Smith v. Schafer 

• Opinion Published 11/21/2023 (Gleicher, C.J., and Swartzle and Yates JJ.) 

• Docket No. 366473 

• Clinton County Circuit Court 

• Jordan Ahlers of the Speaker Law Firm represented the Appellee-Father 

Holding: The trial court gave a Georgia custody order proper effect by granting the parties joint legal custody while omitting the Georgia order’s tie-breaking authority provision. The Georgia order explicitly granted the parties joint legal custody, so the trial court’s order effectuating this order is not erroneous. Additionally, the Georgia order’s tie-breaking authority provision is not permissible under Michigan law, so the trial court did not err by removing that provision in its order.  

Facts: The parties divorced in Georgia and have one minor child. Pursuant to a Georgia court’s order, Mother was granted primary physical custody of the minor child, and the parties were given joint legal custody. However, Mother retained tie-breaking authority for when the parties explicitly disagreed on “major decisions,” such as the child’s education, non-emergency healthcare, religion, and extracurricular activities.  

Both parties and the minor child later moved to Michigan, and Father filed a petition in the trial court to register the Georgia custody order. Mother filed a motion to maintain the status quo under that order and requested the trial court modify the language of the Georgia judgment to reflect an award of “sole legal custody” to Mother. Mother argued under the Georgia order, she had sole legal custody because she retained tie-breaking authority. Father argued that the parties had joint legal custody under the Georgia because the Georgia court could have explicitly granted Motion sole legal custody, but instead it granted the parties joint legal custody with the tie-breaking authority provision. The trial court determined that the tie-breaking provision was not permitted in Michigan under Shulick v Richards, 273 Mich App 320; 729 NW2d 533 (2006) and ordered that the parties have joint legal custody. Mother appealed this determination.

Key Appellate Rulings:

The trial court correctly determined that joint legal custody under Michigan law is as close as possible to the Georgia court’s order granting joint legal custody to the parties with a tie-breaking provision granted to Mother.

The Court of Appeals stated that Father’s position that the trial court’s order enforcing joint legal custody is the status quo under the Georgia order is stronger for several reasons. First, the Georgia order explicitly stated that the parties have joint legal custody five times. Second, the tie-breaking authority only speaks to when the parties have aa explicit disagreement over major decisions, not day-to-day decisions. Under the Georgia order and the Michigan trial court’s order, Father retains the ability to take actions he could not take if he did not have legal custody, such as enroll the minor child in extracurricular activities. Thus, the trial court gave the Georgia order as much effect as it could by preserving the main objective of joint legal custody while removing the aspect of the Georgia order that is impermissible under Michigan law - the tie-breaking authority provision.