Preview:

STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS


STEVE SALTER and KAREN SALTER, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v ROCHELLE LYNN NASH and JEFFREY SEAN SALTER, Defendants-Appellants.

UNPUBLISHED October 28, 2008

No. 282955 Wayne Circuit Court LC No. 07-727706-DZ

Before: Schuette, P.J., and Murphy and Fitzgerald, JJ. PER CURIAM. Defendants appeal as of right the order of the circuit court confirming the registration of a Texas child-custody determination. On appeal, they argue that the circuit court erred in registering the Texas order because the Texas court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) to make a child-custody determination with respect to their daughter. We conclude, as did this Court in Nash v Salter, ____ Mich App ____; ____ NW2d ____ (Docket No. 282311, issued August 7, 2008), that the circuit court properly recognized and enforced the Texas order because the Texas court had jurisdiction in substantial conformity with the UCCJEA. We affirm. I. FACTS This Court set forth the relevant facts in Nash, supra, slip op pp 1-2: This case arises from a custody dispute between [defendants], the parents of the child, and [plaintiffs], who are Jeffrey Salter's parents. [Defendants] and the child, who was born August 3, 2006, lived with [plaintiffs] in Texas from approximately August 5, 2006, until March 20, 2007. On March 20, 2007, Rochelle Nash moved to Michigan, and, the next day, Jeffrey Salter filed a petition in the district court for the 356th Judicial District of Texas ("the Texas court"), asking that court to enter an order making him "sole managing conservator" of the child. On or about May 20, 2007, Jeffrey Salter moved to Michigan with the child. He apparently did not further pursue the petition for custody. The child resided in Michigan with both [defendants] commencing on or about May 21, 2007. On July 23, 2007, [plaintiffs] filed a "Petition in Intervention of Grandparents in Suit Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship" in -1-


the Texas court. They claimed that "appointment of [defendants] as joint managing conservators would not be in the best interest of the child because the appointment would significantly impair the child's physical health or emotional development," and asked the Texas court to appoint them joint managing conservators with the "exclusive right to designate the primary residence of the child." [In LC No. 07-722692-DC, defendants] filed their complaint for determination of jurisdiction and custody in the Wayne Circuit Court ("the Michigan court") on August 22, 2007. They argued that the Texas court did not have jurisdiction under the UCCJEA and that the Michigan court had jurisdiction. Accordingly, [defendants] asked the Michigan court to award them custody of the child. On October 1, 2007, the Texas court entered an order appointing [plaintiffs] temporary sole managing conservators and [defendants] temporary possessory conservators of the child. The Texas court's order provided that [plaintiffs] had the right to physical custody of the child and that [defendants] were to have possession of the child at times mutually agreed upon in advance by the parties. The order further provided that [plaintiffs] "shall take immediate possession of the child at [defendants'] residence" in Michigan. [Brackets added.] In the instant case, LC No. 07-727706-DZ, plaintiffs filed, on October 16, 2007, a request for registration of the Texas court's October 1, 2007, custody order, as well as an earlier temporary restraining order. They also filed, on October 22, 2007, a petition in the Michigan court to enforce the orders of the Texas court under the UCCJEA. They alleged that defendants violated the Texas court's temporary restraining order by failing to appear and produce the child at a hearing before the Texas court. Plaintiffs asked the court to dismiss defendants' pending action for custody and order the child to be returned to Texas under the Texas court's October 1, 2007, order. On November 7, 2007, the same day that the Michigan court entered an order in LC No. 07-722692-DZ, dismissing defendants' complaint for custody for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, which was the order appealed from in Nash, supra, it granted plaintiffs' request for entry of an order confirming registration of the Texas custody order. The child has resided with plaintiffs in Texas since December 3, 2007. Defendants have returned to Texas to be near the child. Nash, supra, slip op p 2. II. STANDARD OF REVIEW Whether a trial court has subject-matter jurisdiction is a question of law that we review de novo. Atchison v Atchison, 256 Mich App 531, 534; 664 NW2d 249 (2003). However, once jurisdiction is established, the trial court has discretion to determine whether to exercise jurisdiction under the UCCJEA. Young v Punturo (On Reconsideration), 270 Mich App 553, 560; 718 NW2d 366 (2006). We reverse only where there has been an abuse of that discretion. Id. We review issues of statutory interpretation, including the interpretation of the UCCJEA, -2-


codified in Michigan as MCL 722.1101 et seq., de novo as questions of law. Atchison, supra at 534-535. III. ANALYSIS Defendants argue on appeal that the Michigan court erred in recognizing and enforcing the Texas custody order because the Texas court did not have jurisdiction under the UCCJEA by virtue of plaintiffs' July 23, 2007, petition. However, we find that the Michigan court properly recognized and enforced the Texas custody order. Under section 303 of the UCCJEA, codified in Michigan as MCL 722.1303(1), "[a] court of this state shall recognize and enforce a child-custody determination of a court of another state if the latter court exercised jurisdiction that was in substantial conformity with this act." Section 201 of the UCCJEA sets forth the basic jurisdictional requirement for making an initial custody determination, and is codified in Michigan as MCL 722.1201, which provides: (1) Except as otherwise provided in section 204,[1] a court of this state has jurisdiction to make an initial child-custody determination only in the following situations: (a) This state is the home state of the child on the date of the commencement of the proceeding, or was the home state[2] of the child within 6 months before the commencement of the proceeding and the child is absent from this state but a parent or person acting as a parent continues to live in this state. (b) A court of another state does not have jurisdiction under subdivision (a), or a court of the home state of the child has declined to exercise jurisdiction on the ground that this state is the more appropriate forum under section 207 or 208, and the court finds both of the following: (i) The child and the child's parents, or the child and at least 1 parent or a person acting as a parent, have a significant connection with this state other than mere physical presence.

"Section 204, MCL 722.1204, provides for temporary emergency jurisdiction in a court of this state `if the child is present in this state and the child has been abandoned or it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child, or a sibling or parent of the child, is subjected to or threatened with mistreatment or abuse.'" Nash, supra, slip op p 3 n 1. This provision is not at issue in this appeal because defendants did not make such an allegation in their complaint.
2

1

MCL 722.1102(g) defines "home state" as "the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least 6 consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child-custody proceeding."

-3-


(ii) Substantial evidence is available in this state concerning the child's care, protection, training, and personal relationships. (c) All courts having jurisdiction under subdivision (a) or (b) have declined to exercise jurisdiction on the grounds that a court of this state is the more appropriate forum to determine the custody of the child under section 207 or 208. (d) No court of another state would have jurisdiction under subdivision (a), (b), or (c). (2) Subsection (1) is the exclusive jurisdictional basis for making a childcustody determination by a court of this state. (3) Physical presence of, or personal jurisdiction over, a party or a child is neither necessary nor sufficient to make a child-custody determination. As this Court held in Nash, supra, slip op pp 7-8, the Texas custody proceeding was commenced by Jeffrey Salter's filing of his petition for custody on March 21, 2007, rather than by plaintiffs' filing of their petition in intervention on July 23, 2007. On March 21, 2007, Texas was the child's home state because the child had resided in Texas for at least six months before the commencement of that proceeding. UCCJEA,

Download STEVE SALTER V ROCHELLE LYNN NASH.pdf

Michigan Law