Grandparents Lack Standing When Parental Rights Are Terminated

By: Amanda Chapman

A recent 2-1 Michigan Court of Appeals decision published earlier this month, Porter v Hill, ruled that when a “natural” parent’s rights to their child are terminated, the grandparents rights are terminated along with the parents.  This ruling seems to conflict with the Child Custody Act.

The heart of this controversial ruling centers on the definition, or lack thereof, of “natural” parent vs “legal” parent.  At least for now, grandparents are out-of-luck, and this ruling will inflict some pain on select families.

In the Porter case, the bio-Mom and Dad were married with two children.  Mr. Porter’s parental rights to the children were involuntarily terminated as a result of physical abuse.  The parties were subsequently divorced.  Mr. Porter passed away, and his parents (the children’s paternal biological grandparents) then filed suit in Saginaw Circuit Court for grandparenting time with their grandchildren. 

Mother filed a motion for summary disposition, attempting to keep her ex-husband’s parents from establishing rights with her children.  Mother’s legal theory was that the grandparents did not have standing, or a legal cause of action under these facts. 

Mother’s dispositive motion asserted that when father’s parental rights were terminated that, in turn, meant that any rights grandparents may have had under the grandparenting provisions of the Child Custody Act had been severed as well.  The trial court reluctantly granted mother’s motion for summary disposition, openly acknowledging this case would be appealed to the Supreme Court. 

   

It is important to note that no determinations have been made, either in the trial court or the appellate court, as to the relative fitness of the Plaintiff-Grandparents, or whether granting grandparenting time would be in the best interests of the children.

A summary disposition motion is a dispositive motion that attempts to dismiss the case before it proceeds through discover and onward to trial.  The only question considered in this instance was whether the grandparents had a legal cause of action (otherwise known as “standing”) to bring the case in the first place.

Michigan’s Child Custody Act includes a section pertaining to grandparenting time which provides that

[a] child’s grandparent may seek a grandparenting time order under 1 or more of the following circumstances:…  (c) The child’s parent who is a child of the grandparents is deceased.

The statute defines “parent” as “the natural or adoptive parent of a child.”  “Grandparent” is defined as “a natural or adoptive parent of the child’s natural or adoptive parent.  

The Court of Appeals affirmed the family court’s decision, holding:

Russell was not a legal parent of the children…  Plaintiffs, as Russell’s parents, derived their rights as grandparents through him. 

The court further stated that

it would be anomalous for the Legislature to authorize a court to terminate a person’s parental rights based on abuse but then to somehow “revive” those rights for purposes of grandparent visitation.

Interestingly, Judge Mark Boonstra authored a dissenting opinion.  First, Judge Boonstra noted that:

[T]he Legislature’s use of the phrase natural parent and its affording to a grandparent of a right to seek grandparenting time independent of parental rights and notwithstanding parental desires…indicate both the plaintiffs …substantial interest in this case and that the statutory scheme at least implies that the Legislature intended to confer standing on the plaintiffs.

Next, Judge Boonstra pointed out that the statute:

permits a ‘natural parent’ of a ‘natural parent’ to seek grandparenting time…and there is no dispute here that plaintiffs were the ‘natural parents’ of Russell. The only question before us, therefore, is whether Russell was a ‘natural parent’ of the minor children.

The dissent further goes on to elucidate the fact that the Child Custody Act does not provide a definition for natural parent.  The words of a statute provide the most reliable indicator of the Legislature’s intent and should be interpreted on the basis of their ordinary meaning and context in which they are used.   An undefined statutory word must be accorded its plain and ordinary meaning…    

In Porter, the grandparents argued that natural parent should be interpreted as equivalent to biological parent.  The dissenting opinion supports this interpretation on the basis of the plain and ordinary meaning of the word “natural” according to the Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (1991) which defines it as “related by blood rather than by adoption.”  Further, the dissent goes on the use Black’s Law Dictionary (9^th ed) definition of “natural” as “relating to birth” as in a “natural child as distinguished from [an] adopted child.”

The majority opinion based their ruling on equating a natural parent to be the equivalent of a legal parent.   Yet, the dissent astutely pointed out that the basis of such a determination does not coincide with the plain and ordinary meaning of the word term “natural,” and in fact the term is much more in-line as being similar to plaintiffs’ proffered “biological” term.  The dissent contends that “natural parent must connote something more and different than simply having “legal” parental rights.”

Some local family law lawyers have opined that the majority of the Court of Appeals got this one dead wrong.  For now, however, the majority decision stands.

In its decision, the intermediate appellate court asks the Legislature to clarify their intended meaning of the term natural parent; let's not hold our breath.    

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