Medical exam request in a custody dispute; MCR 2.311; Burris v KAM Transp, Inc (On Remand); Good cause; Judicial bias; Trial court examination of a witness; MRE 614; People v Stevens; Custody order; Best interest factors (MCL 722.23); Award of primary physical custody to one parent & sole legal custody to the other; Huntington’s disease (HD); Children’s Protective Services (CPS)

The court affirmed the trial court’s order: (1) denying defendant-mother’s request for a medical exam of plaintiff-father, (2) changing the parties’ parenting-time schedules, and (3) awarding sole legal custody to the father. The trial court’s conclusion that the mother had “not met her burden in proving good cause exists for ordering a medical examination at this particular point in time, was not an abuse of discretion.” As it observed, the record did not establish he “had any physical symptoms of HD.” It also reasoned his “anxiety, depression and irritability were borne out of the being separated from his children against his will and the ‘rather large number of [CPS] investigations, none of which resulted in substantiated abuse or neglect.’” The court found that the trial court’s reasoning was sound. Next, the mother contended that the trial judge displayed bias. She took issue with, among other things, how it “treated an impeachment issue related to” the testimony of one of the parties’ children (EG1). At the custody hearing, the father’s attorney asked EG1 if she had told the father in the past that the mother had told her to say “‘bad stuff’” about him. When EG1 denied this, his “attorney played a video in which EG1 disclosed that she was being coached by” the mother. The mother argued the trial court erred by allowing the father’s “attorney to continue questioning EG1 about whether she was speaking in the video.” The court held that even if there “was ultimately error by the trial court on an evidentiary issue, that error does not amount to judicial bias.” The mother also took “issue with some of the trial court’s findings in its custody order and” asserted that it erred in awarding the father sole legal custody and ordering that the children attend a certain school district. The court concluded her arguments were “largely rooted in credibility and weight, which were the province of the trial court,” and it found “no error in the trial court’s fact-finding or application of the law as to the best-interest factors.” Lastly, she contended “it was contradictory for the trial court to have awarded her primary physical custody but” the father sole legal custody. The trial court was faced with the problem of the mother having interfered with the father’s “ability to act as a parent for two years. It was reasonable, therefore, for [it] to conclude that joint legal custody was not feasible and that [he] should be the one to retain legal custody so he could make decisions on the children’s schooling, medical care, and religious education.” Even if the mother was “favored” on more factors than the father, “the salient issues in terms of legal custody were the alienation issues and failure to include [him] in decision making.” The trial court’s reasoning was “sufficiently apparent from reading its opinion as a whole, and the decision is adequately rooted in the evidence. This new custody arrangement does not fall outside the range of principled outcomes.”