Volume 513 — South Western Reporter, Third Series

We granted this interlocutory appeal to address whether an employee may assert a private right of action against her employer under Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-2-107, referred to as the Tennessee Tip Statute, for the employer's failure to properly pay tips, gratuities, and service charges. The trial court granted the defendant employers' motion to dismiss the plaintiff employee's claim pursuant to section 50-2-107 for failure to state a claim, on the ground that there was no private right of action under the statute. In a divided opinion, the Court of Appeals reversed, based in part on a 1998 Court of Appeals decision recognizing a private cause of action under the Tip Statute. On appeal, we find that the 1998 Court of Appeals decision is inconsistent in part with subsequent Tennessee Supreme Court jurisprudence on implying a private right of action under a statute. For this reason, we decline to apply the doctrine of legislative inaction to presume that the legislature knew of the 1998 Court of Appeals' holding, recognizing a private right of action under the statute, and acquiesced in it. We hold instead that the employee has no private right of action under section 50-2-107 and overrule the 1998 Court of Appeals decision to the extent that it is inconsistent with our holding herein. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and affirm the trial court's judgment granting the motion to dismiss the employee's cause of action under section 50-2-107 for failure to state a claim.

In this post-divorce litigation, we granted permission to appeal to address the standard for determining what constitutes a "reasonable purpose" for a parent's relocation with the parties' child under Tennessee's parental relocation statute, Tennessee Code Annotated § 36-6-108. In this case, the father spent the majority of the residential parenting time with the parties' child. He sought to move with the child to Arizona because he had secured an advantageous job in an area where he and the child would live near his parents and his extended family and have their support, and where he and the child would live near some of the mother's extended family as well. The trial court held that the father did not have a reasonable purpose for the relocation. In a divided opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed. The dissent in the Court of Appeals questioned the interpretation of the term "reasonable purpose" used by the majority, which originated in a prior Court of Appeals decision, Webster v. Webster, No. W2005-01288-COA-R3CV, 2006 WL 3008019 (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 24, 2006), that construed the term "reasonable purpose" to mean one that is significant or substantial when weighed against the loss to the parent opposing the relocation. We overrule Webster insofar as it misconstrued the meaning of the term "reasonable purpose" as used in Tennessee's parental relocation statute. Under the natural and ordinary meaning of the term "reasonable purpose," we hold that the father stated a reasonable purpose for relocating to Arizona with the parties' child and that the mother did not carry her burden of establishing a ground for denying the father permission to relocate with the child. Under section 36-6-108(d)(1), "[t]he parent spending the greater amount of time with the child shall be permitted to relocate with the child unless the court finds" that the parent opposing the relocation has proven one of the enumerated grounds. Because the mother did not prove a ground to deny permission to relocate, we reverse the trial court's denial of permission for the father to relocate to Arizona with the child, and we also reverse the trial court's modification of the parties' parenting plan to designate the mother as the primary residential parent. On remand, the trial court is authorized to fashion an appropriate transitional parenting plan that results, within a reasonable time, in designating the father as the primary residential parent and permitting him to live in Arizona with the parties' child. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court and the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.