http://www.parentalrightsandjustice.com/upload/site/1/79/jackhe_motion_for_determination.pdf

[In summary, we made attempts to visit our daughter; we did not go to Bakers’ home
because they did not want us back any more and the police ordered us not to go back;
we did not know there was a 4 month limit set in the Tennessee statute; and we had
nowhere to visit our daughter. There was no willfulness in our failure to visit between January 28, 2001 and June 20, 2001.... Since we did not willfully abandon our daughter, we request the Supreme Court to reinstate our parental rights.]

[Once the facts establish the material change in our circumstances and our fitness
as parents, the “superior parental rights doctrine” should apply. As this Court has
ruled before:

In a contest between a parent and a non-parent, a parent cannot be
deprived of the custody of a child unless there has been a finding, after
notice required by due process, of substantial harm to the child. Only
then may a court engage in a general “best interest of the child”
evaluation in making a determination of custody.
In re Adoption of Female Child, 896 S.W.2d 546, 548 (Tenn. 1995).

In our case, the temporary nature of the custody arrangement hinged on the
temporary nature of the hardship we experienced in 1999. Since the condition and
reason for the 1999 temporary custody arrangement no longer exists and the change
of circumstances is clear, we, the biological parents of our daughter, ask the Supreme
Court to grant our April 9, 2001 petition to modify custody as a matter of law.]