Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee

Re: father's right 's

You have not mentioned if the Grandparents have legal custody and if so how they got it. My strong suggestion is that he hire an attorney and get his children back if he is able to care for them. He will want to talk to the lawyer about the different standards of proof a natural parent has to prove to win custody against a non-parent in the first instance versus a the standard of proof a parent has to put on after he has lost custody in a contested hearing or by his previous consent. Refer the lawyer to the Supreme Court case of Blair v. Badenhope, 77 S.W.3d 137 (Tenn. 2002). As you will see from that case, it is probably in your son's best interest to "get all his ducks in a row" before initiating the first contested custody hearing, because he has certain constitutional rights to custody of his child ("The Tennessee constitution protects the fundamental right of natural parents to have the care and custody of their children; the constitution requires that courts deciding initial custody disputes give natural parents a presumption of "superior parental rights" regarding the custody of their children"). But according to the supreme court, if he is found to be unfit (or words to that effect) then he does not get that constitutional protection at a later hearing to modify custody ("The Tennessee constitution does not again entitle a natural parent to assert his or her superior parental rights to modify a valid custody order after the parent was afforded the opportunity to assert such rights in the initial custody proceeding, even if no court had previously found the natural parent to be unfit; the parent's voluntary transfer of custody to a non-parent, with knowledge of the consequences of that transfer, effectively operates as a waiver of such fundamental parental rights"). His lawyer will need to discuss with him what he would need to show in opposition to a claim that he is unfit, and as well as the timing of the custody battle. Please do not rely on this post as legal advice, as it is not. My only advice is to hire a local attorney familiar with these types of cases and discuss how to proceed. Best wishes.