Conservatorship Case

In the recent case In Re: Conservatorship of Jack Wayne Turner, the Mother sought modification of a prior court order providing conservatorship of her disabled son to his Father and for modification of the order allowing her only supervised visitation.  After careful consideration of the case as a whole, the trial court ordered that the Mother increased visitation, but upheld the restriction that all visitation be supervised. The trial court too held that the Father had discretion to record any communications between the Mother and their son. The Mother appeals to the Tennessee Court of Appeals arguing the restrictions of the trial court were an unconstitutional restraint on her free speech and that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing her only eight hours of supervised visitation per month. The Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of the trial court finding that the “modern rule” allowed defamatory speech to be enjoined if it was determined that the statements were false and is allowable only if the injunction is narrowly tailored to prohibit that speech which was determined to be false. They found that the injunction of the trial court satisfied both restrictions. With regard to the issue of the Mother’s supervised visitation, the Tennessee Court of Appeal again upheld the trial court finding that the trial court acted in efforts to preserve the best interest of the parties disabled son by providing safeguards for him against the Mother’s negative actions. They further found that given the Mother’s history of disregarding the orders of the trial court, additional actions were warranted to ensure the court’s orders would be followed. This case is significant as it upholds the acts of the Tennessee Courts to protect those subject to conservatorships from potentially harmful acts of others, even if the means of doing so are highly restrictive. It too furthers the already well-established emphasis on the best interest of those subject to conservatorship actions.