2020 Tennessee Code
Title 36 - Domestic Relations
Chapter 7 - Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act
Part 1 - General Provisions
§ 36-7-102. Chapter Definitions

In this chapter:

1. “Adult” means an individual who has attained eighteen (18) years of age or is an emancipated minor;
2. “Caretaking authority” means the right to live with and care for a child on a day-to-day basis. “Caretaking authority” includes physical custody, parenting time, right to access, and visitation;
3. “Child” means:
   1. An unemancipated individual who has not attained eighteen (18) years of age; or
   2. An adult son or daughter by birth or adoption, or under law of this state other than this chapter, who is the subject of a court order concerning custodial responsibility;
4. “Court” means a tribunal, including an administrative agency, authorized under law of this state other than this chapter to make, enforce, or modify a decision regarding custodial responsibility;
5. “Custodial responsibility” includes all powers and duties relating to caretaking authority and decision-making authority for a child. “Custodial responsibility” includes physical custody, legal custody, parenting time, right to access, visitation, and authority to grant limited contact with a child;
6. 1. “Decision-making authority” means the power to make important decisions regarding a child, including decisions regarding the child's education, religious training, health care, extracurricular activities, and travel;
   2. “Decision-making authority” does not include the power to make decisions that necessarily accompany a grant of caretaking authority;
7. “Deploying parent” means a service member who is deployed or has been notified of impending deployment and is:
   1. A parent of a child under law of this state other than this chapter; or
   2. An individual who has custodial responsibility for a child under law of this state other than this chapter;
8. “Deployment” means the movement or mobilization of a service member for more than thirty (30) days pursuant to uniformed service orders that:
   1. Are designated as unaccompanied;
   2. Do not authorize dependent travel; or
   3. Otherwise do not permit the movement of family members to the location to which the service member is deployed;
9. “Family member” means a sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin, stepparent, or grandparent of a child or an individual recognized to be in a familial relationship with a child under law of this state other than this chapter;
10. “Limited contact” means the authority of a nonparent to visit a child for a limited time. “Limited contact” includes authority to take the child to a place other than the residence of the child;
11. “Nonparent” means an individual other than a deploying parent or other parent;
12. “Other parent” means an individual who, in common with a deploying parent, is:
    1. A parent of a child under law of this state other than this chapter; or
    2. An individual who has custodial responsibility for a child under law of this state other than this chapter;
13. “Record” means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable form;
14. “Return from deployment” means the conclusion of a service member's deployment as specified in uniformed service orders;
15. “Service member” means a member of a uniformed service;
16. “Sign” means with present intent to authenticate or adopt a record:
    1. To execute or adopt a tangible symbol; or
    2. To attach to or logically associate with the record an electronic symbol, sound, or process;
17. “State” means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; and
18. “Uniformed service” means:
    1. Active and reserve components of the army, navy, air force, marine corps, or coast guard of the United States;
    2. The United States merchant marine;
    3. The commissioned corps of the United States public health service;
    4. The commissioned corps of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration of the United States; or
    5. The national guard of a state.