Custody; Adequacy of the trial court’s findings as to the existence of an established custodial environment (ECE); MCL 722.27(1)(c); MCR 2.517(A)(1)-(3); Statutory best interest factors; MCL 722.23; Harvey v. Harvey; Spires v. Bergman; Thompson v. Thompson; Rivette v. Rose-Molina; Parenting-time; MCL 722.27a; Judicial bias; Kern v. Kern-Koskela; Waiver; People v. Fetterley; A trial court’s wide latitude in exercising its discretion to control the trial proceedings; People v. Conley; The trial court’s inherent discretion to control its docket; Baynesan v. Wayne State Univ.; Due process; Mettler Walloon, LLC v. Melrose Twp.; Child support; MCL 552.519(3)(a)(vi); Ghidotti v. Barber; Imputing income to a parent without considering the factors in the Michigan Child Support Formula (MCSF) Manual; Preclusion of means-tested income in determining income; 2017 MCSF 2.04(A); Grant of custody to the mother pursuant to MCL 722.1006 (part of the Acknowledgment of Parentage Act); Sims v. Verbrugge; Mootness; Michigan Nat’l Bank v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co.; Barrow v. Detroit Election Comm’n

While the court held that the trial court’s findings as to an ECE only with plaintiff-mother were adequate, it concluded that the trial court erred in awarding her sole legal and physical custody of the parties’ younger child (R) without discussing the statutory best interest factors. It rejected defendant-father’s judicial bias and due process claims, but agreed that the trial court erred in imputing income to him for child support purposes without reviewing the MCSF Manual factors. Thus, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. It first found that defendant’s arguments as to the older child were moot because he recently turned 18. As to R, plaintiff was granted custody pursuant to MCL 722.1006. But this statutory grant of custody “was without prejudice to a later determination of defendant’s custodial rights and could not, by itself, ‘affect the rights of either parent in a proceeding to seek a court order for custody or parenting time.’” Defendant was correct that, in making the initial custody determination, the trial court had “to evaluate the factors in MCL 722.23 and state its conclusions on each factor to determine the child’s best interests.” The court noted that in the “recommended order, the referee discussed the best-interest factors in MCL 722.23 and determined that it was in the best interests of both children to award plaintiff sole physical and legal custody. The referee also discussed the parenting-time factors in MCL 722.27a.” But after the de novo hearing, the trial court only discussed the parenting-time factors. As to the referee’s findings, it “stated only, ‘I find that [the referee] had it absolutely succinct from the same evidence I heard and I heard a whole new trial over again.’” The court found that its brief statement was insufficient to determine whether the trial “court was adopting the referee’s findings and rationale concerning parenting time, best interests, or both.” But unlike in Rivette, the referee here made best-interest findings. While the trial court’s statement about its agreement with those findings was ambiguous, it “clearly adopted at least part of the referee’s analysis. Under the circumstances,” the court remanded for “the trial court to clarify its rationale for its custody determination” as to R. It reversed the child support order and also remanded for further proceedings in that regard.