The trial court’s decision to deny the plaintiffs’ adoption petitions must be vacated and the case remanded because the trial court made several errors during discovery.

The Superintendent of the Michigan Children’s Institute did not arbitrarily deny consent for the petitioners to adopt a child for whom they had served as foster parents.

The trial court in this adoption case improperly denied the petitioners’ motion for discovery and wrongly quashed subpoenas that were issued to the DHHS and Bethany Christian Services.

A mother’s parental rights were properly terminated in this stepparent adoption case because the termination was supported by clear and convincing evidence.

Adoption appeals frequently involve situations that require immediate action by the courts, which means emergency motions must be filed.

A trial court did not err in terminating a father’s parental rights, thereby allowing a petition for stepparent adoption to proceed, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled.

A stepparent adoption petition was properly dismissed, because the mother did not have a court order establishing that she had custody of the child.

The trial court correctly ruled that the superintendent of the Michigan Children’s Institute “arbitrarily and capriciously” denied consent for the petitioner to adopt her niece.

An administrative law judge violated the petitioners’ due process rights by not letting them present their arguments at a hearing on the denial of a support subsidy for their adopted child.

The rulings are concerning for prospective adoptive parents because they allow putative fathers to stop an adoption in its tracks, by obtaining an order of filiation from the trial court.

The Michigan Court of Appeals issued the very first decision (published or unpublished) under the Safe Delivery of Newborn Law (SDNL), which has existed since 2000.

In In re LMB, the Court of Appeals held that entry of an order of filiation while an adoption appeal was pending mooted the adoption appeal.

We don’t think we are exaggerating the significance of two published opinions released by the Court of Appeals yesterday in In re MJG and In re JSP/In re BGP.

The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court decision to set aside the stepparent adoption of KJS due to the parties’ significant and positive fraud.

A Section 45 adoption case affirming the trial court's ruling that the decision of the Superintendent of the Michigan Children's Institute denying petitioners consent to adopt was not arbitrary and capricious.

Usually when appellate judges write opinions, it is based on the facts or the law or sometimes even public policy. And appellate judges, like appellate lawyers, usually present their opinions in a very restrained fashion.