Hodge v. Craig
| Decision Date | 01 October 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. M2009–00930–SC–R11–CV.,M2009–00930–SC–R11–CV. |
| Citation | 382 S.W.3d 325 |
| Parties | Tina Marie HODGE v. Chadwick CRAIG. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
J. Russell Parkes, Wesley Mack Bryant, and Charles M. Molder, Columbia, Tennessee, for the appellant, Chadwick Craig.
L. Samuel Patterson, Jr., Columbia, Tennessee, for the appellee, Tina Marie Hodge.
This appeal requires the Court to determine whether current Tennessee law permits the former husband of a child's mother to pursue a claim against his former spouse for intentional or negligent misrepresentation regarding the identity of the child's biological father. Following the dissolution of their nine-year marriage, the former husband of the child's mother discovered that he was not the child's biological father. He filed suit against the child's mother in the Chancery Court for Maury County, alleging that she had intentionally misled him into believing that he was the child's biological father. Following a bench trial, the trial court found that the mother's former husband had proved that his former wife had intentionally misrepresented the parentage of the child and awarded him $134,877.90 in compensatory damages for the child support, medical expenses, and insurance premiums he had paid following the divorce, emotional distress, and attorney's fees. The child's mother appealed. Even though the Court of Appeals determined that the evidence supported the trial court's finding that the child's mother had intentionally misrepresented the identity of the child's biological father, it (1) reversed the damage award based on the post-divorce payments for child support, medical expenses, and insurance expenses on the ground that these damages amounted to a prohibited retroactive modification of a child support order, (2) reversed the damage award for emotional distress, and (3) reversed the award for attorney's fees. Hodge v. Craig, No. M2009–00930–COA–R3–CV, 2010 WL 4024990, at *12 (Tenn.Ct.App. Oct. 13, 2010). The former husband filed an application for permission to appeal arguing that Tennessee should permit recovery in cases of this sort for intentional or negligent misrepresentation of a child's paternity. We have determined that the existing common-law action for intentional misrepresentation encompasses the claims made in this case by the former husband and that the trial court's damage award based on the former husband's post-divorce payments for child support, medical expenses, and insurance premiums is not an improper retroactive modification of the former husband's child support obligation.
Chadwick Craig and Tina Marie Hodge met in a Future Farmers of America class at Mt. Pleasant High School. They were both sixteen years old and in the eleventh grade. Despite her youth, Ms. Hodge had already given birth to a daughter who was almost one year old when Ms. Hodge met Mr. Craig. Mr. Craig and Ms. Hodge dated on and off through the remainder of high school, although Ms. Hodge later characterized their relationship as “more on than ... off.” They were sexually intimate in this relationship.
Ms. Hodge broke up with Mr. Craig for several weeks during early October 1991. During this hiatus, Ms. Hodge had sexual relations with Joey Hay. At one point Ms. Hodge believed that she was pregnant with Mr. Hay's child. However, after a negative pregnancy test, she told Mr. Hay that she was not pregnant. Ms. Hodge returned to Mr. Craig following her liaison with Mr. Hay, but she never told Mr. Craig that she had been intimate with Mr. Hay. Accordingly, by her own admission, Ms. Hodge had sexual relations with both Mr. Hay and Mr. Craig during the period when her son was conceived.
In early November 1991, Ms. Hodge told Mr. Craig that she believed she was pregnant. Mr. Craig suggested a pregnancy test and accompanied Ms. Hodge to her physician's office when the test was performed. After Ms. Hodge informed him that the test confirmed that she was pregnant, Mr. Craig, seeking reassurance, asked Ms. Hodge if she was sure that he was the child's father. Ms. Hodge responded that she was sure that he was the child's father and that the child could be no one else's. Based on these assurances, Mr. Craig proposed marriage to Ms. Hodge, and they were married on December 20, 1991. Ms. Hodge gave birth to a son named Kyle Chandler Craig on June 11, 1992.
Mr. Craig raised Kyle believing him to be his biological son. He also adopted Ms. Hodge's daughter. In 1999, Mr. Craig had a vasectomy after he and Ms. Hodge decided that they did not desire more children. In October 2000, Mr. Craig took a job as an over-the-road truck driver to better support his family. Several weeks later, Ms. Hodge informed him that she was having an adulterous affair with Nicky Hodge who, at that time, was married to another woman.
Ms. Hodge and Mr. Craig separated. In November 2000, Ms. Hodge filed a complaint in the Chancery Court for Maury County seeking a divorce on the ground of irreconcilable differences. The trial court entered a final divorce decree in February 2001 that incorporated the parties' marital dissolution agreement. The agreement provided that Mr. Craig and Ms. Hodge would have joint custody of the children and that Ms. Hodge would be the primary residential parent. Mr. Craig received visitation and was ordered to pay Ms. Hodge $250 per week in child support for both children and to provide medical insurance for the children.
In January 2002, Ms. Hodge married Mr. Hodge. Eleven months later, Mr. Craig met Autumn West, who lived in Bowman, Georgia with her daughter by a previous marriage. Mr. Craig and Ms. West became engaged in March 2003. Mr. Craig moved to Georgia in April or May 2003, and he and Ms. West were married in June 2003. In October 2003, Mr. Craig requested the trial court to decrease the amount of his child support because the move to Georgia had required him to take a lower paying job. Following a hearing in December 2003, the trial court entered an order in July 2004, reducing Mr. Craig's child support to $180 per week and relieving him of the responsibility to provide medical insurance for the children.
Mr. Craig faithfully paid his child support and regularly traveled to Tennessee to visit Kyle and his adopted daughter. Eventually, Kyle expressed a desire to live with Mr. Craig and his new family. Mr. Craig moved back to Maury County rather than uproot Kyle, and in January 2005, the trial court approved a modified parenting plan designating Mr. Craig as Kyle's primary residential parent and Ms. Hodge as her daughter's primary residential parent. Following the entry of this order, Ms. Hodge began paying child support to Mr. Craig.
Mr. Craig and his new wife discussed having another child and on two occasions talked with a physician about reversing his 1999 vasectomy. After considering the cost of the procedure, the likelihood that the procedure would be unsuccessful, and the fact that Mr. Craig already had a son to carry on the family name, they decided not to have the procedure.
At some point during 2006 or 2007, Mr. Craig began to question whether he was Kyle's biological father. His doubts sprang from his belief that Kyle did not resemble him, comments made by others in the community, and an off-hand comment made by Kyle following a visitation with Ms. Hodge. In February 2007, Mr. Craig surreptitiously obtained a DNA sample from Kyle while he was sleeping and submitted the sample for testing. The test confirmed that Mr. Craig was not Kyle's biological father.
Mr. Craig was unsure about the course of action to take after receiving the news that he was not Kyle's biological father. Initially, he decided to tell no one about the test and to continue to treat Kyle as his child. However, in March 2007, after Kyle expressed a desire to live with Ms. Hodge, Mr. Craig decided to tell Ms. Hodge and Kyle about the test.
When Mr. Craig told Ms. Hodge about the test results, she told him that he was “crazy” and insisted on another test. Mr. Craig suggested that it would be helpful to consult a counselor about how best to break the news to Kyle. However, Ms. Hodge decided that she should be the one to tell Kyle that Mr. Craig was not his biological father. Accordingly, Ms. Hodge told Kyle that Mr. Craig was not his biological father.
Kyle was understandably “shocked and confused and very upset” after Ms. Hodge informed him that Mr. Craig was not his biological father. Even though Mr. Craig expressed his desire to continue their relationship as before, Kyle told him that “it's not the same now” and that he wanted to live with Ms. Hodge. Later, Kyle said he would be willing to visit Mr. Craig but that he did not want to have anything to do with Mr. Craig's new wife. As a result, Mr. Craig and Kyle have had little interaction since Kyle learned that Mr. Craig was not his biological father.
In April 2007, Ms. Hodge filed a pro se petition requesting custody of Kyle, a court-ordered blood test, and a modification of the order requiring her to pay child support. Ms. Hodge represented herself at the June 29, 2007 hearing on her motion. After the parties acknowledged in open court that Mr. Craig was not Kyle's biological father, the trial court entered an order on July 16, 2007, that, among other things, (1) returned Kyle to Ms. Hodge's custody, (2) terminated Ms. Hodge's child support obligation, and (3) reserved all other matters “including the filing of a [c]ounter [c]laim for a separate and distinct cause of action which may be filed on behalf of Chadwick Bradley Craig against Tina Marie Hodge.”
In February 2008, Mr. Craig filed a “counter-petition” alleging that Ms. Hodge told him that she was sure that the baby [Kyle] was his and that “the baby could be no one else's” when sh...
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