Divorce; The trial court’s jurisdiction; The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction & Enforcement Act (UCCJEA); MCR 2.116(C)(6)

The court held that the trial court erred when it did not limit its exercise of jurisdiction in this divorce case “to child-custody determinations under the UCCJEA” and failed to apply MCR 2.116(C)(6)’s unambiguous language to dismiss the noncustodial parts of the complaint without prejudice. Thus, the court reversed the order denying defendant-husband’s motion to dismiss plaintiff-wife’s divorce complaint and remanded for entry of an order dismissing the noncustodial components of the complaint. The parties married in Hungary in 1993. “From 2000 onward, they and their four children lived primarily in the United States, except for approximately 18 months spent in Hungary between 2014 and 2016.” When the case began, their only minor child lived “with plaintiff in Grand Rapids. The parties and their children have dual citizenship in the” U.S. and Hungary. Defendant left the marital home in 5/21 and moved back to Hungary. He filed for divorce there a few months later. Two months after that, plaintiff filed her complaint in Kent County. There was no dispute between the parties that the UCCJEA applied. And it could not “be reasonably disputed that the Michigan court has home-state jurisdiction under the UCCJEA to make an initial custody determination. Indeed, defendant acknowledged that the parties’ minor child had resided in Michigan for the past five or six years during the hearing on his motion to dismiss.” Under the circumstances, the court agreed with defendant “that the trial court erred by failing to limit the exercise of its jurisdiction to the custodial matters in plaintiff’s” complaint pursuant to the UCCJEA and should have dismissed “the noncustodial matters under MCR 2.116(C)(6).” The court noted that if “the Hungarian court does not resolve issues concerning the parties’ jointly owned Michigan property, either party may file an action thereafter in Michigan to resolve those outstanding issues. Whether comity dictates that the Hungarian divorce degree should be recognized and enforced in Michigan can only be determined after the decree has been issued.”