Background
Chloe Elizabeth Rice and Anthony Christopher Sorrentino are the parents of SS. A 2014 consent judgment awarded Rice sole legal and physical custody and granted Sorrentino reasonable parenting time. In February 2025, SS’s maternal grandmother, Jennifer Rice, took SS and her half-siblings into her home after SS reported that her intoxicated mother had assaulted her. The mother later pleaded guilty to domestic violence.
SS was subsequently placed with the father of one of her half-siblings under a limited power of attorney. After Sorrentino moved to modify custody and parenting time, the grandmother sought to intervene and obtain custody. The circuit court denied intervention because she did not satisfy MCL 722.26c, which governs when a third person may initiate a custody action.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed. It explained that the circuit court’s reasoning was imprecise because the father’s motion had already placed a custody dispute before the court. MCL 722.26c limits a third party’s ability to initiate a custody action, while MCL 722.27(1)(a) permits a court resolving an existing dispute to award custody to a third person if the child’s best interests support that result.
Nevertheless, the grandmother could not intervene because a proposed intervenor must independently have standing. She was not SS’s guardian and did not satisfy the statutory standing requirements of MCL 722.26c. The court distinguished cases involving third parties defending an existing custodial placement because the grandmother sought custody she did not already have. Although she could not become a party, the circuit court remained authorized to award her custody under MCL 722.27(1)(a) if it found that placement to be in SS’s best interests.
Key Takeaways
- A pending custody dispute does not itself give a third party standing to intervene.
- A third party seeking intervention must establish standing under the Child Custody Act, even though the court may award custody to a nonparty third person.
- A third-party custodian defending an existing placement stands differently from a person seeking to obtain custody for the first time.
Why It Matters
The decision separates a court’s authority to place a child with a third person from that person’s right to participate as a party. Michigan practitioners representing grandparents or other nonparents must establish statutory standing before seeking intervention, even when the parents have already placed custody at issue.
At the same time, denying intervention does not eliminate the third person as a potential placement. The circuit court may still award custody to that person if the statutory best-interest analysis supports it.