Nevada family-law case summaries

This case asks who is allowed to run the trial when the State seeks to permanently sever a parent's legal relationship with her child. In the Eighth Judicial District (Clark County), such trials had often been conducted by a "hearing master" - a court-appointed lawyer (not a judge) who hears evidence, makes findings, and recommends a result to a district judge, who then reviews the record and makes the final decision. The Nevada Supreme Court held that this two-step approach is not allowed for termination of parental rights (TPR) trials. A district judge - not a hearing master - must preside over the trial in the first instance. The underlying facts: Tahja L. was a teenager when she brought her six-month-old daughter L.L.S. to a Department of Family Services (DFS) office, hoping to place her temporarily while Tahja finished high school. DFS instead filed a neglect petition, placed L.L.S. in foster care, and eventually moved to terminate Tahja's parental rights. The case was assigned to a hearing master. L.L.S.'s lawyer objected, arguing that a district judge should hear the trial; Tahja did not join that objection. The juvenile court overruled the objection. After the originally assigned master became a district judge, a different hearing master conducted the trial, recommended termination, and the district judge - after watching the entire video of the trial - terminated Tahja's parental rights. The Supreme Court reversed. It explained that under Nevada law, TPR proceedings under NRS Chapter 432B must be conducted by a "court," and although the statutes define "court" to include a hearing master under certain circumstances, that inclusion only works if the master's role is consistent with the Nevada Constitution. The court held that having a master preside over a TPR trial violates a parent's right to procedural due process, because the right at stake - the permanent loss of one's child - is so serious that the parent must present her case directly to the judge who will decide it, not to an intermediary whose findings are then reviewed from a recording. The court applied the three-part federal test from Mathews v. Eldridge, weighing (1) the parent's interest, (2) the risk that the procedure used will produce a wrong result, and (3) the government's interest in efficiency. The court described a parent's interest in keeping her child as among the strongest interests the law recognizes, comparing termination to a "civil death penalty." It found that having a master, rather than the judge, see witnesses face-to-face increases the risk of error, and that the State's efficiency interests are not significantly served, because the district judge still has to review the entire record. The court also pointed to recent legislative history in which the Eighth Judicial District's Chief Judge told lawmakers the district was specifically seeking new judges to "eliminate the use of hearing masters" in dependency cases. The court therefore reversed the termination order and sent the case back for a new TPR trial before a district judge. Three justices dissented.

This case asks a question that Nevada's appellate courts had not previously answered head-on: can a court terminate a parent's rights to her child when the parent is so mentally ill that she would not be considered competent to stand trial in a criminal case? The Nevada Supreme Court held that, under the circumstances here, yes - the trial may go forward. The mother in this case had been diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar disorder. Shortly after her son was born, hospital staff alerted the Department of Family Services because the mother insisted the baby was not hers and tried to take a different child. Two months later she brought the baby to the hospital claiming the infant had told her, in full sentences, that he had an earache. The child was placed in protective custody, adjudicated neglected, and made a ward of the court. The mother received a case plan focused on her mental health, but DFS observed that her condition did not improve. While the termination case was pending, she was arrested for allegedly boarding a bus and trying to take another child she believed was hers, and she was repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial in that criminal case. The district court did several things to protect the mother's interests. It appointed a guardian ad litem (a person appointed to look after the legal interests of someone who cannot represent themselves) under Rule 17(c) of the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure. It granted multiple continuances - delays - hoping the mother would regain competence. When that did not happen, the court ultimately conducted the termination trial without her present in September 2015, with her guardian ad litem in attendance, and terminated her parental rights. On appeal, the mother argued that proceeding without her violated her constitutional right to due process. She pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court case, Mathews v. Eldridge, which requires courts to balance the private interest, the risk of an inaccurate result, and the government's interest before depriving someone of an important right. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected that challenge. It explained that, unlike criminal cases, civil cases - including termination cases - do not require a court to wait indefinitely for a party to regain mental competence. Nevada law actually allows mental illness itself to be a basis for finding parental fault, so it would be inconsistent to also require the court to halt the case forever because of that same illness. The court noted that children have a powerful interest in stability and permanency, and that holding a child "in limbo" until a parent might one day be well enough to participate is not what Nevada law contemplates. The district court had given the mother many chances and had effectively considered all the factors that due process required. The mother also argued that the State had improperly served her by publication (publishing notice in a newspaper rather than handing it to her directly) when it actually knew or could have known where she was. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the State's conduct was proper, but ruled that the mother's lawyer never raised this objection in the district court, so the issue was waived and could not be raised for the first time on appeal. The court therefore affirmed the order terminating her parental rights.

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.