Tag Archives: ZZ: Barker v. Chandler

Leonard Link: “Custody of the children is shared, with the birth parents having various designations as primary residential parent, the children going back and forth at various times and being separated at various times. The current dispute reaches the court of appeals because of the insistence by Gibson County Chancellor George Ellis on including and enforcing a ‘paramour provision’ in the court’s order governing custody and visitation, as part of the latest round of revisions in the parenting plan. This provision says that when a child is in residence, an unmarried partner of the parent may not be there overnight. … Rather than remand for further consideration by the trial court, the court of appeals reversed outright the trial court’s ‘finding’ that a paramour provision was in the best interest of the children, and ordered that costs of the appeal be awarded to Angel.”

ACLU: “A three-judge panel of the Tennessee Court of Appeals has unanimously ruled today that a trial court judge was wrong to impose a ‘paramour provision’ barring a mother’s lesbian partner of more than 10 years from being in the home during the mother’s overnight visits with her children.”