Court Opinion

ID: 9662533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:12:11.792905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:40.433144
License: Public Domain

W. R. Peterson, J.
(concurring). I concur separately, not out of disagreement with my brothers’ application of Ruppel v Lesner, 421 Mich 559; 364 NW2d 665 (1984), but because I am left uneasy by Ruppel v Lesner, itself. That opinion states what I consider to be an overbroad denial of the existence of original jurisdiction of the circuit courts over children, a jurisdiction which I have always believed to exist except where legislatively or constitutionally denied. See Sovereign v Sovereign, 354 Mich 65; 92 NW2d 585 (1958), since which Const 1963, art 6, § 131 has substantially readopted Const 1908, art 7, § 10. I do not read the Child Custody Act, 1970 PA 91; MCL 722.21 et seq.; MSA 25.312 et seq., or any other legislative enactment to restrict the jurisdiction which Sovereign recognized. I would thus read most of Ruppel v Lesner, as dictum deserving more thorough consideration in an appropriate case.
The instant matter may be affirmed because the circuit court’s jurisdiction was preempted by the adoption proceedings initiated by the probate court, a subject matter over which the probate courts are given exclusive jurisdiction.

 The circuit court shall have original jurisdiction in all matters not prohibited by law ....