Oakland County Family Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca has to be feeling partly vindicated this morning in the wake of the Michigan Supreme Court's disposition of her judicial tenure matter. Judge Gorcyca challenged the findings and suspension recommendation of the Judicial Tenure Commission last year, appealing to the state's highest court.

The well-known case against Judge Gorcyca arose from her July 2015 decision in a post-judgment divorce matter involving the Tsimhoni family. Frustrated with a patent case of parental alienation and contempt of her court orders, Judge Gorcyca ordered the three Tsimhoni children confined to Children's Village.

Her fateful decision to incarcerate the Tsimhoni children, well within her powers as a family court judge, precipitated the judical tenure complaint. Yesterday, the Supreme Court summarized her predicament in Justice Brian Zhara's 54-page opinion:

The record is clear that as early as August 2010 these children embarked on a concerted effort to thwart meaningful interaction with their father and continued to do so despite respondent’s orders to the contrary. Regardless of their age, there is no question that during the intervening years, each child knew they were supposed to have visitation with their father. And any person old enough to engage in this deliberately defiant behavior over a five-year period must appreciate that they could be called before the court to account for their actions.

Finding that she performed due diligence and acted in good faith in the Tsimhoni divorce, the Michigan Supreme Court declined to suspend Judge Gorcyca, opting to censure her instead. Here is the crux of the High Court's rationale:

In this case...respondent’s decision to hold the children in contempt was an isolated instance of legal error. But we find it more significant that the errors—holding LT in contempt and giving the father the keys to the jailhouse— could have been remedied on appeal, that the errors were made with the parties’ knowledge, and that the parties failed to object to the orders. Further, in this tense court hearing, the children each had a lawyer present as well as the LGAL. The record also reflects that an FOC counselor was in the courtroom as well as an assistant prosecuting attorney. None of the lawyers or trained professionals in the courtroom suggested that respondent’s actions crossed the line nor did they offer alternative actions for the court’s consideration. For these reasons, we cannot conclude that respondent’s decisions are fairly characterized as “willful failure[s] to observe the law.” Respondent had the statutory authority to hold any contemptuous person in contempt of court, and it certainly appears that at least RT and NT blatantly defied the court’s order. As previously discussed, respondent may even have had authority to hold LT in contempt for encouraging his younger siblings’ contemptuous behavior, but we need not decide that question because even if that was not the basis of respondent’s contempt order, it is clear that respondent did not act in willful disregard of the law.

Justice Zahra is perhaps the ideal jurist to author this opinion. He is, as far as we know, the only justice on the High Court bench with judicial experience on the family court.

In several of our previous posts on this topic, here, here, and here, the Law Blogger has maintained that, at worst, Judge Gorcyca's decision in this fateful case amounted to legal error. Legal error can and should be addressed by the Michigan Court of Appeals, not the Judicial Tenure Commission.

If you are in Judge Gorcyca's camp on this issue -and the overwhelming majority of the family court bar is- then this opinion comes as a relief. Oral arguments in the case did not go particularly well for Tom Cranmer, Judge Gorcyca's lawyer; it really looked like the Supreme Court was leaning into a suspension to resolve the case.

In our opinion here at the Law Blogger, the Supreme Court made the correct ruling. Judges like Lisa Gorcyca are valuable members of the family court. Family Court judges cannot prosecute their dockets by looking over their shoulder to see whether a good faith legal ruling will wind-up entangling the judge in a judicial tenure matter.

Post #601
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Mom and Dad Tsimhoni

Judges must be fair and impartial despite the intense family emotions that swirl about their case load. The judicial system depends on that bedrock principle.

When you file a case in one of the county family courts here in Michigan, the county clerk that processes the complaint utilizes a blind draw system to assign your judge. This means that litigants cannot select the judge assigned to their case.

Sometimes, family court litigants are viscerally dissatisfied with the judge assigned to their case, especially when the judge makes decisions adverse to their interests. In every case, the family court judge will upset one of the two parents embroiled in a custody or parenting battle.

Judges are required to remain neutral, unbiased finders of fact; these judges are charged with determining the best interests of the minor children in every case. From time to time, a parent believes that the judge has lost their impartiality and claims that their judge is personally invested in their case to the point of bias.

When these allegations surface, one option available to family court litigants is to file a motion to disqualify the judge. If a family court judge denies such a motion, then the offended litigant can file the motion with the chief judge of the circuit court.

Recently, this procedure played-out in the high-profile, high-conflict Tsimhoni divorce. The mother attempted to disqualify Judge Lisa Gorcyca after her three children spent their summer in Children's Village and at a court-ordered juvenile camp, and more-recently, after she lost custody of the children to her ex-husband.

After these adverse rulings, and after she changed lawyers for about the 10th time, mother filed the motion to DQ the judge, and Judge Gorcyca denied the requested relief, refusing to step down from the case. Among the thousands of cases on the open family court docket in Oakland County, this one stands-out due to mother's severe parental alienation against the father.

Mother's new lawyer filed an appeal with Oakland Circuit's Judge Nanci Grant, the chief judge of the court.

Now, as this parental alienation case blew-up in the national media because both parents refused to work together as co-parents, they tossed it into the lap of the Oakland County Family Court where Judge Nanci Grant has recused herself from hearing the appeal of mother's attempt to disqualify Judge Gorcyca.

This was a very strategic move by the veteran Oakland County chief judge. Now that she has recused herself, the case goes before the plenary court to determine whether any of the remaining judges wish to take the case.  We don't think there will be any takers.

If none of the judges on the Oakland County Circuit Court want this steaming pile of horse dung, it goes to the family court judges of an adjacent county like Wayne, Genesee or Macomb County Circuit Courts.

The parents now need to bury the hatchet and regain control of their family for the sake of their children.

One of the best kept secrets of the family court is that the judges are powerless if the parents agree on a plan going forward. If they cannot agree, then they judges have the power to control every aspect of of their family life.

It is exceedingly difficult and rare to successfully bring a motion to disqualify a judge. For the most part, family court litigants are stuck with the "luck-of-the-draw" where judicial case assignments are concerned.

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Post #502

Judge Lisa Gorcyca

November 25 is recognized in Michigan and Oakland County as Adoption Day. Accordingly, there were events scheduled to commemorate the event in the Oakland County Family Court, including a visit by Michigan Supreme Court Justice Brian Zahra, who presented a resolution of the Michigan Supreme Court officially recognizing Adoption Day in Oakland County.

Oakland County Family Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca presided over the event, and then performed an adoption for April DeBoer, who adopted her third child.  Ms. DeBoer is one-half of the same-sex couple that have garnered headlines for challenging Michigan's adoption law, which disallows adoptions by same-sex couples.

This blog has followed the same-sex couple's federal case, now heading to the SCOTUS, as it has wound its way through the federal court system  -starting in Detroit, then Cincinnati, and now Washington, D.C.-  picking-up lots of public interest along the way.   Currently, their case is getting briefed right here in Oakland County and oral arguments likely will be scheduled before the Supreme Court for late spring or early fall.

In granting the adoption, Judge Gorcyca, looking beyond the politics of DeBoer's case, said, "I've had a chance to follow the love you feel for your entire family.  If they prevail in their adoption case, Ms. DeBoer and her partner, Jayne Rowse, will be able to jointly adopt the four adopted children living in their Hazel Park home.  Presently, the couple must adopt the children independent of one another.

Even the couple's opponent in their high-profile case, the Michigan Attorney General, has acknowledged that DeBoer and Rowse are excellent  parents.  As noted by Ms. DeBoer at her recent adoption proceeding, she feels the love and acceptance in Judge Gorcyca's courtroom, but when she walks out the door, she is jarred by the reality that she, her partner and their adopted children are not recognized as a legal family.

We here at the Law Blogger hope that will change soon. Should the change come from our Legislature, or from the High Court; that is the real question.

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