’s account:

Father made no serious efforts to contact Mother at any point during the almost three years he was not exercising any parenting time. We also find it difficult to imagine how voluntarily removing himself from the child’s life would fail to qualify as neglect, especially in light of the child’s young age.

Father’s absence mattered because it affected his relationship with Child, his past performance of parenting responsibilities, Child’s need for stability, and the wisdom of suddenly imposing an alternating-week schedule.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court that some statutory factors were neutral. Both parents could provide Child’s necessities, their employment schedules accommodated parenting, and the evidence did not preponderate against the finding that statutory abuse was not proven.

Other factors clearly favored Mother. She had been Child’s primary caregiver and source of continuity. Child had a stronger and more stable relationship with Mother. Mother also fostered Child’s relationships with his siblings, school, activities, and Father’s extended family.

The Court disagreed with the trial court’s finding that several other factors were equal.

Father’s almost-three-year nonperformance of parenting responsibilities meant the factor concerning the parents’ past and future performance favored Mother. The factors concerning emotional ties, Child’s emotional and developmental needs, and the parents’ emotional fitness also favored Mother.

The Court stressed that these findings did not mean Father was unfit. They meant the evidence did not support an essentially equal parenting schedule.

Everyone agreed that Father and Child should have a meaningful relationship. The error was immediately imposing substantially equal parenting time and joint decision-making when the evidence supported gradual reunification and showed that the parents lacked the cooperation necessary for that arrangement.

The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and temporarily reinstated the 2015 parenting plan. On remand, the trial court may consider new evidence so the revised parenting plan reflects the family’s current circumstances.

K.O.’s Comment: Tennessee law does not presume that equal parenting time is best. Equal time must work for this child and these parents. When a trial court finds that the parents cannot communicate, an alternating-week schedule with joint decision-making requires considerable explanation because the court’s findings undermine the cooperation on which the plan depends. Equal parenting time cannot rest on a generalized belief that children should spend substantial time with both parents when the evidence concerning the particular child supports a different result.

Also, plead TCA § 36-6-406 when seeking a limitation based on abandonment, neglect, or substantial nonperformance of parenting responsibilities. Mother thoroughly litigated Father’s absence here, but her failure to identify the statute in her pleadings allowed the Court of Appeals to resolve the case through the broader best-interest analysis without deciding whether the statute independently required a limitation.

Source: Coleman v. Coleman (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Western Section, August 17, 2026). 

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