POWER MUST ANSWER.
Case file
This companion documents the public judicial decisions supporting The Court Ordered a Relationship. It distinguishes the custody appeal, the judicial disciplinary case and the later fee appeal. It is a guide to published decisions, not the complete family court file. The two Court of Appeals opinions are designated unpublished. Their relevance here is their disposition of this particular litigation; the article does not present them as binding nationwide rules.
Divorce proceedings began | S1, majority pp. 2-3; S3 p. 1 | Beginning of litigation, not a finding of wrongdoing
Allegations during parenting time prompted police involvement and a DHS referral | S1, majority pp. 2-4 | Police reportedly found no probable cause to arrest; the opinion describes the referral as apparently closed
Divorce judgment provided joint legal custody, physical custody with mother and parenting time for father | S1, majority p. 4 | Historical arrangement
Failed courthouse parenting-time efforts; judge intervened in hallway | S1, majority pp. 5-6 | Professional descriptions are attributed, not adopted as diagnoses
Guardian's report described resistant behavior using a Manson comparison and urged stronger intervention | S1, majority pp. 6-7 | Underlying report not separately obtained
Evidentiary hearing on an allegation against the father; insufficient proof found | S1, footnote 66 and majority p. 48 | No independent finding by UNCHECKED about the alleged incident
Parenting-time order scheduled younger children for June 24 and oldest for July 14 | S1, majority pp. 7-8, 24-25 | Central distinction in the contempt analysis
Separate counsel appointed; approximately 30-minute consultation; contempt hearing; children handcuffed and confined | S1, majority pp. 8-14 | Children were 13, 10 and 9 according to S1; do not substitute inconsistent ages from early coverage
Contempt orders vacated; children sent to summer camp by stipulation; intensive reunification therapy ordered | S1, majority pp. 14-15 | The Supreme Court describes 17 days of confinement; do not confuse threatened duration with time actually confined
Intensive intervention approved and children placed with father until further order | S1, majority p. 15; S2 pp. 1-3 | Later reversed for improper procedure
JTC investigative letter issued | S1, majority pp. 15-16 | Preliminary disciplinary step
Ex parte order restricted contact with mother for 90 days | S2 pp. 1-3 | Describes the order's terms, not an independently verified duration of actual separation
Judge responded to investigative letter | S1, majority pp. 15-17 | Later disputed statements must be paired with final disposition
Formal disciplinary complaint filed December 14; judge recused from custody matter during that month | S1, majority pp. 15-17 and accompanying footnote | Recusal did not itself adjudicate bias
Court of Appeals reversed custody-related orders and remanded for hearing | S2 | Declined immediate return and identified mother's responsibility for later requested delays
Parents entered stipulated custody and parenting-time order | S3 p. 1 | Exact agreement and current circumstances not established here
Supreme Court imposed public censure, rejected suspension and proposed costs | S1, majority pp. 51-52 | Majority treated identified contempt errors as good-faith legal errors with due diligence
Court of Appeals affirmed $26,579.50 in fees, costs and sanctions | S3 | Award includes separate categories; not all related to publicity
| ID | Document | Date and identifier | Principal use | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | Michigan Supreme Court, In re Hon. Lisa Gorcyca | July 28, 2017; No. 152831 | Contempt-hearing reconstruction, underlying history, disciplinary findings, majority rationale, concurrence and partial dissent | Judicial account and excerpts from underlying materials; not an independent review of the complete trial file or original recording |
| S1-PDF | Same Supreme Court decision, PDF | 72 PDF pages including syllabus and separately numbered opinions | Reader reference for page locations | Duplicate format of S1, not an independent source |
| S2 | Michigan Court of Appeals, Eibschitz-Tsimhoni v. Tsimhoni | April 14, 2016; No. 329406; unpublished | Reversal of August 12 and September 3, 2015 orders; hearing requirement; emergency showing; limits of remedy | Does not decide every custody allegation, the proposed future expert-evidence question or the moot bias issue |
| S3 | Michigan Court of Appeals, Eibschitz-Tsimhoni v. Tsimhoni | June 14, 2018; No. 336868; unpublished | Affirmed fees, costs and sanctions; publicity and privacy analysis; report of post-remand custody stipulation | Does not establish present-day family circumstances or resolve the effectiveness of treatment |
Page convention: Page references to S1 refer to the printed pages of the named opinion, not the PDF viewer's count. The majority has its own pagination; Viviano's concurrence and Bernstein's separate opinion restart at page 1. S2 and S3 use their printed opinion pages. The article relies on the actual judicial text, not Justia's automated summaries or metadata.
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The 2018 opinion affirmed $26,579.50 in fees, costs and sanctions. Its overview identifies $21,087 tied to work by one of the father's attorneys, $4,492.50 tied to work by another and $1,000 in sanctions payable to the county clerk. Those figures sum to the affirmed total. The $12,124.50 associated with publicity is a component within the award, not an additional sum to add to it. The father's request exceeded $152,000, but the larger requested amount was not awarded. S3, pp. 1-2 and 7-8.
The separate $12,553.73 assessment proposed in the judge's disciplinary proceeding was rejected by the Supreme Court. It is not part of the family litigation's affirmed fee award. S1, majority pp. 43-46 and 51-52.
Judge Gorcyca: Contended that the disciplinary process had improperly converted legal error into misconduct; relied on the protracted history and steps taken at the contempt hearing; disputed the interpretation of her gesture. The Supreme Court accepted important parts of her legal-error argument and rejected costs, while censuring her courtroom conduct. These are positions from the judicial record, not a fresh response to UNCHECKED.
Father: Sought enforcement of parenting time; argued the mother had waived objections to the intervention; later sought fees for specified conduct. His waiver argument failed in the 2016 appeal. Significant portions of his fee request were rejected, while a smaller award was affirmed in 2018. The opinions report that allegations against him had not been substantiated as described above.
Mother: Challenged the custody changes, no-contact order, proposed future expert evidence, alleged bias, fees and speech restrictions. She prevailed on the defective custody procedure, but did not obtain immediate return through that appeal. Other issues were rejected, premature or moot. Her 2018 fee appeal was unsuccessful.
Supreme Court majority: Public censure proportionate to isolated courtroom misconduct; contempt errors made in good faith and with due diligence; no costs.
Bernstein: Agreed on misconduct in language/demeanor and rejection of costs; would also find misconduct in the use of contempt and impose 30 days without pay.
Viviano, joined by McCormack: Agreed with the disposition while calling for fuller treatment of every legal basis in the disciplinary findings.
| Proposition | Classification | Where supported | What must remain attached |
|---|---|---|---|
| Judge demeaned, threatened and mocked children during contempt proceeding | Sustained judicial misconduct | S1, majority pp. 20-22, 51-52 | Final sanction was public censure |
| Oldest child's parenting time was not scheduled for June 24 | Documentary fact as recounted by Supreme Court | S1, majority pp. 7-9, 24-25 | Majority discussed but did not decide a possible alternative contempt theory involving interference with siblings' visits |
| Judge improperly delegated release-related discretion to father | Legal error identified by majority | S1, majority pp. 25-27 | Majority did not classify this as judicial misconduct |
| Majority found good faith and due diligence | Controlling disciplinary conclusion | S1, majority pp. 22-35, 46-52 | Bernstein disagreed; his view is a partial dissent |
| Children were never given lawyers | False | S1, majority pp. 8-9, 34-35 | They were appointed separate counsel; preparation and effect of silence were disputed |
| Judge was finally found to have lied to JTC about gesture | Unsupported description of final outcome | S1, majority pp. 43-46 | Master's view was not final; proposed costs rejected |
| Custody was effectively changed without required prior hearing | Appellate holding | S2 pp. 1-3 | The court separately attributed later hearing delay to mother's adjournment and stay requests |
| Emergency showing justified ex parte restriction | Rejected in this case | S2 pp. 2-3 | Apprehension of future disruption did not establish required immediate harm |
| Mother consented to the specific intervention | Rejected waiver argument | S2 p. 2 | Agreement to two other proposals was not agreement to the program ordered |
| Appeal required immediate restoration of mother's custody | Rejected remedy | S2 pp. 3-4 | Court required consideration of children's present circumstances |
| Father was adjudicated abusive in the reviewed opinions | Not established | S1, majority pp. 2-4, footnote 66 | Report allegations and unsubstantiated/insufficient-proof outcomes accurately |
| Children were proved to have fabricated all complaints | Not established | S1 | Insufficient proof is not knowing fabrication |
| Parental alienation evidence was scientifically validated or categorically barred on appeal | Neither established | S2 p. 3 | Appellate court declined premature review of future evidentiary ruling |
| Every action by mother was vindicated | Contradicted by later ruling | S3 | Fees and sanctions were affirmed for specified conduct |
| Publicity caused release or resolved custody | Causation not established by this review | S1 chronology; S3 pp. 7-10 | S3 rejected mother's argument that media activity resolved custody and credited the appeal |
| Named provider committed misconduct or operated an ineffective intervention | Not established | S1/S2 insufficient for this claim | Provider identity, methods, fees and outcomes require separate substantiation |
| This family proves a nationwide frequency of similar conduct | Not established | No prevalence dataset reviewed | Policy discussion is proposed analysis, not a statistical finding |
Three children were handcuffed during a Michigan custody dispute. Later, their living arrangements changed without the required hearing. The resulting court decisions expose a difficult accountability problem: correcting an order cannot return the time a family has already lived under it.
The reviewed record does not establish the present condition of the family, clinical effects of confinement, the intervention's effectiveness, any undisclosed financial conflict, or the prevalence of similar orders. It also does not establish what operational reforms followed the case. Those are separate reporting questions. No negative inference should be drawn from the absence of an answer in this article.