Divorce; Custody/parenting time; Jurisdiction to hear the case; The Family Support Act; MCL 552.455; Seybold v Seybold

The court held that the “Bay Circuit Court did not err by denying defendant’s custody/parenting time motion and directing him to file motions in the Gladwin Circuit Court because it lost jurisdiction once the Gladwin Circuit Court entered the” divorce judgment. It correctly applied MCL 552.455. The court noted that to “the extent defendant wishes to address parenting time in the future, he must proceed in the divorce case in Gladwin County through a proper postdivorce judgment motion[.]” The primary issue was “whether the Bay Circuit Court lost its jurisdiction to resolve the parties’ custody dispute under” the Family Support Act after entry of the divorce judgment in Gladwin Circuit Court. Defendant argued that it “maintained exclusive jurisdiction over the child-custody issues, and that jurisdiction circumscribed the Gladwin Circuit Court’s authority to issue orders concerning those issues. However, the express language of MCL 552.455 provides that any subsequent judgment of divorce renders null and void any previous order entered under the Family Support Act if the court issuing the judgment of divorce exercised personal jurisdiction over the parties involved.” The court noted that this “also holds true under the court rules, as MCR 3.205 provides that a prior order remains in effect until it is superseded by a subsequent order entered by a court also having jurisdiction of the minor[.]” The court found that under “the clear terms of MCL 552.455, once the Gladwin judgment of divorce became effective, the prior family support order from Bay Circuit Court became null and void. Because it no longer had an order in place, the Bay Circuit Court properly closed the case and denied defendant’s motion for parenting time. At that point, the motion was proper in Gladwin Circuit Court.” The court found that nothing “remained for the Bay Circuit Court to perform.” Affirmed.