Child custody; The Child Custody Act (CCA); Standing; “Parent”; MCL 722.22(i); “Natural parent”; Stankevich v Milliron (On Remand); Distinguishing LeFever v Matthews; The equitable-parent doctrine; Van v Zahorik; Lake v Putnam; “Third person”; MCL 722.22(k); MCL 722.26b; MCL 722.26c(1)(b); Due process; Equal protection; Sheardown v Guastella

Holding that plaintiff could not achieve the status of “natural parent” under the equitable-parent doctrine given that she was not ever married to defendant, the court concluded that she was a third person under the CCA as to the child at issue. Because she did not establish the necessary factors for standing under MCL 722.26b or 722.26c(1)(b), she was not entitled as a third person to bring this custody action. The court also rejected her due process and equal protection claims. The parties had been in a romantic relationship but never married. “During the relationship, defendant underwent in-vitro fertilization and” gave birth to a child. Plaintiff admittedly “has no biological relationship to the child,” and did not adopt the child. She filed this custody complaint after defendant demanded she cease contact with the child. Plaintiff contended she had “standing to seek custody under the CCA because the parties were ‘equitably married’ at the time the child was conceived and born, and she therefore is the child’s ‘natural father.’” Thus, she urged the court to “extend the existing equitable-parent doctrine to create a new legal concept of ‘equitable marriage.’” It declined to do so, and concluded that she was “not a parent of the child.” Noting the equitable-parent doctrine only applies to married couples, it found that here, “as in Lake, because the parties were never married, plaintiff’s argument that she is an equitable parent” failed. Plaintiff contended that she had standing under LeFever’s “‘elastic definition’ of natural parent . . . .” However, the court noted that she lacked “the physical connection to the child that this Court in LeFever found determinative to being a natural parent.” She also was not an adoptive parent. Because she was “not related to the child genetically or by birth, she could only be determined to be a parent if under the equitable-parent doctrine she met the requirements for being a natural parent.” She failed to do so. While she relied on the reasoning of the Lake concurrence, “the majority opinion in that case declined to extend the equitable-parent doctrine by imposing the status of marriage upon a couple who had never married.” The court affirmed the trial court’s order granting defendant summary disposition.