Nevada family-law case summaries

This case is about who gets to care for a baby, J.B., whose parents were both incarcerated when he was born. (His parents had been arrested for the homicide of his older sibling.) Because neither parent could care for J.B., Nevada's child-welfare agency had to find someone else to take him in. Shortly after J.B.'s birth, DFS placed him with Becky and Jay Whipple, family friends of J.B.'s grandmother. The Whipples were not licensed foster parents at the time, and the district court signed an order describing them as "Unlicensed Fictive Kin." "Fictive kin," under Nevada law, means a person not related to a child by blood but who has a significant emotional and positive bond with the child. No one objected to that designation when it was made. Months later, after a paternity test confirmed Miles Stano Jr. was J.B.'s father, the father asked that J.B. be sent to live with the paternal grandfather in Illinois. After interstate paperwork was completed (about nine months after J.B. was placed with the Whipples, by which point the Whipples had become licensed foster parents), the district court held a placement hearing. The district court did not take evidence about what was best for J.B. Instead, the judge ruled that, as a matter of law, a blood relative always wins out over an unrelated person in placement decisions, and the judge also reversed course and decided the Whipples were not really fictive kin after all. The court ordered J.B. moved to Illinois. Compounding the issue, J.B.'s court-appointed attorney did not appear at the placement hearing or at the later reconsideration hearing. The Supreme Court noted J.B. was largely without representation throughout the case, even though state law requires that children in these proceedings be represented by counsel. The Nevada Supreme Court granted the writ and made several rulings. First, it explained that "fictive kin" status is judged from the perspective of both the prospective caregiver and the child. For an infant who cannot yet form relationships, the bond and commitment shown by the adult is what counts; an infant is not excluded from being placed with fictive kin just because the baby has not had time to bond. Second, the Supreme Court held that Nevada law does not put blood relatives ahead of fictive kin. The statute groups them together and prefers either over a foster home, but it does not rank them against each other. The decisive question is the child's best interest, and that requires actual factual findings. Third, the district court should not have proceeded with the placement hearing when J.B.'s attorney was absent and a continuance was being sought. Fourth, the Supreme Court ordered the case reassigned to a different district court judge, citing statements by the original judge that suggested he could not put aside his view that placement with "safe family" is always best. The Supreme Court vacated the placement order, lifted its prior stay, and sent the matter back for new proceedings before a different judge, who must hear evidence and make findings about what is actually in J.B.'s best interest.

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 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.