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STATE OF MICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS

DANIEL W. STICKEL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v

UNPUBLISHED December 22, 2011

ANGIE M. STICKEL a/k/a ANGIE M. EUBANKS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 304401 St. Clair Circuit Court Family Division LC No. 07-001435-DM

Before: SAAD, P.J., and STEPHENS and RONAYNE KRAUSE, JJ. PER CURIAM. Defendant appeals from a final order of the circuit court that denied her motion to change custody. For the reasons set forth below, we reverse and remand. I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS Defendant and plaintiff married in 1997 and divorced in 2007. During the divorce proceedings, the parties were not represented by counsel and agreed to a judgment of divorce that provided for joint legal and physical custody of the parties' two minor children. The judgment contained a stipulation that the children would live with plaintiff for the purposes of schooling. When the children were young and not in school, the parties exercised flexible parenting time and often adjusted parenting time according to changing circumstances. During the summers, the parties split their time with the children evenly, although the length of the visits varied. When the children began to attend school full time in 2010, they stayed with plaintiff during the week and with defendant every other weekend because mid-week visits became increasingly difficult to manage. However, this schedule only lasted until the middle of September 2010, when plaintiff asked defendant to take the children for the remainder of the month because he had applied for, and received, a transfer to a different state police post. As a result of his transfer, plaintiff planned to move to Pinconning, Michigan. Shortly afterward, plaintiff ended a relationship with his live-in girlfriend, who was planning to move with him to Pinconning. Plaintiff asked defendant to take the children on a permanent basis because he said his work schedule prevented him from caring for the children. -1-

For the remainder of 2010, plaintiff only saw his children occasionally, around major holidays. In January 2011, plaintiff did not return the children to defendant after a weekend visit. Plaintiff testified that he was concerned about an injury to the older child's lip. The child claimed that defendant's fianc

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Michigan Law