Custody; The Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction & Enforcement Act (UCCJEA); MCL 722.1201(1); “Home state” (MCL 722.1102(g)); Foster v Wolkowitz; “Person acting as a parent” (MCL 722.1102(m)); Inconvenient forum; MCL 722.1207; Effect of a temporary guardianship order; MCL 722.1202(1) & 722.1204; Effect of noncompliance with the electronic recording requirement in MCL 722.1110

The court held that plaintiffs-maternal grandparents’ removal of the child (A) from her North Carolina residence and her stepfather’s care after her mother’s death “did not prevent the North Carolina court from satisfying the jurisdictional requirements of” MCL 722.1201(1), part of the UCCJEA. Further, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that Michigan was “an inconvenient forum for this child custody dispute,” under MCL 722.1207. Thus, the court affirmed the order granting defendant (who claims to be A’s biological father and is listed as such on the birth certificate) summary disposition. Plaintiffs obtained a power-of-attorney from A’s stepfather and moved A from North Carolina to Michigan. After filing a petition for guardianship and being appointed temporary guardians, they filed this custody action. “Defendant, who resides in South Carolina, also filed a custody action, but in North Carolina[.]” On appeal, the court rejected plaintiffs’ assertion that “North Carolina had no basis for jurisdiction under the UCCJEA.” It concluded that, regardless of the time periods between when A was removed from North Carolina (5/18/20) and plaintiffs’ filings in Michigan to obtain guardianship (5/29/20) and custody (7/31/20), this did not make Michigan A’s home state under the UCCJEA. In the six-month time period before A’s move to Michigan and the start of legal proceedings here, A lived in North Carolina with her family. Further, even if North Carolina did “not qualify as the home state under MCL 722.1102(1)(a),” a Michigan court could find that the Michigan court "presents an inconvenient forum for the custody determination.” The trial court made this determination under the factors in MCL 722.1207. Plaintiffs did not take issue with its findings under that statute, but instead contended that the inconvenient forum finding was “irrelevant because North Carolina lacked all ability to obtain jurisdiction under the UCCJEA. This is not the case, and plaintiffs misinterpret MCL 722.1201(1)(c).” Their arguments that “North Carolina lacked jurisdiction because there was no evidence of a significant connection between” it and defendant disregarded the effect of subsection (c). “Michigan had the ability to exercise jurisdiction under MCL 722.1201(b) but declined to do so because North Carolina was ‘the more appropriate forum’” under MCL 722.1207.