Divorce; Custody; Established custodial environment (ECE); MCL 722.27(1)(c); Compliance with the Child Custody Act; Findings on the statutory best-interest factors (MCL 722.23); Property division; Sparks v Sparks; Reserving the issue of spousal support

The court agreed with the parties that remand was necessary as to the issue of child custody because the trial court failed to “resolve any of the relevant factual disputes” as to the children’s ECE and did not “make any factual findings to support its findings on the” statutory best-interest factors. It also agreed with them “that the trial court failed to make the necessary findings to support its property-division decision,” requiring remand. Thus, it vacated the trial court’s decisions on custody and property division, affirmed in all other respects, and remanded. While the trial court determined that an ECE existed with both parties, “it did not make any findings of fact to support this conclusion.” And the court found that there was insufficient information in the record for it to determine whether the trial court’s conclusion as to the ECE was correct “because there are simply too many outstanding factual disputes. The parties sharply disputed a number of issues that go to the heart of determining the children’s” ECE, such as how involved plaintiff-father was in their lives and how they viewed him. As to the MCL 722.23 factors, the trial court “concluded that they all either favored neither party or were inapplicable. But, in so doing, [it] failed to make any” supporting factual findings and thus left the court “with no way of reviewing whether the trial court reached a well-reasoned conclusion.” As to the property division, the trial court “did not resolve the parties’ dispute about what should be included in the marital estate, nor did it resolve [their] dispute about what the value was of certain marital assets. Equally clear is that [it] failed to consider the Sparks factors or make any factual findings related to those factors.” As to defendant-mother’s issues relating to (1) the trial court’s decision to reserve the issue of spousal support and (2) the issue of paying for the children’s gym classes, the court directed the trial court to also address these matters on remand.