Legal & physical custody; Discovery; Witness testimony by telephone; MCR 3.210(A)(4); Appointment of a lawyer-guardian ad litem (L-GAL); The Child Custody Act (MCL 722.21 et seq); MCL 722.24(2); Proper cause or a change of circumstances (COC); MCL 722.27(1)(c); Best-interest factors (b)-(e), (g)-(h), (j)-(l); Sanctions

The court rejected defendant-mother’s challenge to the trial court’s nonexistent prohibition on all discovery, as well as her claim that it abused its discretion by prohibiting her from presenting witness testimony by phone. Further, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying her request to appoint the children a L-GAL, and there was proper cause or a COC permitting it to revisit custody. Finally, given the circumstances and the evidence presented, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by finding clear and convincing evidence to award plaintiff-father sole legal and physical custody. As to defendant’s discovery claim, the court determined that she mischaracterized the record in support of her argument. Plaintiff claimed “defendant issued the subpoenas in bad faith after being charged with parental kidnapping and that the documents requested were protected or irrelevant.” The trial court granted his “motion to quash the three subpoenas and held that defendant ‘must purge herself of any outstanding findings of contempt of the Circuit Court as precondition for obtaining the relief that she seeks in these subpoenas.’” But the trial court did not issue a general protective order preventing her from conducting discovery. It specifically stated that one was unnecessary here. Thus, the record indicated that she “was free to conduct discovery outside of the subpoenas she issued. Additionally, the quashing of the subpoenas was only conditional, and the trial court was ultimately only able to quash two of" them because the third was responded to before the trial court issued its ruling. As to proper cause or a COC permitting the trial court to revisit custody, the record indicated she “was purposely keeping the children from plaintiff and interfering with their relationship with” him. It found that her behaviors “likely had ‘a significant effect on the child’s well-being to the extent that revisiting the custody order would be proper.’” As a result, “the trial court properly held that there was proper cause to warrant an evidentiary hearing and to revisit custody. Additionally, the trial court’s finding that defendant’s behavior also constituted a change of circumstances was proper because the record indicates that defendant’s behavior, which likely materially changed ‘the conditions surrounding custody of the child[ren]’ and significantly affected the children’s well-being, started occurring after the” 2019 custody order. After that order, they “were diagnosed with two new medical conditions, they were removed from school in Ohio, and defendant failed to discuss either of those matters with plaintiff.”