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Michigan Custody Factors (a) Through (l), Explained
Michigan courts decide contested custody by working through 12 lettered factors set out at MCL 722.23, running from (a) to (l). The statute assigns them no weights, so no single factor decides a case on its own, and a parent who is strong on most of them can still lose on the ones that carry the dispute.
Best interests of the child is defined at MCL 722.23 as the sum total of those 12 factors, to be considered, evaluated, and determined by the court. Reading them as they are actually written is the fastest way to see what evidence speaks to each one. The lettering matters too, because a judge, a Friend of the Court referee, and the other parent’s attorney will all refer to them that way. Custody is decided in circuit court alongside the rest of a Michigan family law case, and the same best-interest standard governs an initial order and a later request to change one.
The Factors About the Relationship Itself
Factor (a) looks at the love, affection, and other emotional ties existing between the parties involved and the child. Factor (b) looks at the capacity and disposition of each party to give the child love, affection, and guidance, and to continue the child’s education and raising in his or her religion or creed, if any. Both reach backward at evidence of what the relationship has actually been rather than what a parent intends it to become.
Factor (j) is the one most often argued and most often misunderstood. It asks about the willingness and ability of each party to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing parent-child relationship with the other parent. A 2016 amendment added a limit that matters a great deal. A court may not consider negatively, under this factor, any reasonable action a parent took to protect the child or themselves from sexual assault or domestic violence by the other parent.
That amendment closed a genuine trap. Before it, a parent who withheld contact for safety reasons could be scored down on the friendly-parent factor for doing so. The protection is narrow, covering reasonable protective action, and it is worth raising expressly rather than assuming a court will apply it on its own.
The Factors About Stability and Continuity
Factor (d) asks about the length of time the child has lived in a stable, satisfactory environment, and adds the desirability of maintaining continuity. Factor (e) asks about the permanence, as a family unit, of the existing or proposed custodial home. Factor (h) looks at the home, school, and community record of the child.
These three tend to favor whatever arrangement has been working, which is why the period between separation and the custody hearing often shapes the outcome more than anything argued at it. A temporary schedule that runs for a year is evidence under (d) and (e) by the time a judge reaches the merits.
The Custody Factors That Look at the Parents
Factor (c) asks about the capacity and disposition of each party to provide food, clothing, and medical care, or other remedial care recognized and permitted under Michigan law in place of medical care, along with other material needs. The alternative-care language reflects religious practice and is rarely at issue, but it is in the statute.
Factor (f) is the moral fitness of the parties, and Michigan courts read it narrowly, as conduct bearing on parenting rather than conduct a judge disapproves of. Factor (g) is the mental and physical health of the parties.
Factor (k) is domestic violence, regardless of whether the violence was directed against or witnessed by the child. The phrase “or witnessed by” is doing real work. Violence between the parents that the child saw is within the factor even where the child was never a target, which is a point parents routinely assume cuts the other way. Where safety is the immediate concern, a Michigan personal protection order runs on its own track and does not wait for the custody case.
Evidence organized against the lettered factors does its work long before a hearing date, and parents in Grand Traverse County and across Michigan can start organizing it now. We are glad to look at it with you before anything is filed. Call us at (800) 525-6386.
The Child’s Preference and the Catch-All
Factor (i) is the reasonable preference of the child, if the court considers the child to be of sufficient age to express preference. The statute sets no age. A judge typically speaks with the child privately rather than in open court, and the preference is one input rather than a decision.
Factor (l) is any other factor the court considers relevant to a particular custody dispute. It exists because the first 11 cannot anticipate every family, and it is where facts that do not fit elsewhere are argued.
Why the Custodial Environment Comes First
The factors are not always the first question. Where a court is asked to change an existing custody order, MCL 722.27(1)(c) bars it from changing an established custodial environment unless clear and convincing evidence shows the change is in the child’s best interest.
The statute defines that environment. It is established where, over an appreciable time, the child naturally looks to the custodian in that environment for guidance, discipline, the necessities of life, and parental comfort. Age, physical environment, and the inclination of the custodian and child as to permanency are all considered, and an environment can exist with both parents at once.
I often get asked which factor matters most, and the statute does not answer that. The more useful question in a modification case is whether an established custodial environment exists at all, because that determines the standard of proof before any factor is reached.
Building a Custody Record Factor by Factor
A custody case is won on evidence organized factor by factor, and the record that a judge weighs is built long before the hearing. At Neumann Law Group, we represent parents in Michigan child custody matters from the temporary order through modification. We are happy to talk it through with you. Call (800) 525-6386 or contact our office.