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Home » Turner Law Offices Blog » Tennessee Gets a “D” in Child Custody Laws

Tennessee Gets a “D” in Child Custody Laws

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According to a recent national report, Tennessee barely skirts by with a passing grade when it comes to its legal policies concerning child custody.

A new National Parents Organization 2014 Shared Parenting Report Card was released in which it examined how well all 50 states’ legal systems handle child custody regulations.  Specifically, the report examined how well each state promotes shared parenting.

Rather than finding positive, or even neutral, results, the study came to find that many states discourage shared parenting, which enables “a system that fosters parental inequality.”

Tennessee, along with 22 other states, received an embarrassing “D” grade for its handling of joint custody cases.

The low grade is a product of three main factors: Tennessee only presumes joint custody is in the best interest of the child if the parents agree on it, temporary and final orders have no explicit provisions for shared parenting in the state’s statutes, and there is no text in Tennessee law encouraging shared parenting.

While Tennessee shirks its focus of joint custody, it does get positive marks for considering a “friendly parent” factor for determining the child’s best interest for custody, as well as recent changes strengthening the non-custodial parent’s rights to receive the child’s school and medical records as well as allowing them unimpeded phone and mail contact with their child.

Good news for Tennessee, but rather bleak news for America in its entirety: there wasn’t a single state that received an “A” in the report.

If you believe your custody arrangements are unfair, there’s no reason you should just accept what you’ve been given.  You have a right to raise your child, and that shouldn’t be taken from you.  Call us today to speak with a child custody attorney, your child deserves to see their parents.

Call 615-259-2660

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