Plaintiff
Flaintiff is the biological mother of three older children. On February 22, 2008, in a separate case, the trial court terminated plaintiffs parental rights to these three children.
On appeal, plaintiff argues that Michigan law provides for a cause of action for sibling visitation and, thus, the trial court improperly dismissed her case. Without determining whether Michigan provides for a cause of action for sibling visitation, we nevertheless conclude that the trial court did not err by dismissing plaintiffs case.
At the motion hearing on plaintiffs request for a default judgment, the trial court sua sponte dismissed plaintiffs case because the court concluded that Michigan law did not recognize a cause of action for sibling visitation. Even though the trial court never cited any court rule, we conclude that the trial court’s pronouncement that plaintiff had failed to state a “recognized cause of action” is synonymous with failing to state a claim on which relief can be granted.
We review a trial court’s granting of summary disposition de novo. Maiden v Rozwood, 461 Mich 109, 118; 597 NW2d 817 (1999). A motion under MCR 2.116(C)(8) tests the legal sufficiency of the complaint by the pleadings alone. Id. at 119. All well-pleaded factual allegations are accepted as true and construed in a light most favorable to the plaintiff. Id. “A motion under MCR 2.116(C)(8) may be granted only where the claims alleged are so clearly unenforceable as a matter of law that no factual development could possibly justify recovery.” Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted).
MCL 710.60 is “commonly referred to as the effect-of-adoption statute,” Jones v Slick, 242 Mich App 715, 720; 619 NW2d 733 (2000), and it currently provides, in relevant part:
After the entry of an order of adoption, if the adoptee’s name is changed, the adoptee shall be known and called by the new name. The person or persons adopting the adoptee then become the parent or parents of the adoptee under the law as though the adopted person had been bom to the adopting parents and are hable for all the duties and entitled to all the rights of parents. [MCL 710.60(1), as amended by 2006 PA 352,][5 ]
In analyzing MCL 710.60 in light of the CCA in a case
The effect of MCL 710.60(1) is to make the adopted child, as much as possible, a natural child of the adopting parents, and to make the adopting parents, as much as possible, the natural parents of the child. The Michigan adoption scheme expresses a policy of severing, at law, the prior, natural family relationship and creating a new and complete substitute relationship after adoption. Once a child has a new, complete family as evidenced by adoption, the grandparent visitation statute, MCL 722.27b, ceases to apply. [In re Toth, 227 Mich App 548, 553; 577 NW2d 111 (1998) (citations omitted).]
It is undisputed in this case that defendant legally adopted Mac’s three older biological siblings. This adoption legally severed, at law, the three older children’s “prior, natural family relationship” and created “a new and complete substitute relationship after adoption.” Id. At law, it is as though the three older children had been bom to defendant. MCL 710.60(1). Thus, defendant’s adoption of the three older children legally severed their sibling relationship with Mac. Consequently, even if a cause of action to obtain sibling visitation exists,
Affirmed.
Although the minor, Mac Sconi, is seeking visitation rights with his biological siblings, we refer to his mother, Marquita Wilson, as plaintiff throughout the opinion.
We affirmed the trial court’s termination in In re Wilson, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued October 21, 2008 (Docket Nos. 284357, 284358, 284359, and 284360).
MCR 2.116(C)(8) provides that a defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law if the plaintiff “has failed to state a claim on which relief can he granted.”
MCR 2.116(I)(1) allows a trial court to sua sponte grant summary disposition. Al-Maliki v LaGrant, 286 Mich App 483, 485; 781 NW2d 853 (2009).
Jones addressed MCL 710.60(1) as amended by 1996 PA 409, hut the changes made by the 2006 amendment were essentially stylistic and would not have affected the analysis.
We stress that we are offering no opinion on the viability of such a claim.