## Facts

- Bonnie Lee Carnes and Charles D. Sheldon cohabited for about ten years, combining their households and raising Carnes’s children and Sheldon’s children from a prior marriage.
- In 1967, Carnes (then separated from her husband) moved into Sheldon’s home with two of her children; Sheldon worked outside the home and Carnes primarily performed household and child-care services.
- In 1968, Sheldon divorced and received custody of his children; Carnes remained in the household.
- Around 1970, Carnes began part-time work and later full-time work; she claimed her earnings were used for household expenses and were turned over to Sheldon for household use.
- Sheldon purchased a new home around the time Carnes started working, and the household moved there.
- The relationship ended around 1977 after Sheldon refused to marry Carnes.
- Carnes sued seeking (1) an equitable division of property acquired during cohabitation based on an alleged express promise to marry and share property or, alternatively, an implied contract/equitable theory, and (2) custody of Sheldon’s minor child, Mary Ellen.

## Issues

1. Whether an unmarried cohabitant may obtain an equitable division of property titled in the other partner’s name based on an alleged express agreement to marry and share property.
2. Whether Michigan courts may recognize an implied contract or equitable recovery (including quantum meruit/unjust enrichment) based on domestic and supportive contributions within a nonmarital cohabitation relationship, given the legislative abolition of common-law marriage.
3. Whether a nonparent, nonspouse cohabitant may obtain custody of the other partner’s minor child over the natural parent.

## Decision

- The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s judgment for Sheldon.
- The court upheld denial of Carnes’s property claims, finding no enforceable express agreement to marry or to divide property.
- The court declined to recognize an implied contract or equitable recovery arising from the parties’ nonmarital cohabitation, reasoning that such recognition would effectively confer marital-type rights contrary to Michigan’s rejection of common-law marriage.
- The court affirmed denial of Carnes’s custody request for Mary Ellen, concluding that Carnes did not have custodial rights superior to the natural father on the record presented.

## Legal Principles

- An alleged promise to marry or share property is not enforceable absent proof of a definite, credible agreement; appellate courts defer to trial-level factual findings rejecting such proof.
- Where common-law marriage has been abolished, courts will not infer an implied contract from cohabitation and domestic services if doing so would effectively recreate marital status or marital-type property rights.
- Implied-contract and restitution theories may be limited in the cohabitation context when the claimed entitlement is derivative of the parties’ nonmarital relationship rather than a separable commercial or business arrangement.
- In custody disputes, a natural parent’s custodial position is not displaced by a nonparent cohabitant absent a legally sufficient basis to disturb the child’s established custodial environment.

## Conclusion

The court held that a long-term cohabitant could not obtain property division or restitution based on domestic and supportive contributions where such relief would approximate rights of a marriage that Michigan law does not recognize, and it also refused to transfer custody from the child’s natural father to the nonparent cohabitant.


Carnes v. Sheldon, 109 Mich. App. 204, 311 N.W.2d 747 (Mich. Ct. App. 1981)