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The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that the Kalamazoo County Circuit Court improperly took jurisdiction over a father’s children and placed them in foster care because there was insufficient evidence of “educational neglect.”

The Kalamazoo Circuit Court properly assumed jurisdiction over the respondents’ children and placed them in foster care because a preponderance of the evidence demonstrated educational neglect, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled.

The parties, Plaintiff-Husband Richard W. Dorko and Defendant-Wife Shelby S. Dorko, were divorced in 2005. The court awarded Defendant-Wife half of the marital interest in Plaintiff-Husband’s retirement benefits and pension via a QDRO through his employment with General Motors.

Defendant Jeffrey Titus, convicted in 2002 by jury trial of the first-degree premeditated murders of Doug Estes and James Bennett, likes to spend time in litigation. We first wrote about him in Estes v Titus (July 2008) where the wife of Estes was trying to collect a wrongful death judgment from Titus who had transferred all his assets to his wife when they divorced. The Supreme Court ruled - with a caveat - that a property division in a divorce could be the subject of a Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act action. Speaker Law Firm wrote the amicus brief for the Family Law Section (the Supreme Court disagreed with our position, but the concurring opinion by Marilyn Kelly did agree with us).

Ineffective assistance of counsel is an incredibly difficult burden for a criminal defendant to prove – “to establish a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant must show that ‘counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness’ under prevailing professional norms and that there is a ‘reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.’” People v Gioglio, 296 Mich App 12 (2012), quoting Strickland v Washington, 466 US 668, 688, 694; 104 St Ct 2052; 80 L Ed 2d 674 (1984). People v Carver, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued August 29, 2017 (Docket No 328157), deals with the issue of the defense attorney who had knowledge of an essential expert witness, but failed to utilize this expert.

The COA issued another published opinion in a grandparenting time case. Geering v Robinson, issued June 13, 2017 (Docket 335794). In that case, the parents had divorced.

A recent premise liability case leaves this Speaker speechless.

The Court of Appeals released a published opinion addressing spousal support and attorney fees in divorce cases in Myland v Myland.

In Estes v Titus, a woman brought a wrongful death suit against the man who killed her husband. She obtains a judgment but when it came time to collect the wrongful death judgment, the man was in prison for the murder with no assets (because he had transferred all of his assets to his wife when they divorced after the wrongful death suit began).

The case of Barnes v. Jeudevine came out last summer, but is still worthy of discussion.