COA 375611 IN RE GUARDIANSHIP OF LNW Opinion - Per Curiam - Unpublished 8/14/2026

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.
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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N
C O U R T O F A P P E A L S
In re Guardianship of LNW, Minor.
TARA LYNN MATHEWSON, formerly known as
TARA LYNN WILLIAMS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
UNPUBLISHED
August 14, 2026
12:37 PM
v No. 375611
Montcalm Circuit Court,
Family Division
DAVID CHARLES BINGAMAN and TIFFANY
BINGAMAN, Guardians,
LC No. 2021-000027-JG
Respondents-Appellees.
Before: ACKERMAN, P.J., and REDFORD and FEENEY, JJ.
FEENEY, J. (dissenting).
“ ‘An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court chooses an outcome falling outside
the range of principled outcomes.’ ” In re COH, 495 Mich 184, 202; 848 NW2d 107 (2014),
quoting Edry v Adelman, 486 Mich 634, 639, 786 NW2d 567 (2010).1 “An error of law, such as
the application of the wrong legal standard, necessarily constitutes an abuse of discretion.” In re
Lombard, 351 Mich App 523, 531; 35 NW3d 751 (2024). To the extent that the trial court required
the petitioner’s child to request visitation with her mother before the court could grant petitioner’s
1 The majority opinion asserts that the proper standard of review is found in Berger v Berger, 277
Mich App 700, 705; 747 NW2d 336 (2008), which considered a trial court’s custody decision
following divorce proceedings. This case is factually distinct in that it does not center around
divorce proceedings. Although I acknowledge that In re COH, 495 Mich at 202, is also factually
distinct—in that it considered a grandparent’s petition for guardianship posttermination—I believe
that its abuse-of-discretion definition is more instructive to the crux of this issue because it was
provided in the narrow context of “a trial court’s decision regarding what factors to consider in
making the best-interest determination . . . .”

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request for parenting time, and that parenting time requests could only be decided at the annual
guardianship review hearings, I believe that the trial court abused its discretion.
First, the trial court made its decision to deny petitioner’s motion for parenting time based
primarily upon the testimony of Megan Ledin, the only witness who had met with the child.2 Ledin
counseled with LNW regularly until 2020 and subsequently engaged with the child on occasion,
with their last meeting on December 6, 2024. Prior to termination, Ledin stated that she believed
it was petitioner’s moral and legal obligation to terminate her parental rights so that LNW’s
grandmother could adopt her. At the March 2025 annual review hearing where petitioner’s
parenting-time request was discussed, Ledin testified that “a stressful part of [LNW’s] life is she
didn’t think she would see her birth parents again.” Unfortunately, no independent expert met
with LNW before the hearing, and no one has explained to LNW that she can maintain the
guardianship while having the opportunity to visit her mother in a supervised or other setting.
Regardless, the trial court has chosen to wait until LNW indicates a desire to see her mother. That
decision is evidenced by the trial court’s following statements: “I think that this Court will
eventually grant [parenting time] because I think it’s inevitable that the child’s gonna want to see
[petitioner],” and “I want you to know that in the future, it is going to occur and there will be a
time when I am confident that [the child] wants to have contact with you, that that occurs.” The
evidence is unclear whether LNW even believes that seeing petitioner is an option.
Critically, however, placing the burden on LNW to be the one who decides when parenting
time will begin is inappropriate and unsupported by the law. MCL 722.27a(1) of the Child Custody
Act, MCL 722.21 et seq., makes it clear that parenting time: (1) should be granted pursuant to the
child’s best interests, (2) is presumed to be in the child’s best interests, and (3) “shall be granted
to a parent in a frequency, duration, and type reasonably calculated to promote a strong relationship
between the child and the parent granted parenting time.” If clear and convincing evidence shows
that parenting time “would endanger the child’s physical, mental or emotional health,” then the
child does not have a right to parenting time. MCL 722.27a(3). Although the trial court chose not
to consider the parenting-time factors set forth in MCL 722.27a(7), those factors clearly do not
leave the decision to grant or deny parenting time up to the child because requiring the child ask
for parenting time as a prerequisite would place too much pressure on the child—requiring them
to indicate their divided loyalty between parents or pit their caregivers versus their parents. This
is the same reason we do not let every 14-year-old decide where to live when their parents are
separated or divorced. The child may not want to disappoint their guardian by saying that they
desire parenting time with their parent, but they also may not want to disappoint their parent by
not requesting parenting time. It is a Catch-22 that places children in very unenviable
circumstances that are rife with potential for conflict and promote improper influence.
In In re COH, 495 Mich at 203, our Supreme Court stated that when determining whether
a guardianship is in a child’s best interests posttermination, “depending on the circumstances, a
case may more reasonably lend itself to application of the Child Custody Act factors, some
2 Notably, Ledin was under a six-month probationary period from the Licensing and Regulatory
Administration, which she never revealed to the trial court; when that issue was raised on
reconsideration, the trial court denied any relief.

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combination of the Adoption Code and Child Custody Act factors, or a unique set of factors
developed by the trial court for purposes of a particular case.” (Emphasis added.) Here, the trial
court set forth no “unique set of factors,” see id., to guide its analysis other than wanting to wait
until the child “insist[s]” that she is “ready” to have contact with her mother. Apparently, until
then, petitioner can simply continue to work on maintaining her sobriety, participating in her
recovery coach duties, parenting her stepchildren with her husband, and improving her relationship
with the guardian in the hopes of someday having some opportunity to see her daughter. Notably,
the trial court ordered no reunification therapy or therapy between the petitioner and the guardian.
Second, the trial court was apparently operating under the mistaken belief that parenting-
time requests in the face of juvenile guardianships can only be addressed during the annual
guardianship review hearings. No such statutory limitation exists. MCL 712A.19a(13) states that
“[t]he court shall review a guardianship created under this section annually and may conduct
additional reviews as the court considers necessary.” Under MCL 712A.19a(14), when making
the determinations under this section, the trial “court shall consider any written or oral information
concerning the child from the child’s parent, guardian, custodian, foster parent, child caring
institution, relative with whom the child is placed, or guardian ad litem in addition to any other
evidence, including the appropriateness of parenting time, offered at the hearing.” Neither
provision limits parenting-time requests to guardianship review hearings, and motions for
parenting time can be filed at any time consistent with MCR 2.119 motion-practice requirements.
The fact that petitioner filed her petition for parenting time in August 2023, and the hearing on the
petition was adjourned until the regularly scheduled annual review hearing in March 2024, and
then continued until the next regularly scheduled annual review hearing in March 2025, was
outside the realm of reasonableness. Although several issues with different parties created the
need for multiple adjournments, this extended and extreme delay was apparently impacted by the
misconception that parenting time could only be addressed at the annual review hearings. No cases
or statutes support this interpretation.3
Third, after this Court reversed the trial court’s termination of petitioner’s parental rights4
on October 15, 2019, and remanded this case for further proceedings, the case moved toward
juvenile guardianship with petitioner’s mother on March 1, 2021. Because we only have the
juvenile guardianship file and not the neglect file to review, I cannot determine what happened,
i.e., whether the trial court held review hearings between the October 2019 reversal and the
December 1, 2020 permanency planning hearing (a span of 14 months) as part of the re-opened
child protective proceeding.5
3 It is also extremely surprising that the 2026 guardianship review hearing was also adjourned until
resolution of this appeal, and it is unclear whether the misconception referenced above contributed
to yet another opportunity to delay progress in this case.
4 In re L N Winters, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued October 15,
2019 (Docket No. 348031).
5 Because all parties agree that petitioner’s last parenting time was in 2018, it appears that the trial
court did not “reopen” the child protective case with the intent to continue providing services
toward reunification.

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Moreover, shortly after the guardianship orders were signed in March 2021, the trial court
entered a June 3, 2021 order—nunc pro tunc—forbidding petitioner from having any contact with
LNW. There were no motions pending when the court entered this order. “The function of [a
nunc pro tunc] order is to supply an Omission in the record of action previously taken by the court
but not properly recorded; an order Nunc pro tunc may not be utilized to supply previously Omitted
action.” Sleboede v Sleboede, 384 Mich 555, 558-559; 184 NW2d 923 (1971). This nunc pro
tunc order was not only inappropriate, but it also served to continue blocking any contact between
LNW and petitioner, who had their last in-person parenting time in 2018 before the termination
decision was reversed.6 For all intents and purposes, this order effectively terminated petitioner’s
relationship with LNW—despite this Court’s 2019 ruling to the contrary.
It is truly inconceivable that petitioner, whose probation officer testified that she has tested
clean since July 2019, who is in the process of becoming a certified alcohol and drug counselor,
who has mothered her stepchildren for years, and whose parental rights have not been terminated,
should be legally barred from having any parenting time with her biological daughter who is under
a juvenile guardianship with her maternal grandmother. For all these reasons, I believe that the
trial court abused its discretion in denying—until some unknown and unknowable date in the
6 In Mathewson v Mills, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued March
23, 2023 (Docket No 362798), pp 4-5, another circuit judge in the same jurisdiction entered an
order barring the petitioner in this case from having any contact with the children that her husband,
Christopher Mathewson, had with Nora Mills, the defendant in that case. A panel of this Court
reversed that order, reasoning that the trial court took judicial notice and made its own investigation
outside the evidence presented at trial regarding whether petitioner was a recovery coach and then
used that information to inappropriately assess petitioner’s credibility. Id. at 5. The trial court
noted “multiple times that it was ‘stunned’ ” that petitioner “was clean from drug use and serving
as a recovery coach,” and the court found “that it made no sense that [petitioner] allowed her
daughter to wind up in guardianship yet subsequently attempted to improve herself as a
stepmother . . . .” Id. at 8. The panel of this Court determined that the trial court’s assessment of
petitioner’s motivation was irrelevant and “further suggests that the trial court held a bias against
her, presumably on the basis of her former addiction and the turmoil it caused. To that end, the
trial court abused its discretion and imposed conditions regarding [petitioner] that went against the
great weight of the evidence.” Id. at 9. One wonders if petitioner’s former reputation with
substances permeates this jurisdiction; two reversals in petitioner’s favor are nothing short of
remarkable.
Notably, the panel’s unpublished opinion in Mathewson provides further context for
petitioner’s behavior in the time between this Court’s reversal of her termination case and the
initiation of the guardianship proceedings. For example, the panel stated that shortly after this
Court’s reversal of petitioner’s termination case, petitioner and Mathewson entered a domestic
relationship and resided together with Mathewson’s children. Id. at 1. Mills “even wrote a letter
of support for [petitioner] a couple of months before the custody request, indicating that the
children never spoke badly about [petitioner] and that [petitioner] was safe around children.” Id.
at 3. Additionally, evidence showed that petitioner “trained to be a peer recovery coach and
eventually took on paid and volunteer positions in that field.” Id. at 2.

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future—petitioner’s request to have contact—any contact—with her child. For these reasons, I
respectfully dissent.
/s/ Kathleen A. Feeney

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