Interlocutory appeal challenging children’s removal; MCR 3.965(C)(1) & (2); MCL 712A.13a(9); A “substantial risk” of physical harm; Whether “reasonable efforts” were required to prevent or eliminate the need for removal; Aggravated circumstances listed in the Child Protection Law; MCL 722.638(1) & (2)

Concluding that the evidence established that respondent-mother’s children (E and G) faced a “substantial risk” of physical harm if kept in her custody during the child protective proceedings, the court held that the trial court did not clearly err in removing them from her care. It noted that she knew the children’s father (R) had physically abused E “when he was only seven months old, that he had been convicted of child abuse, and that a court had entered a no contact order against him” as to E. Despite this, she asked R to watch the two-month-old G. Further, she noticed G’s injuries after her stay with R “and did not seek medical treatment for the baby.” R broke G’s leg in two places, and “the baby had older, unexplained fractures in her arms that could have occurred while under respondent’s care.” Given the fact that a “no-contact order did not prevent respondent from placing her child in danger, there was no reason for a court to find that services or some ‘other arrangement except removal’ could ‘adequately safeguard’” the children. Continuing their residence in her “home was ‘contrary to [their] welfare’ as respondent had voluntarily allowed a known child abuser to care for” G. The trial court was also correct in determining “that ‘reasonable efforts’ were not required to ‘prevent or eliminate the need for removal’” here given that both children were “battered and physically abused by their putative father[.]” Finally, by placing them in licensed foster care, the trial court ensured that they “were placed in conditions ‘adequate to safeguard’ the children’s ‘health and welfare.’” R’s actions had injured them both “and respondent’s poor decisions could place both her children in danger in the future.” The trial court was correct that immediate action was needed to protect them both, not just G on the basis of the most recent incident.