Child’s best interest; “Relative” placement; In re Mays; In re Olive/Metts Minors; In re Mason

Regardless of factors weighing in favor of termination, the court vacated the trial court’s best-interest determination where as “part of its best-interest ruling, the trial court relied on an outdated definition of ‘relative,’ which led to [it] failing to consider whether termination was in ARW’s best interests in light of her placement with a relative in contravention of established caselaw,” and remanded. Shortly after Mays, this court held in Olive/Metts “that a trial court’s failure to explicitly consider a child’s placement with a relative amounted to clear error requiring vacatur of the lower court’s best-interest analysis.” The court held that “ARW’s father was clearly a ‘relative’ under this definition. Yet the trial court mistakenly considered ARW’s father a ‘non-relative.’ This resulted in [it] failing to explicitly consider ARW’s placement with a relative as part of its best-interest analysis contrary to [Mason,] rendering the factual record ‘inadequate to make a best interests determination,’ ‘which requires us to vacate the court’s best-interest analysis and remand for further proceedings.’” The DHHS contended “that the trial court was not required to consider ARW’s relative placement because, unlike in” Mason and Olive/Metts, termination here was sought in the initial petition. “This difference is significant, the DHHS claims, because [Mason] and [Olive/Metts] relied on MCL 712A.19a(8)(a).” While it was “true that this case did not proceed to a termination hearing under this subsection, the DHHS does not adequately explain why that is significant.” Mason and Olive/Metts “relied on MCL 712A.19a(8)(a) (previously subsection (6)(a)) because that subsection makes plain that the Legislature considers a child’s placement with relatives to be a factor that can strongly weigh against termination. The subsection states that, even if a trial court would otherwise be required to initiate termination proceedings, it is not required to do so if the child is in a relative placement. Both cases extrapolated from this that placement with relatives ‘was an explicit factor to consider in determining whether termination was in the children’s best interests.’” The court found that nothing “about the text of MCL 712A.19a(8)(a) suggests that it is identifying a factor that is required to be considered when determining whether termination is in a child’s best interests. That was simply a reasonable inference that the courts drew from the statute’s text—if placement with a relative is so significant that a trial court can decline to initiate termination proceedings that it would otherwise be required to order, then trial courts should be required to take that placement into account when deciding whether termination is in the child’s best interests. This reasoning holds true for any best-interest analysis, regardless of the manner in which termination proceedings were initiated.” Thus, the court rejected “the DHHS’s invitation to carveout an exception to the rule that a trial court must consider a child’s placement with relatives as part of its best-interest analysis.” The court retained jurisdiction.