Nevada family-law case summaries

This case involves the termination of a father's parental rights to his two surviving children. Between 2006 and 2011, the family experienced seven separate incidents in which one of the three children swallowed foreign objects such as coins, magnets, and batteries. All occurred while the father, Arli, was at work and the mother, Abigail, was home with the children. One son, J.M., died in 2006 from undetermined causes. After three-year-old E.M.M. required surgery to remove a large battery lodged in his throat, doctors became concerned that Abigail was forcing the children to swallow objects and contacted child protective services. The doctors compared the size of the battery, for a child E.M.M.'s age, to an adult swallowing a golf ball. In November 2011, DFS removed A.P.M. and E.M.M. from the home and placed them in foster care. The juvenile court gave each parent a "case plan" - a written list of things they had to do (such as parenting classes and counseling) to try to get their children back. Arli completed his case plan quickly. Even so, in December 2012, DFS asked the court to terminate both parents' rights permanently. After a five-day hearing, the district court ordered termination, finding that Arli had been neglectful by not taking action to protect his children after the repeated swallowing incidents - including continuing to leave them alone with Abigail - and that termination was in the children's best interests. Abigail died while the appeal was pending, leaving only Arli's appeal. The Nevada Supreme Court addressed two new legal questions. First, it held that finishing a court-ordered case plan does not, by itself, prevent a court from terminating parental rights. A completed case plan can be persuasive evidence in the parent's favor, but Nevada law does not make it a shield against termination if the other legal grounds are satisfied. Second, it interpreted a Nevada statute that creates two legal presumptions when a child has lived outside the home "for 14 months of any 20 consecutive months": (1) the parent is presumed to have made only token efforts, and (2) termination is presumed to be in the child's best interest. Arli argued the district court had to wait the full 20 months before applying these presumptions. The Supreme Court disagreed - once the 14-month threshold is hit, the presumptions can apply right away. Here the children had been out of the home about 17 months, which was enough. Finally, the court held that "substantial evidence" - meaning enough credible evidence that a reasonable factfinder could agree - supported termination. The court pointed to Arli's failure to take protective action after seven serious swallowing incidents, his limited relationship with the children, and the foster parent's testimony that she had a close relationship with the children and wished to adopt them. The court noted that even with Abigail's death, Arli remained "unable to protect his children from danger, swallowing or otherwise." Two justices dissented in whole or in part. Justice Douglas, joined by Justice Cherry, would have remanded for a new best-interests hearing because Abigail - the apparent source of the danger - had died and Arli had completed his case plan. Justice Saitta agreed with most of the majority opinion but wrote separately to dissent on the parental-fault finding, viewing Arli's mistaken belief about Abigail and his completed case plan as not enough to amount to neglect.