Petition to modify the guardianship over the incapacitated individual; The Estates & Protected Individuals Code; Claim that a guardian is no longer suitable; MCL 700.5310; Distinguishing In re Redd Guardianship

The court held that the probate court did not clearly err in finding that appellants (the Rankins) failed to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that appellee-Botsford, the guardian of the legally incapacitated person (VA), “was not qualified or was unable to provide for VA’s care, custody, and control.” Thus, it concluded the probate court did not abuse its discretion in denying appellants’ petition to modify the guardianship. VA has five adult daughters, including appellee, who lives in Michigan, and appellant-Kari Rankin, who lives in South Carolina. Appellants’ petition “sought to have VA move to their residence in South Carolina and to have VA’s social security payments assigned to them.” They argued that appellee was “no longer suitable as guardian because she refused to allow VA to move to” their home. The court found that they “presented evidence of their preference to have VA live with them, citing to VA’s alleged previously asserted wish to live with family, as well as historical familial conflicts, but none of that evidence supported their assertion that Botsford was unsuitable to act as guardian.” While they cited the court’s decision in Redd “in support of their appeal, the facts of Redd are readily distinguishable from the present case.” Although there was also “a years-long contentious intra-family dispute” here, in contrast to “Redd, where the guardian was impeding the ward’s access to other family members, the evidence in this case suggests that the parties who moved the probate court to modify the guardianship, the Rankins, were the family members who had a history of impeding VA from socializing with family members. [They] inappropriately removed VA from her residence in Michigan and then limited her communication, at times, with some of her daughters. In contrast, there was no evidence that Botsford limited communications between VA and her family.” Thus, the court found that, “unlike in Redd, where the guardian was actively impeding the ability of the ward to socialize with family, the guardian in this case has allowed VA to communicate freely with her family.” In addition, the evidence offered “at the hearing otherwise established the degree to which Botsford had attentively carried out her duties as VA’s guardian.” Affirmed.