The Adoption Code (MCL 710.21 et seq.); Whether the appellee-father properly appeared to contest custody during the initial § 39 hearing; MCL 710.39(1); MCR 2.117(B)(1); Enforcing unambiguous statutory language; In re MJG; Inapplicability of the provisions of § 39 to terminating a legal father’s parental rights; In re MKK; Mootness; City of Jackson v. Thompson-McCully Co., LLC; B P 7 v. Bureau of State Lottery

In Docket No. 338286, the court affirmed the portion of the trial court’s opinion and order concluding that appellee-father properly appeared via phone at the § 39 hearing, but dismissed as moot the argument by the appellants-would be adoptive parents that the trial court erred when it adjourned the adoption proceedings. It also dismissed as moot their appeal in Docket No. 340203. In Docket No. 338286, appellants appealed the trial court’s order adjourning the adoption proceedings under the Adoption Code, pending resolution of appellee’s paternity action. They argued that the trial court “committed clear legal error by failing to terminate appellee’s parental rights because he did not personally appear and contest custody” during the initial § 39 hearing. They also argued that it erred when it adjourned the proceedings because appellee did not request an adjournment, and failed to show the good cause necessary for an adjournment. For the reasons stated in Judge O’Brien’s partial dissenting opinion, the court (1) affirmed the trial court’s conclusion that appellee properly appeared at the § 39 hearing and (2) dismissed as moot appellants’ argument that the trial court erred in adjourning the adoption proceedings. At the time of the initial § 39 hearing, appellee was a putative father. In the paternity action, he was later declared the child’s biological and thus, legal father. His counsel identified himself at the § 39 hearing as representing appellee as the putative father, which satisfied MCR 2.117(B)(1). The court held that when “looking solely at the plain language of MCL 710.39(1), nothing in that statute specifically requires putative father to be present to contest custody; it only requires that putative father appear and contest custody.” When a statute’s language is unambiguous, the court is required to “give the words their plain meaning and apply the statute as written.” Thus, although appellee’s failure to physically appear at the § 39 hearing called “into question his sincerity in contesting the adoption proceedings, the appearance of [his] counsel at the § 39 hearing” qualified as an appearance under MCR 2.117(B)(1). In Docket No. 340203, appellants’ argument that the trial court erroneously found that appellee provided substantial and regular support or care to the mother during her pregnancy, such that his parental rights could not be terminated under MCL 710.39(2), was moot. The order of filiation in the paternity action rendered it impossible for the court or the trial court to “grant relief under MCL 710.39(1) and (2), which both exclusively address termination of a putative father’s rights during the course of an adoption.”