Pasupuleti v. Murdaugh

NAVEEN CHANDRA PASUPULETI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ASHLEY MURDAUGH, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 358384

Court of Appeals of Michigan

May 5, 2022

UNPUBLISHED

Oakland Circuit Court LC No. 2019-872184-DP

Before: Letica, P.J., and Redford and Rick, JJ.

PER CURIAM

In this child-custody action, plaintiff-father, Naveen Chandra Pasupuleti, appeals as of right the trial court's opinion and order awarding joint legal and physical custody of their three-year-old child, KK, to himself and defendant-mother Ashley Murdaugh. We affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

After KK's birth in December 2016, the parties lived together and raised KK jointly until the summer of 2018, when they separated. Thereafter, KK spent substantial periods of time with both parents.

Father initiated this custody action by filing a complaint alleging that (1) mother "has a history of heavy marijuana use"; (2) after the parties separated, father had KK tested for marijuana on several occasions^[1]; (3) twice over the course of three months, KK had "tested positive for THC^[2] as a result of exposure to marijuana in Mother's care"; (4) during that same timeframe, father had tested negative for THC; (5) "on or about March 22, 2019," father confronted mother regarding KK's positive drug-test results, and thereafter, mother did "her utmost to destroy the father-child relationship by depriving Father and the child of any contact with each other." Father sought an order granting him sole legal and physical custody of KK, with "limited and/or supervised" parenting time for mother "given her incessant use of marijuana in the presence of the minor child." In her answer, mother admitted that she had used marijuana medicinally in the past and that KK was born with THC in his system. She denied "heavy" marijuana use and asserted that she "ha[d] never smoked marijuana in the presence of the minor child." Mother also asserted that an order of sole custody in favor of father would not serve KK's best interests. The matter proceeded to a three-day bench trial.^[3]

Mother, age 33 at the time of trial, has two other children. Her oldest child, JA, was 15 years old at the time of trial, and her middle child, LM, was 14 years old.

Father, age 38, was hospitalized in 2018 with Guillain-Barré Syndrome ("GBS"), which initially resulted in paralysis from the chest level but has steadily improved over time. Father is also actively recovering from alcoholism. He testified that he no longer uses a walker, is able to climb stairs independently, and has no problem "chasing [KK] around[.]" At the time of trial, father was attending college and expected to graduate with a bachelor's degree in May 2020. Although father was not formally employed, he helped his parents in his father's medical office, assisted them with household chores, and aided them in managing several "properties" that they own. His parents pledged to support father financially until he fully recovers from GBS.

KK's paternal grandmother testified that she is "a homemaker" and "help[s] [her] husband," a neurologist, "in his medical office." They have a large three-story home in Grand Blanc. Father lives there with KK when the child is in father's custody. KK's three paternal aunts often visit him there. KK has his own bedroom and the home is "alcohol free."

After mother separated from father, she moved out of their shared apartment and "directly into the residence of [her] current boyfriend, Brian Watson," with whom she was engaged at the time of trial. She knew that Watson had some prior convictions, but was unaware of "what those convictions were for[.]" During these proceedings, mother and Watson moved into a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house in Flint, which KK's maternal grandmother owned. At the time of trial, JA and LM shared one bedroom in that house, KK had "his own bedroom," and mother and Watson shared a bedroom.

Father asserted that he was unaware that mother used marijuana while pregnant with KK until he "caught her" smoking in their bedroom at some point during the pregnancy. It is undisputed that KK "was born with marijuana in his system" in 2016.

At trial, mother admitted that she continued to use marijuana "at least twice a week," but denied any marijuana use while KK was in her custody. Mother also denied that she smoked marijuana in her home or her car, claiming that she only smoked it outside. She explained that she had a medical-marijuana card and used marijuana to treat her issues with depression and anxiety.

The trial court found that KK had an established custodial environment with both father and mother and awarded them "joint legal and joint physical custody of the minor child with [father] having primary residence . . . [.]" The trial court also determined that it was in the child's best interests for father to continue to exercise parenting time on an "alternating weekly" basis and for the parties to alternate major holidays on an annual basis. This appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

A. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

On appeal, father raises several claims of error, which we review under varying standards. "Under the Child Custody Act, MCL 722.21 et seq., 'all orders and judgments of the circuit court shall be affirmed on appeal unless the trial judge made findings of fact against the great weight of evidence or committed a palpable abuse of discretion or a clear legal error on a major issue.'" Pierron v Pierron, 486 Mich. 81, 85; 782 N.W.2d 480 (2010) (Pierron II), citing MCL 722.28. "Whether an established custodial environment exists is a question of fact to which the great weight of the evidence standard applies." Kubicki v Sharpe, 306 Mich.App. 525, 540; 858 N.W.2d 57 (2014). "Under the great weight of the evidence standard, a reviewing court defers to the trial court's credibility determinations, and the trial court's factual findings should be affirmed unless the evidence clearly preponderates in the opposite direction." Pierron II, 486 Mich. at 96. Custody decisions are discretionary rulings that this Court reviews for an abuse of discretion. Vodvarka v Grasmeyer, 259 Mich.App. 499, 507-508; 675 N.W.2d 847 (2003). By incorrectly choosing, interpreting, or applying the law, a trial court commits clear legal error. Id. at 508.

This Court also reviews for an abuse of discretion "a trial court's decision on whether to compel discovery." Sarkar v Doe, 318 Mich.App. 156, 167; 897 N.W.2d 207 (2016). "An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court's decision falls outside the range of reasonable and principled outcomes," Smith v Smith, 278 Mich.App. 198, 207; 748 N.W.2d 258 (2008), or, "for purposes of a child custody determination, . . . when the result is so palpably and grossly violative of fact and logic that it evidences a perversity of will, a defiance of judgment, or the exercise of passion or bias," Butler v Simmons-Butler, 308 Mich.App. 195, 201; 863 N.W.2d 677 (2014). However, "[a] decision on a close evidentiary question ordinarily cannot be an abuse of discretion." Morales v State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co, 279 Mich.App. 720, 729; 761 N.W.2d 454 (2008) (quotation marks and citation omitted).

B. MOTION TO COMPEL DISCOVERY

We first address father's argument that the trial court abused its discretion by denying his pretrial motion to compel mother to produce copies of the school report cards for her other children, JA and LM. Assuming that the requested report cards were not privileged, ^[4] the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying father access to them on relevancy grounds. And even if the trial court had abused its discretion, the error was harmless.

"It is well settled that Michigan follows an open, broad discovery policy that permits liberal discovery of any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending case." Augustine v Allstate Ins Co, 292 Mich.App. 408, 419; 807 N.W.2d 77 (2011) (quotation marks and citation omitted; emphasis added). As our Supreme Court explained in Hardrick v Auto Club Ins Ass'n, 294 Mich.App. 651, 667; 819 N.W.2d 28 (2011):

Relevant evidence is evidence "having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." MRE 401 (emphasis added). Relevance divides into two components: materiality and probative value. Material evidence relates to a fact of consequence to the action. A material fact need not be an element of a crime or cause of action or defense but it must, at least, be "in issue" in the sense that it is within the range of litigated matters in controversy. Materiality looks to the relation between the propositions that the evidence is offered to prove and the issues in the case. If the evidence is offered to help prove a proposition that is not a matter in issue, the evidence is immaterial. [Quotations marks, citations, and alterations omitted.]

"The controlling consideration in child custody disputes between parents is the best interests of the children," Lombardo v Lombardo, 202 Mich.App. 151, 159-160; 507 N.W.2d 788 (1993), and when considering that issue, a trial court "must consider and explicitly state its findings and conclusions with regard to each [best-interest] factor" enumerated by MCL 722.23, Thompson v Thompson, 261 Mich.App. 353, 357; 683 N.W.2d 250 (2004). Among others, those factors include:

(b) The capacity and disposition of the parties involved to give the child love, affection, and guidance and to continue the education and raising of the child in his or her religion or creed, if any.

(h) The home, school, and community record of the child.

(1) Any other factor considered by the court to be relevant to a particular child custody dispute. [

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