Relative placement; Child’s best interests; Power of attorney (POA)

Concluding that (1) “because respondent did not seek to place the child with any acceptable relatives, the trial court did not err by declining to order the child placed with any relatives” and (2) the trial court did not clearly err by holding that termination was in the child’s best interests, the court affirmed. Respondent-father primarily argued, “as he did throughout the proceedings, that this case should not have been commenced against him because he delegated his parental authority to his mother, who he now admits was an impermissible placement because she lived with a registered sex offender.” He appeared to challenge the trial court’s assumption of jurisdiction. “The trial court assumed jurisdiction as to respondent under MCL 712A.2(b)(1) (failure to provide proper or necessary support or care) and MCL 712A.2(b)(2) (home or environment is unfit because of neglect, cruelty, drunkenness, criminality, or depravity by parent).” Respondent challenged “those findings on the theory that he did provide proper care and custody to the child by delegating his parental authority to the paternal grandmother.” The court has already rejected that argument. In his previous appeal, the court “explained that the POA was irrelevant because the touchstone for unfitness was the situation at the time the initial petition was filed, at which time no POA existed.” The court “did not address the trial court’s assumption of jurisdiction because only the child’s removal was at issue previously. However, the same principle applies here because, for purposes of assuming jurisdiction, the trial court must likewise ‘examine the child’s situation at the time the petition was filed.’” In any event, even if the court “were to accept respondent’s argument that the situation should have been considered as of the date of the most-recent petition before the adjudication trial, that would still not help [him]. By the time the most-recent petition had been filed, [he] had executed the POA, but petitioner had already determined that the paternal grandmother and respondent’s cousin were unacceptable placements.” The record showed “that, even assuming that the trial court erred by failing to consider the situation as it was when the most-recent petition was filed, no such fit and appropriate relative existed.”