Child’s removal; MCL 712A.13a(9); MCR 3.965(B)(12)(b) & (C); Lack of an actual physical injury; In re Middleton; Assumption of jurisdiction; MCL 712A.2b(1) & (2)

The court held that the trial court did not plainly err in removing the child from respondent-mother’s care or in authorizing a neglect petition under MCL 712A.2(b). It concluded that hearing testimony created a sufficient record as to each of the MCL 712A.13a(9) conditions for removing and placing a child into foster care. “The CPS investigator testified that respondent admitted to shaking the child with force requiring medical assessment. Respondent also made homicidal threats toward the child as revealed in text messages she sent to” the child’s putative father (nonrespondent-G). The petition indicated that she “repeated some of those threats to care providers during her in-patient psychiatric stay.” She contended “that the trial court improperly relied heavily on her statements about harming the child which were made during a mental-health crisis, and that [he] was not physically harmed. But respondent’s threats, and acting on those threats by shaking [him], and potentially punching” him (according to texts she sent to G), “were enough to find physical abuse, and so the threat of physical harm to the child existed under MCL 712A.13a(9)(a).” The court noted that while “no physical injury resulted from [her] actions, courts need not wait for actual physical injury to intervene to protect a child.” In addition, the trial court “heard testimony that respondent had not arranged for the child’s care during her inpatient psychiatric stay and he was to be discharged from the hospital the day of the preliminary hearing with nowhere to go because CPS could not locate [G], and respondent’s mother refused to provide care.” The CPS investigator also testified that respondent “admitted she lacked a bond with the child and was unable to provide” him with basic care. Further, the record did “not support her assertion that the trial court failed to consider a less restrictive alternative to removal.” The court held that “the facts showed, by a preponderance of the evidence, that returning the child to respondent upon her release from inpatient psychiatric care would be contrary to” his welfare. It also held that the record supported the trial “court’s factual findings of probable cause that one or more of the allegations in the petition were true and supported” exercising jurisdiction over him.