Nevada family-law case summaries

This case is a long-running child-custody dispute between two people who divorced in 2011. Over the years the parents changed their custody arrangement several times. By 2020 they agreed to share joint legal custody (meaning both parents have a say in major decisions about the children) while Carney had primary physical custody (meaning the children live mostly with him). In 2022, Carney raised a serious safety concern: he alleged that the parties' younger child had sexual contact with Probst's stepson (the child of Probst's new husband). The district court temporarily suspended Probst's parenting time, held a hearing, and then required her parenting time to be supervised. The court also barred Probst's husband and stepchildren from attending that time. The parties then agreed to a "safety plan" and to reunification therapy — a process meant to rebuild the parent-child relationship safely. The court appointed Dr. Herbert Coard to evaluate the children and run the reunification therapy, and Dr. Lorraine Apodaca as a "parenting coordinator" — a professional who helps parents resolve smaller disputes. Importantly, the court kept for itself the power to make actual custody changes; it did not give the doctors that power. In early 2023 the court gave Probst unsupervised parenting time, but required it to occur only in the Reno/Sparks area (Probst lives in California). As time went on, new safety concerns surfaced. The younger child reported unwanted physical contact from the stepbrother that Probst allegedly did not stop. Carney then refused to agree to expand Probst's time, and Dr. Coard told Probst he believed she had not addressed the safety problems. Probst filed a motion asking the court to remove Dr. Coard and Dr. Apodaca, claiming they were biased against her, that her parenting time had been wrongly withheld, and that she should get make-up time. The court held a one-day evidentiary hearing at which Dr. Coard testified about his safety concerns and his view that Probst minimized the abuse issue. The court then denied Probst's motion. It found the doctors were not biased but could no longer work with Probst, so it removed them and temporarily acted as parenting coordinator itself. It kept joint legal custody with primary physical custody to Carney, continued Probst's unsupervised parenting time (every other weekend, Saturday 2:00 p.m. to Sunday 4:00 p.m., in the Reno/Sparks area, without her stepchildren), declined to award make-up time, and made Probst responsible for finding a new reunification therapist and paying any additional costs. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. It concluded that the district court did not improperly hand its decision-making power to the doctors, that substantial evidence supported the finding that the doctors were not biased, that the parenting-time decisions were within the court's discretion and supported by the evidence, that requiring Probst to pay additional therapist costs was not an abuse of discretion, that scheduling a one-day hearing was not arbitrary, and that Probst had not shown the judge was biased against her.