HARRIS VS. FIGUEROA (CHILD CUSTODY)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The Court of Appeals reviewed the child custody determination for abuse of discretion. Wallace v. Wallace, 112 Nev. 1015, 1019, 922 P.2d 541, 543 (1996). A district court abuses its discretion when its decision is clearly erroneous, Bautista v. Picone, 134 Nev. 334, 336, 419 P.3d 157, 159 (2018), and the court will not set aside a custody determination supported by substantial evidence — evidence a reasonable person would accept as adequate to sustain a judgment. Ellis v. Carucci, 123 Nev. 145, 149, 161 P.3d 239, 242 (2007). On the doctrinal framework, the court reiterated that legal custody is the basic legal responsibility for a child and the responsibility to make major decisions regarding the child, with sole legal custody vesting that right in one parent and joint legal custody in both. Rivero v. Rivero, 125 Nev. 410, 420, 216 P.3d 213, 221 (2009), overruled in part on other grounds by Romano v. Romano, 138 Nev. 1, 501 P.3d 980 (2022). NRS 125C.002(1)(a) creates a statutory presumption that joint legal custody serves the child's best interest when certain conditions are met, such as when the parties have agreed to joint custody. The court noted that this presumption is overcome when the district court finds the parents are unable to communicate, cooperate, and compromise in the best interest of the child, citing Rivero, 125 Nev. at 420, 216 P.3d at 221, and its prior interpretation of Rivero in Doucettperry v. Doucettperry, No. 80114-COA, 2020 WL 6445845 (Nev. Ct. App. Nov. 2, 2020). Applying that framework, the court held substantial evidence supported the finding that the parties could not cooperate, communicate, and compromise. It relied on Figueroa's testimony that Harris threatened her, wrote letters telling the children they would know the truth about his incarceration and would hate Figueroa, and continued to contact his stepdaughter, coupled with Harris's own testimony that he was compiling evidence to "bring her to justice." The court also noted the district court's findings that the "animus between the parties was palpable" and that the briefs consisted of personal attacks. The court determined the district court complied with the mandate of the prior remand (Harris, No. 81746-COA, at *4): it explicitly applied the NRS 125C.002 presumption in favor of joint legal custody, concluded Figueroa overcame it by demonstrating the parties could not cooperate, found Harris was the "root cause" of the inability to communicate, and linked its findings to its best-interest conclusion — determining that because Harris was the cause of the parties' issues and was incarcerated, sole legal custody in Figueroa served the children's best interest. The court rejected Harris's argument that the district court based its determination on a single best-interest factor and his reliance on Lewis v. Lewis, 132 Nev. 458, 460, 373 P.3d 878, 882 (2016), distinguishing Lewis as addressing physical, not legal, custody. The court observed that the NRS 125C.0035 best-interest factors apply generally to physical custody rather than legal custody, citing NRS 125C.0035(1). To the extent NRS 125C.0035(4) applied, the district court identified the relevant factors to the narrow remand issues and found a high level of conflict, NRS 125C.0035(4)(d), an inability to cooperate regarding the children's needs, NRS 125C.0035(4)(e), and Harris's history of and criminal convictions relating to sexually abusing the children's half-sibling, NRS 125C.0035(4)(j). On the bias claim, the court held relief was unwarranted because Harris did not demonstrate that any alleged bias was based on knowledge acquired outside the proceedings, nor that the decision reflected "a deep-seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible." Canarelli v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 138 Nev. 104, 107, 506 P.3d 334, 337 (2022) (internal quotation marks omitted). The court also cited In re Petition to Recall Dunleavy, 104 Nev. 784, 789-90, 769 P.2d 1271, 1275 (1988), for the principle that rulings made during official judicial proceedings generally do not establish legally cognizable grounds for disqualification, and Rivero, 125 Nev. at 439, 216 P.3d at 233, for the proposition that the party asserting bias bears the burden of establishing sufficient factual grounds.

In plain language

Ronald Harris and Jenniffer Figueroa share four children and divorced in 2017. According to the opinion, Harris later pleaded guilty to sexually abusing his stepdaughter, who was Figueroa's daughter from another marriage. In April 2020, Figueroa asked the court for sole legal and sole physical custody of the four children she shares with Harris. "Legal custody" means the basic responsibility to make major decisions for a child (such as those about education, health, and religion), as distinct from "physical custody," which concerns where the child lives. In May 2020, the district court granted Figueroa sole legal and sole physical custody at a case management conference that Harris did not attend, doing so on its own initiative. Harris appealed the sole-legal-custody part of that decision, and the Court of Appeals reversed it in part, finding that the district court had violated Harris's due process rights and had not followed required steps — it had not held an evidentiary hearing, had not applied the legal presumption favoring joint legal custody, and had not connected its findings about the children's best interest to its conclusion. On remand, the district court held a hearing on legal custody that both parents attended. Figueroa testified that she could not cooperate with Harris. She pointed to letters Harris wrote to the children saying they would learn "the truth" about his incarceration when they turned 18 and would hate her, to Harris's continued contact with his stepdaughter (the victim of his crimes), and to Harris threatening her. Harris testified that he and Figueroa generally agreed on raising the children, that his incarceration had no bearing on his children, and that he had not harmed his own children. He also said he was gathering evidence to "bring her to justice," claiming Figueroa was culpable in his crimes against his stepdaughter, and said "the only thing that's separating her and I right now is that she hasn't been convicted of anything yet." After the hearing, the district court entered a written order giving Figueroa sole legal custody. This time it applied the presumption favoring joint legal custody, then found the presumption was overcome because the parents could not cooperate. It found the conflict between them was high, that they could not cooperate about the children's needs, and that Harris had been convicted of child abuse of a step-sibling. The court concluded Harris was "the root of this problem," that a reasonable parent could not cooperate with someone convicted of serious sexual abuse of her daughter who was also trying to have her prosecuted, and that it would be impractical for Harris to be sole legal custodian given his incarceration. On this second appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. It concluded that substantial evidence — meaning evidence a reasonable person would accept as adequate — supported the district court's finding that the parents could not communicate, cooperate, and compromise in their children's best interest, and that the district court had followed the steps required in the prior remand. The court also rejected Harris's claim that the judge was biased, finding he had not shown the alleged bias came from outside the case or reflected the kind of deep-seated antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible.