Parentage dispute; The Revocation of Paternity Act (ROPA); Effect of a finding that a party committed intrinsic fraud & fraud on the court; Baum v Baum; Allen v Allen; Relief from judgment under MCR 2.612(C)(1); “May”; The trial court’s discretion; Consideration of the child’s best interests in deciding whether to vacate the ROPA judgment & revoke plaintiff’s paternity; MCL 722.1443(4); The best-interest factors; Attorney fees as a sanction; The trial court’s inherent authority; MCR 1.109(E); MCL 722.1443(11); The contempt statute (MCL 600.1721)

Holding that the trial court had discretion as to whether to vacate the ROPA judgment and revoke plaintiff’s paternity after finding that he committed intrinsic fraud and fraud on the court, the court concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to grant defendants this requested relief. It rejected their argument that it was improper for the trial court to consider the relevant best-interest factors in MCL 722.1443(4). As to attorney fees as a sanction, it upheld the award of only 25% of defendant-Tracy Ahola’s requested fees, but remanded as to the denial of any fees to defendant-Derek Ahola given the trial court’s apparent failure to address his requests. This parentage dispute arose in 2014. The child at issue (J) was conceived while plaintiff and Tracy “‘were engaged in an extramarital sexual relationship . . . .’” She was married to Derek. Whether plaintiff had committed intrinsic fraud and fraud on the court in the trial that led to issuance of the ROPA judgment was not in dispute. Defendants asserted that the trial court lacked the authority to exercise discretion as to the proper remedy after finding he committed fraud. But this argument ignored “the plain and unambiguous language used in the court rule” on which they relied, MCR 2.612(C), which uses the permissive word “may.” They next contended that the trial court erred in considering J’s best interests. “MCL 722.1443(4) unambiguously states that a trial court should consider the best interests of a minor child under a distinct set of circumstances in a ROPA case. One such situation is a decision regarding whether to set ‘aside a paternity determination.’” Further, the inapplicability of a few of MCL 722.1443(4)’s factors did not render the whole statute inapplicable. Finally, the trial court did not clearly err in ruling that J’s “best interests favored maintaining his parental relationship with plaintiff.” J has spent over half of his life with him as “his father and he spends half of his time at plaintiff’s home[.]” The court also found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to award Tracy “all of her attorney fees for years of litigation that might have been solved in months had she immediately alerted the trial court to her discovery of plaintiff’s fraud.” Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for the limited purpose of considering Derek’s claim for attorney fees as a sanction.