Nevada family-law case summaries

Molly L. and Bryan T. divorced in 2014 and shared two children, with Molly having primary physical custody. In 2016, Bryan suffered a serious mental health crisis. After an incident in which Bryan drove off with the children and ended up at a hospital in distress, Molly obtained a temporary protective order (TPO) - a court order keeping Bryan away. The extended TPO required Bryan to stay away until July 18, 2017, or until he completed a psychological evaluation and counseling. Bryan was hospitalized for months, then went to live with his mother in Kansas, and later returned to Nevada believing he was barred from contacting Molly or the children. For several years afterward, Bryan had no contact with S.A.T. According to the opinion, Bryan could not afford the required psychological treatment or an attorney, repeatedly attended free "Ask-a-Lawyer" sessions, tried unsuccessfully to get mediation through the child support case, and reconnected with Molly's adult son Zachary. Meanwhile, Molly took steps that made contact harder: she moved without updating her address in the child support action, cut off ties with Bryan's family, and restricted the children's activities out of fear Bryan might find them. In 2021, Bryan received an inheritance, hired a lawyer, paid off his child support arrears, and completed the psychological evaluation and counseling the TPO had required. Soon after he provided proof of treatment, Molly filed a petition to terminate his parental rights. (One child, K.W.T., emancipated and later died by suicide during the proceedings, so the case proceeded only as to S.A.T.) After an evidentiary hearing - including testimony from the doctor who evaluated Bryan that his mental health issues were under control - the district court denied Molly's petition. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The Court emphasized that a private termination case (one parent trying to terminate the other parent's rights) is different from a state-filed termination case. When the state files, the focus is the child's safety. When one parent files against the other, the child is usually already safe, so courts must look carefully at the petitioning parent's motivations. On abandonment, the Court held Bryan rebutted the presumption: he believed the TPO barred contact until he completed treatment, he could not afford that treatment or a lawyer until 2021, and he repeatedly tried to get help and eventually paid arrears and completed treatment. On neglect, the Court held there was no evidence S.A.T. was inadequately cared for - she was in Molly's care and Bryan paid child support. On "token efforts" - the idea that a parent who barely communicates with a child has shown parental fault - the Court announced a new rule: in private termination actions, courts should disfavor terminating parental rights when the only ground proved is that the parent made only token efforts to communicate with or support the child. The Court reasoned this category is uniquely vulnerable to abuse by a custodial parent who controls access to the child, and that "settled purpose" (the standard for abandonment) is the opposite of "only token efforts." The Court also rejected Molly's argument that Bryan admitted the token-efforts allegation by failing to deny it in his response. Because a responsive pleading is not required in termination cases, an undenied allegation is treated as denied, not admitted, and the underlying facts must still be proved by clear and convincing evidence. Finally, the Court declined to address whether Bryan complied with the TPO's mental-health conditions, finding that issue moot because the TPO had long since expired by its own terms.

Maggie Cox and Jason Roe divorced and shared joint custody of their son, H.R. About seven years later, when H.R. was eleven, Maggie asked the court to give her primary physical custody, saying the boy's behavior toward her had become disrespectful and aggressive, which she blamed partly on Jason. Jason opposed and asked for primary custody himself. The court ordered therapy and a "brief focused assessment" by a therapist, Maureen Zelensky. Zelensky's report suggested Jason was likely engaging in "parental alienation" (a dynamic in which a child becomes excessively hostile toward one parent) and that Maggie likely had anxiety and possibly post-traumatic stress disorder. She recommended keeping the shared week-on-week-off schedule and issuing behavior orders for both parents, which the court adopted. The situation then worsened. On two occasions, police took H.R. into custody for battery against Maggie during her parenting time; H.R. was found to be the primary aggressor both times. The opinion notes that Maggie never called the police—her mother called once and Jason called once—and that once police were called, Nevada law generally requires an arrest and a 12-hour detention. Based on those incidents, Jason filed an emergency motion for sole custody. In March 2021, the court granted it, making findings including that "something wrong with the parent who cannot manage an 11-year-old," that Maggie had called the police (which the record contradicts), and that her behavior was "histrionic." The court sharply restricted Maggie's contact with H.R., limited her to reunification therapy with Dr. Sunshine Collins and six hours of parenting time weekly, and appointed a parenting coordinator and a guardian ad litem, with costs split between the parents. Over the following months, contact between Maggie and H.R. was further restricted. Dr. Collins was outside Maggie's insurance network and Maggie fell behind on payments; Dr. Collins required Maggie to complete individual sessions before joint sessions with H.R. In September 2021, the court granted Jason's objection and ordered Maggie to have no contact with H.R. outside of therapy with Dr. Collins—effectively barring all contact between mother and son. This prevented Maggie from contacting H.R. on his birthday and from sending gifts or cards over the holidays. Learning this midway through a later hearing, the court orally modified the order to let Maggie send cards, texts, or calls. At the end of the March 2022 hearing, the court kept joint legal custody but gave Jason "primary physical custody," finding a substantial change in circumstances (the deteriorating relationship between Maggie and H.R.) and that H.R.'s best interests favored living with Jason. In practice, Maggie received no in-person parenting time—only cards, texts, and calls—and any expansion of her time was left to Dr. Collins's discretion. The court also ordered Maggie to pay $11,365 in attorney fees and costs to Jason as the prevailing party. The Court of Appeals reached a split result. It agreed there was substantial evidence supporting the decision that circumstances had substantially changed and that primary physical custody should go to Jason, so it affirmed that part. But it held the district court went too far in limiting Maggie's parenting time—so far that it effectively awarded Jason sole physical custody without adequate justification, cutting off a mother with no criminal history, no substance-abuse history, and no history of domestic violence from any in-person time with her son for over a year. The court also held the district court improperly handed off its own decision-making authority to Dr. Collins by letting her decide when Maggie could see H.R. in person, and that the final parenting-time order was too vague to enforce because it merely referenced an unwritten oral ruling. The Court of Appeals further concluded the case should be reassigned to a different judge on remand, pointing to statements and findings in the record that could cause a reasonable person to question the judge's impartiality. Finally, it vacated the attorney-fee award because the required findings were missing and because part of the underlying order was being reversed.