Michigan: State Supreme Court of Michigan Appeals Court Reverses Appellate Judgment and Finds That Court Could Not Find “Initial Custody Determination” Under The UCCJEA. By: Paige L.

Link for opinion: http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy.msbcollege.edu/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T13959982026&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T13959982034&cisb=22_T13959982033&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&selRCNodeID=24&nodeStateId=411en_US,1,2&docsInCategory=11&csi=7784&docNo=3

The Michigan Court of Appeals held in Foster v. Wolkowitz, 785 N.W.2d 59 (Mich. Ct. App., Sept. 15, 2010, 2011) granted the leave to the appeal.  The parties were asked to address whether or not the Court of Appeals had made in error when relying on the Acknowledgement of Parentage Act (APA) instead of the Uniform Custody Code Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) in order to substantiate whether Michigan was the “home state” of the child and the “convenient forum” for the decision of the custody of the minor child to be enacted.

Leah Foster and David Wolkowitz conceived a child together, hereinafter referred to as “M.”, but were never married.  The child was born on October 12, 2006.  Before the child was even born, the couple lived in Illinois, but moved to Michigan a few months before M. was born.  At M.’s birth, Wolkowitz signed a document recognizing that he was the biological parent of M.

Later on, both of the parties decided to move back to Illinois with M, but would sporadically return to Michigan to visit relatives and others that were close with the parties and their minor child, M. 

At some point in May of 2008, the non-marital relationship between the parties dissolved, prompting Foster (the Plaintiff) to take the child and move to Michigan, where she had her family support system and close ties.  The Plaintiff ended up moving in with her parents, along with M.  When the Plaintiff tried to start a custody dispute using Michigan as the child’s home state, the trial judge refused to address the issue of custody that had arisen.  Wolkowitz, the Defendant, then filed his own custody action, but this time, he filed in Illinois, as he assumed this would be the proper jurisdiction in which to raise the dispute.  The original file date for the Defendant’s motion would have been June 4, 2008.

After the trial court had used the “best interest factors” of the child, the court granted the couple the joint legal custody, but held that Foster (Plaintiff) would have sole physical custody of the minor child, allowing the Defendant liberal parenting time to be used at his convenience.

Because the Defendant did not believe that Michigan had home-state jurisdiction, he appealed the order of the trial court.  The Appeal Court upheld the decision of the lower court.

When the case went to the Supreme Court of Michigan, the decision was that the Court of Appeals had made an error when they presumed that the custody should be awarded to the Plaintiff because of the APA.  The judgment was reversed and remanded for the Monroe Circuit Court.

Labels for the post: UCCJEA, custody, establishing paternity