In re Deng, Docket No. 328826.

• Decision Date: 22 March 2016
• Docket Number: Docket No. 328826.
• Citation: 887 N.W.2d 445,314 Mich.App. 615
• Parties: In re DENG.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

314 Mich.App. 615

887 N.W.2d 445

In re DENG.

Docket No. 328826.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted March 2, 2016, at Detroit.

Decided March 22, 2016, at 9:05 a.m.

Speaker Law Firm, PLLC, Lansing (by Liisa R. Speaker), William A. Forsyth, Prosecuting Attorney, and James K. Benison, Chief Appellate Attorney, for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Terese A. Paletta for Jasmine K. Thuc.

Before: SAAD, P.J., and SAWYER and HOEKSTRA, JJ.

HOEKSTRA, J.

In these child protective proceedings under the juvenile code, MCL 712A.1 et seq., respondent appeals by leave granted a dispositional order requiring that respondent's children receive physician-recommended vaccinations

. Because the trial court has the authority to make medical decisions over a respondent's objections to vaccination for children under its jurisdiction and the court did not clearly err by determining that vaccination was appropriate for the welfare of respondent's children and society, we affirm.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Respondent and her husband have four children together, all under the age of six. Following a hearing on December 23, 2014, respondent and her husband were both adjudicated as unfit parents. The facts leading to this adjudication included periods of homelessness and unstable housing, failure to provide financial support and food for the children, improper supervision of the children, and respondent's mental-health and substance-abuse issues, including suicidal ideation prompting respondent's hospitalization. Given these circumstances, the trial court found by a preponderance of the evidence that statutory grounds existed to exercise jurisdiction over the children pursuant to MCL 712A.2(b)(1) and (2). The children were made temporary wards of the court and placed in out-of- home foster care. Respondent and her husband both received a case service plan, with the aim of reuniting the family.

At a permanency planning hearing on June 3, 2015, the foster care worker assigned to the case requested an order from the trial court requiring the children to be vaccinated. Respondent objected to vaccination

on religious grounds.¹ The trial court granted petitioner's request for vaccination

, but afforded respondent an opportunity to file written objections and to present evidence at a hearing. At the evidentiary hearing, respondent testified regarding her religious objections to vaccination, and the trial court also heard medical testimony from the children's pediatrician, who testified regarding the benefits of immunization, both to protect the children from disease and to protect society by preventing of the spread of disease. The pediatrician opined that the benefits of vaccination outweighed the risks, and she specified that vaccinations were recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Following the hearing, the trial court issued a written opinion and order, requiring the physician-recommended vaccinations

over respondent's religious objections. The trial court indicated that it would “assume” that respondent's religious objections were sincere. But despite the sincerity of her objections, the trial court nonetheless concluded that respondent could not prevent the inoculation of her children on religious grounds because she had been adjudicated as unfit and had thus “forfeited the right” to make vaccination decisions for her children. In particular, the trial court noted that MCL 712A.18(1)(f) and MCL 722.124a afford the court authority to direct the medical care of a child within the court's jurisdiction, so that it fell to the court, and not respondent, to make medical decisions, including immunization decisions. In this context, although parents generally enjoy the right to prevent vaccinations

on religious grounds under MCL 333.9215(2) and MCL 722.127, the trial court reasoned that these provisions did not apply to parents who had been adjudicated as “unfit.” Apart from these specific statutory provisions, the trial court determined that, more generally, respondent could not a raise constitutional challenge to vaccination because Free Exercise Clause challenges to vaccinations have been routinely rejected by the courts and, in any event, after being adjudicated as unfit, respondent did not have “the same level of constitutional rights of child-rearing decisions for her children in care as a fit parent would....” Ultimately, the trial court concluded that it had authority to order vaccination over respondent's objections. Because it concluded that the giving of vaccines would benefit the children and society, the trial court entered an order for the children to receive the physician-recommended vaccinations.

Respondent filed an application for leave to appeal and a motion for immediate consideration, both of which we granted.² Pending the outcome of this appeal, the trial court has stayed enforcement of its inoculation order.

On appeal, respondent argues that she has the right to object to the vaccination

of her children on religious grounds and that the trial court therefore erred by entering an order requiring the vaccination of her children. Relying on MCL 722.127 and briefly citing provisions in the Public Health Code, MCL 333.1101 et seq., respondent primarily claims a statutory right to object to the vaccination

of her children. Interwoven with this statutory argument, respondent also emphasizes that that she has a protected liberty interest in religious freedom and the determination of the care, custody, and nurturance of her children. According to respondent, under the principles set forth in Hunter v. Hunter, 484 Mich. 247, 771 N.W.2d 694 (2009), her rights survived even after she had been adjudicated unfit. Consequently, respondent contends that she has an ongoing right under MCL 722.127 to object to the vaccination

of her children on the basis of her sincerely held religious beliefs.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW AND RULES OF STATUTORY INTERPRETATION

A trial court's dispositional orders, entered after the court assumes jurisdiction over the child, “are afforded considerable deference on appellate review[.]” In re Sanders, 495 Mich. 394, 406, 852 N.W.2d 524 (2014). While dispositional orders must be “ ‘appropriate for the welfare of the juvenile and society in view of the facts proven and ascertained,’ ” they will not be set aside unless clearly erroneous. Id., quoting MCL 712A.18(1) ; see also In re Macomber, 436 Mich. 386, 399, 461 N.W.2d 671 (1990). Likewise, any factual findings underlying the trial court's decision are reviewed for clear error. In re Morris, 300 Mich.App. 95, 104, 832 N.W.2d 419 (2013). To the extent the trial court's order in this case implicates questions of statutory interpretation and constitutional law, our review of these questions of law is de novo. In re AMAC, 269 Mich.App. 533, 536, 711 N.W.2d 426 (2006).

The goal of statutory interpretation is to give effect to the Legislature's intent. In re AJR, 496 Mich. 346, 352, 852 N.W.2d 760 (2014). To ascertain the Legislature's intent, we begin with the language of the statute, giving words their plain and ordinary meaning. In re LE, 278 Mich.App. 1, 22, 747 N.W.2d 883 (2008). “The Legislature is presumed to have intended the meaning it plainly expressed, and when the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, judicial construction is neither required nor permitted.” In re RFF, 242 Mich.App. 188, 198, 617 N.W.2d 745 (2000).

III. ANALYSIS

Religious freedom and the right to “bring up children” are among those fundamental rights “long recognized ... as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923). “Generally, the state has no interest in the care, custody, and control of the child and has no business interfering in the parent-child relationship.” In re AP, 283 Mich.App. 574, 591, 770 N.W.2d 403 (2009). Instead, “the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents....” Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944). Indeed, “[i]t is undisputed that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in the companionship, care, custody, and management of their children.” In re B & J, 279 Mich.App. 12, 23, 756 N.W.2d 234 (2008). Moreover, parents and their children enjoy the right to the free exercise of religion, and parents have the right to give their children “religious training and to encourage them in the practice of religious belief, as against preponderant sentiment and assertion of state power voicing it....”

Prince, 321 U.S. at 165, 64 S.Ct. 438. See also Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 213, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972).

However, a parent's right to control the custody and care of children “is not absolute, as the state has a legitimate interest in protecting the moral, emotional, mental, and physical welfare of the minor....” Sanders, 495 Mich. at 409–410, 852 N.W.2d 524 (citation and quotation marks omitted). “When a child is parented by a fit parent, the state's interest in the child's welfare is perfectly aligned with the parent's liberty interest.” Id. at 416, 852 N.W.2d 524. That is, “there is a presumption that fit parents act in the best interests of their children.” Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 68, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000) (opinion by O'Connor, J.). Thus,

so long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e., is fit), there will normally be no reason for the State to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent's children. [Id. at 68–69, 120 S.Ct. 2054.]

See also AP, 283 Mich.App. at 591, 770 N.W.2d 403.

In contrast, when a parent has been found “unfit,” the state may interfere with a parent's right to direct the care, custody, and control of a child. See Sanders, 495 Mich. at 418, 852 N.W.2d 524 ; A...