IN RE: PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO L.L.S.

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Standard of review: Constitutional questions, including a parent's procedural due process rights in a termination proceeding, are reviewed de novo. In re Parental Rights as to M.F., 132 Nev. 209, 212, 371 P.3d 995, 997 (2016). Statutory framework: TPR proceedings under NRS 432B.5901-.5908 must be conducted by the "court." NRS 432B.050 incorporates the definition of "juvenile court" from NRS 62A.180. NRS 62A.180(2)(a) provides that a master qualifies as a "juvenile court" only when the juvenile court "delegates authority to the master to perform [a specific] act in accordance with the Constitution of the State of Nevada." The court reads this language as conditioning a master's statutory authority on constitutional compliance. Constitutional framework: The Nevada Constitution authorizes the Legislature to provide for "[r]eferees in district courts." Nev. Const. art. 6, § 6(2)(a); cf. NRCP 53(a)(1). Both the Nevada Constitution, Nev. Const. art. 1, § 8(2), and the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Const. amend. XIV(1), guarantee due process. Procedural due process in TPR proceedings is analyzed under Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976). See In re Parental Rights as to M.M.L., Jr., 133 Nev. 147, 149-52, 393 P.3d 1079, 1081-83 (2017); In re M.F., 132 Nev. at 213-14, 371 P.3d at 998-99. Application of Mathews: (1) The parent's interest is "as strong as can be," with the court reiterating that termination is "tantamount to imposition of a civil death penalty." In re Parental Rights as to A.L., 130 Nev. 914, 918, 337 P.3d 758, 761 (2014); see also Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 759 (1982); NRS 128.005(2)(a). (2) On risk of erroneous deprivation, the court found that placing a master between the litigants and the ultimate decisionmaker tends to lessen the quality of the decision, particularly where the district judge does not order de novo fact-finding. The court relied on its prior recognition in In re A.B., 128 Nev. 764, 770-71, 291 P.3d 122, 127 (2012), that a master "does not possess the same powers conferred to a juvenile court judge through Article 6, Section 6 of the Nevada Constitution," and that the judge "may not transfer his or her judicial decision-making power to a master." (3) On governmental interest, the court distinguished M.M.L. (denial of indefinite continuances) and M.F. (no jury-trial right in TPR), reasoning that the two-step master-then-judge process produces little efficiency gain because the judge must still thoroughly review the record. The court noted Russell v. Thompson, 96 Nev. 830, 835-36, 619 P.2d 537, 540 (1980), for the proposition that calendar congestion alone does not constitute "exceptional conditions" under NRCP 53(a)(2)(C)(i) absent statutory authorization. The court also cited 2019 Nev. Stat., ch. 483, § 4, at 2870 (amending NRS 3.0185) and legislative-hearing testimony as confirming that masters do not in fact materially improve efficiency in dependency matters. Holding: Because allowing a master to preside over a TPR trial violates due process, the master is not performing the role "in accordance with the Constitution of the State of Nevada" within NRS 62A.180(2)(a), does not constitute a "court" under NRS 432B.050 and NRS 432B.5901-.5908, and therefore lacks statutory authority to preside over the TPR trial. A district judge must preside in the first instance. Preservation: In a footnote, the majority held the issue preserved despite Tahja's failure to join L.L.S.'s objection in the district court, because the juvenile court had already addressed and rejected the issue in a thoroughly reasoned order. The court cited In re E.R. Fegert, Inc., 887 F.2d 955, 957 (9th Cir. 1989); Schuck v. Signature Flight Support of Nev., Inc., 126 Nev. 434, 437, 245 P.3d 542, 544-45 (2010); Old Aztec Mine, Inc. v. Brown, 97 Nev. 49, 52, 623 P.2d 981, 983 (1981); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 94 n.31 (1972); and Landes Constr. Co., Inc. v. Royal Bank of Can., 833 F.2d 1365, 1370 (9th Cir. 1987). Disposition: Reversed and remanded for a new TPR proceeding consistent with the opinion.

In plain language

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.