Court of Appeals Reverses Paternity Case Dismissal Due To Venue and Authority Issues
Opinion Published: March 3, 2025 (Gadola, C.J., and K.F. Kelly and Redford, JJ.)
COA Docket No. 371605
Gladwin County Circuit Court (Hon. Marcy Klaus)
Holding: The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the Trial Court’s order dismissing the paternity action because the Trial Court was the appropriate venue for the paternity action under the Paternity Act, MCL 722.711 et seq, and the Friend of the Court’s motion to dismiss was improper as it was outside the scope of the Friend of the Court’s statutory authority pursuant to MCL 552.501(2).
Facts: The Mother and Father in this matter were never married, but share two children, ER and ACR. Following ER’s birth, a child support case was instituted in Oakland County. Prior to ACR’s birth, Mother relocated to Gladwin County, where ACR was born and has resided her entire life. The Michigan Office of Child Support thus sent a referral to the Gladwin County Prosecutor requesting a paternity action be initiated on behalf of Mother, ACR, and the State of Michigan. The Prosecutor instituted such an action and, when Father failed to answer or participate in the action, moved for entry of an order of filiation and a support order. Mother testified at the hearing on the Prosecutor’s motion that she believed the Oakland case had been transferred to Gladwin. On the record at the hearing, the Trial Court found Father was ACR’s father and was responsible for her support. Prior to the Trial Court entering a written order based on these findings, the Gladwin County Friend of the Court (“FOC”) filed a motion to supplement the record, set aside the Trial Court’s findings, and dismiss the complaint. The FOC alleged the Oakland County case had not been transferred, thus MCR 3.204 required the complaint to be filed in Oakland County.
The Trial Court agreed with the FOC and entered an order setting aside its oral findings and dismissing the action. The Prosecutor filed a motion to set aside this order, arguing Gladwin was the proper venue and that the FOC did not have statutory authority to file a motion to dismiss. The Trial Court denied the Prosecutor’s motion, finding without further explanation or legal support that the FOC’s motion, as an arm of the Trial Court, was “essentially a sua sponte” motion of the Trial Court and that the FOC’s supplemental information was persuasive.
Key Appellate Rulings:
As MCL 722.714 has specific venue provisions regarding where paternity actions may be initiated, and those provisions represent a legislatively declared principle of public policy, the statute does not infringe upon the Michigan Supreme Court’s constitutional authority to enact the court rules and MCL 722.714 controls.
After concluding that both Oakland and Gladwin had appropriate subject matter jurisdiction over this matter, the Court of Appeals considered the apparent conflict between MCL 722.714 (which requires a paternity action to be filed, if by a parent, in the county where the mother or child resides or, if by the State on behalf of a parent, child, and the State, in the county where the child resides) and MCR 3.204 (which requires a new action concerning a child to be filed in the same jurisdiction as any previously filed actions) presented by this case. Recognizing that, where a court rule and statue conflict, the court rule should yield where “a particular court rule contravenes a legislatively declared principle of public policy, having as its basis something other than court administration,” the Court of Appeals held that the venue provisions of MCL 722.714 would and should prevail over the requirements of MCR 3.204.
The Court of Appeals reasoned that MCL 722.714 “addresses the public policy of providing support for children born out of wedlock and…The venue provision itself is a declaration of legislative intent that paternity determinations, which involve the familial relations and financial support obligations owed to minor children, shall in this instance be made in the county where the child resides, as opposed to some other jurisdiction potentially long distant from the child’s place of residence.” The Court of Appeals noted ACR was not born in Oakland County and had never resided there, as well as noting how “grossly inefficient” it would be to require Mother to have to travel to Oakland County, a county she had not resided in for years, to initiate proceedings to gain support for ACR. The Court of Appeals further was not persuaded that the venue provisions or the Paternity Act itself were limited to simply procedural issues, as “the matters underlying the procedures the legislature establishes very often involve matters of substantive public policy, as they do in this case.”
The FOC did not have the authority to file a motion to dismiss.
The Court of Appeals noted the various duties of the FOC, to support the purpose of the FOC as defined by MCL 552.501(2), were limited to “dissemination of information to the parties or the investigation and compilation of facts for use by the circuit court judge,” “enforce[ment of] support orders, orders for the payment of healthcare expenses, custody orders, and parenting-time orders,” and “[i]n existing FOC cases in which a complaint has alleged custody or parenting-time violations, the FOC may file motions with the circuit court for a modification of existing parenting-time provisions…[or] may also file postjudgment motions for the transfer of domestic relations actions.” The Court of Appeals held that, although the FOC’s motion to supplement the record in this matter would likely fall within its investigative and fact-finding duties, the requests to set aside the Trial Court’s findings and dismiss did not and thus the motion fell outside of the FOC’s statutory authority. The Court reasoned as such because the Trial Court had not yet entered an order regarding ACR’s support at the time the FOC filed its motion and because the Trial Court did not provide any caselaw or statutory authority to support its finding that the FOC’s motion was proper because the FOC was acting as an arm of the Trial Court.
The Court of Appeals thus reversed the Trial Court’s order dismissing the paternity complaint and remanded for reinstatement of the complaint, reinstatement of the Trial Court’s findings as to paternity, custody, and support, and for entry of an order of filiation.
