Divorce Judgment Challenge Properly Dismissed For Lack Of Jurisdiction

In this suit contesting the validity of a divorce judgment, the trial court correctly held that it did not have subject-matter jurisdiction and, as a result, properly granted the defendant’s motion for summary disposition, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled.

The parties in Oliver v Oliver (Docket No. 367128) were divorced in 2021. The Oakland County Circuit Court entered a divorce judgment, awarding the defendant sole legal and physical custody of the children, granting the plaintiff supervised parenting time with conditions, ordering the plaintiff to pay child support and dividing the marital estate. The plaintiff appealed that decision and the Court of Appeals affirmed (Docket No. 359539). When the case returned to the Oakland County trial court, the plaintiff filed a “motion to vacate [the] judgment, orders and to dismiss [the] case” under MCR 2.612(C)(1)(c) (intrinsic or extrinsic fraud, misrepresentation or other misconduct of an adverse party) and MCR 2.612(C)(1)(d) (judgment is void). The trial court denied the plaintiff’s motion, as well as her motion for reconsideration.

The plaintiff later filed the present lawsuit, in propria persona, against the defendant in Macomb County Circuit Court, seeking to “vacate a void judgment and collateral attack” under MCR 2.612(C)(1)(d). She claimed the Oakland County divorce judgment was void because the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. The defendant moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(4) (court lacks jurisdiction) and MCR 2.116(C)(7) (res judicata or collateral estoppel). The Macomb County trial court granted the defendant’s motion, finding it did not have subject-matter jurisdiction. The plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, which the Macomb County trial court denied.

The plaintiff appealed. She raised numerous arguments, including that the Oakland County divorce judgment was purportedly void and, therefore, subject to collateral attack.

The Court of Appeals disagreed in an unpublished per curiam opinion. Judge Anica Letica, Judge Kristina Robinson Garrett and Judge Kathleen A. Feeney were on the panel.

In its decision, the Court of Appeals pointed out that 1) the plaintiff filed her divorce complaint in Oakland County, although she was in Ohio at the time living with her mother and 2) the defendant was residing in the parties’ Oakland County marital home when the plaintiff filed the divorce complaint. As a result, the appeals court said the Oakland County Circuit Court had subject-matter jurisdiction over the divorce case.

Accordingly, the Macomb County trial court “did not err by concluding that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction,” the Court of Appeals said, noting the “underlying merits” of the plaintiff’s claim were “irrelevant” because the trial court “had no power to do anything but dismiss the action.”

After the Court of Appeals issued its decision, the plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, which was denied in an October 28, 2024 order.

No Macomb Jurisdiction

On appeal, the plaintiff “raise[d] 10 different issues …,” the Court of Appeals said at the outset of its opinion. “Plaintiff’s first five issues all relate to how the Oakland County circuit court judgment was purportedly void, and, therefore, subject to collateral attack.”

However, “these issues are not properly before this Court,” the Court of Appeals said. “The trial court did not address the underlying merits of the claims in plaintiff’s complaint because it instead dismissed the complaint due to a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. This Court is an error-correcting court. … Thus, the only issue properly before this Court is whether the trial court correctly granted defendant’s motion for summary disposition. The trial court did not err by concluding that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, the underlying merits of plaintiff’s claim were irrelevant because the court had no power to do anything but dismiss the action.”

The Court of Appeals explained that summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(4) is proper when the trial court “lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter,” noting that in divorce proceedings, the trial court “maintains continuing jurisdiction over child custody, child support, and parenting time.” Further, “when a tribunal of this state issues a support order, it retains continuing, exclusive jurisdiction over the support order when the obligor, obligee, or the child retain residence in Michigan,” the appeals court said, citing MCL 552.2205(1)(a).

While a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction was the “primary reason” the trial court dismissed the case, the plaintiff “does not directly or effectively address that particular ruling,” the Court of Appeals observed. “Her argument that defendant’s motion should have been denied because he failed to provide any documentary evidence is without merit. As previously noted, under MCR 2.116(C)(4), a court is to consider any documentary evidence submitted, plus the pleadings. … Consequently, if no documentary evidence is supplied, a court may render a ruling by review of the pleadings alone. Indeed, defendant averred in his motion for summary disposition that a lack of jurisdiction could be ascertained solely by review of plaintiff’s complaint.”

In addition, the plaintiff also cited – “with no supporting analysis” – MCL 767.3 and claimed this statute “somehow gave the trial court in the instant case authority to act,” the Court of Appeals continued. “MCL 767.3 and MCL 767.4 are known as the ‘one-man grand jury’ statutes. … These statutes are inapplicable because plaintiff’s cause of action was a civil action to void a prior judgment; it was not a criminal complaint. … [W]ith the complaint sounding solely as a civil action, it cannot be viewed as an attempt to invoke the one-man grand jury process.”

Other than the foregoing arguments, the plaintiff “fails to adequately address the merits of the trial court’s decision that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to hear plaintiff’s complaint,” the Court of Appeals explained. “Instead, plaintiff primarily focuses on how the Oakland judgment is void, how she was otherwise wronged in the Oakland action, or how summary disposition was not warranted under MCR 2.116(C)(7). Accordingly, plaintiff has failed to show how the trial court erred or how she is entitled to any relief; we therefore affirm.”

The Court of Appeals continued by noting that MCR 2.612(C) “provides the grounds upon which a party may seek relief from judgment.” Here, the Oakland County trial judge denied the plaintiff’s motion to vacate the divorce judgment, in addition to issuing other orders, and dismissed the case in November 2022, the appeals court pointed out. Then on April 10, 2023, the plaintiff filed the instant case in the Macomb County trial court calling it a “verified petition to vacate a void judgment and collateral attack under authority [of] Michigan [Court] Rule 2.612(C)(1)(d),” the appeals court said. She claimed the proceeding before the Oakland County Circuit Court Family Division judge “was void and sought relief from a Macomb County Circuit Court judge by vacating the Oakland County Circuit Court judge divorce judgment.”

It is “well established” that a party “cannot use a second proceeding to [collaterally] attack a tribunal’s decision in a previous proceeding …,” the Court of Appeals said. “Jurisdiction involves two concepts: subject-matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction. … Personal jurisdiction deals with the authority of the court to bind the particular parties to the action. … Since 1998, ‘[e]xcept as otherwise provided by law, the family division of [the] circuit court has sole and exclusive jurisdiction over’ divorce cases. … And for a court to obtain jurisdiction over a divorce case, one of the parties must meet the residency requirements set forth in MCL 552.9.”

The plaintiff filed her divorce complaint in Oakland County in 2020, while she was living in Ohio with her mother and the defendant was living in the marital home in Oakland County, the Court of Appeals observed. As a result, the Oakland County Circuit Court “had subject-matter jurisdiction over the parties’ divorce matter.”

Next, the Court of Appeals briefly turned to personal jurisdiction. “Certainly, plaintiff filing suit in the Oakland Circuit Court was an express consent to the personal jurisdiction of that court. … Because the Oakland County Circuit Court Family Division had jurisdiction over the divorce case, plaintiff could not ‘use a second proceeding to attack [its] decision in a previous proceeding ….’”

‘Judge Shopping’ Disallowed

In conclusion, the Court of Appeals said the plaintiff’s Macomb County lawsuit was also improper under MCR 2.613(B), which addresses the correction of error by other judges.

“This rule is the latest codification of this state’s longstanding rule that a judge has no jurisdiction to review, modify, or vacate the judgment of another coequal judge,” the Court of Appeals emphasized.

The policy behind the rule “requiring litigants to appear before the judge who made the judgment or order is that the original judge is best qualified to rule on the matter,” the Court of Appeals said, citing Huber v Frankenmuth Mutual Ins Co, 160 Mich App 568 (1987). “In addition, such a rule tends to preserve the dignity and stability of judicial action by preventing unhappy litigants from turning to other trial judges to have the judgment ‘reversed’ and by preventing ‘judge shopping.’”

“Yet,” the Court of Appeals concluded, “this is precisely what plaintiff did in this case after the Oakland County Circuit Court Family Division judge denied her motion to set aside the divorce judgment under MCR 2.612(C)(1)(d). Affirmed.”

[Editor’s Note: While the plaintiff’s state lawsuits were pending, the plaintiff also filed a federal civil action in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan against the attorneys, judges and Friend of the Court personnel involved in the divorce proceedings. The U.S. District Court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction (Docket No. 22-12665). The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished decision that modified the judgment to reflect that the dismissal was without prejudice (2024 WL 4367018).]