IN RE: PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO R.T., K.G-T., N.H-T. AND E.H-T.

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The Court reviews a termination of parental rights for substantial evidence and does not "substitute its own judgment for that of the district court." In re Termination of Parental Rights as to N.J., 116 Nev. 790, 795, 8 P.3d 126, 129 (2000). To terminate parental rights, the petitioner must establish by clear and convincing evidence both (1) the child's best interest and (2) parental fault. In re Parental Rights as to A.L., 130 Nev., Adv. Op. 91, 337 P.3d 758, 761 (2014); NRS 128.105. Parental fault may rest on at least one of the statutory grounds enumerated in NRS 128.105(1)(b)(1)-(6), including abandonment, neglect, unfitness, failure of parental adjustment, risk of injury, or only token efforts. In re Termination of Parental Rights as to N.J., 116 Nev. at 801, 8 P.3d at 133. The Court announces - or, more precisely, reaffirms - that poverty is not a permissible basis for terminating parental rights. The Court grounds this rule in the text of NRS 128.106(1)(e), which directs courts evaluating neglect or unfitness to consider "[r]epeated or continuous failure by the parent, although physically and financially able, to provide the child with adequate food, clothing, shelter, education or other care," and in NRS 128.013(1)(c), which defines injury in terms of failure to provide subsistence "although [the parent] is financially able to do so or has been offered financial or other reasonable means to do so." The Court reaffirms Cooley v. Division of Child & Family Services, 113 Nev. 1191, 946 P.2d 155 (1997), In re Parental Rights as to Daniels, 114 Nev. 81, 953 P.2d 1 (1998), and In re Parental Rights as to Bow, 113 Nev. 141, 930 P.2d 1128 (1997), to the extent they hold that poverty cannot serve as a basis for termination, while noting in footnote 3 that those cases were overruled in part by N.J. with respect to the Champagne jurisdictional/dispositional framework. See Champagne v. Welfare Division of Nevada State Department of Human Resources, 100 Nev. 640, 691 P.2d 849 (1984). The Court distinguishes the impermissible use of poverty from a permissible consideration of a parent's failure to comply with a state-issued case plan when reasonable reunification services have been offered. Applying that framework, the Court holds that substantial evidence supports the district court's finding that Jacqueline's failure to reunite with her children was not the result of poverty. The record showed over two years of case-plan time, extensive services from WCDSS and the Children's Cabinet, and a pattern of non-engagement: an unused Section 8 voucher, unfiled applications for Victims of Crime Act funds and low-income energy assistance, repeated job departures, and discharge from at least three therapists for missed appointments. The Court also notes that NRS 128.106(1)(a) requires the district court to consider a parent's emotional or mental illness when evaluating neglect or unfitness, and finds substantial evidence that Jacqueline failed to address her mental-health issues. The Court further applies the statutory presumptions of NRS 128.109(1)(a) and (2), which presume token efforts and that termination serves the children's best interests when children have resided outside the home for 14 of any 20 consecutive months, and concludes Jacqueline did not overcome those presumptions as to R.T., K.G.-T., and N.H.-T. The district court additionally found token efforts under NRS 128.105(1)(b)(6). In footnote 2, the Court rejects Jacqueline's argument that termination required a finding of "serious harm." The Court has "never held that a district court must find 'serious harm' to the children before terminating one's parental rights," and the risk-of-injury ground in NRS 128.105(1)(b)(5) "need not be found in every termination case" because NRS 128.105(1)(b) requires only one ground of parental fault. The Court also notes that 2015 amendments to NRS 128.105 do not alter the disposition. 2015 Nev. Stat., ch. 250, § 3, at 1184-85. In footnote 6, the Court holds that, to the extent Jacqueline challenges the best-interest finding, substantial evidence supports it.

In plain language

This case asks whether a Nevada court can take away a parent's legal rights to her children because she is poor. The Nevada Supreme Court answers clearly that poverty alone is not, and never has been, a permissible reason to terminate parental rights. But the Court also holds that the trial judge in this case did not, in fact, terminate the mother's rights because she was poor. He terminated them because, even with substantial help from the State and a nonprofit, she did not follow through on the steps required to be reunited with her children. Jacqueline G. is the mother of four children. Beginning in late 2012, child-welfare authorities received reports that she did not have stable housing. She moved frequently, was evicted, and had used up local housing resources. Three of her children were removed from her custody in April 2013. Her fourth child, E.H.-T., was born in January 2014 and was removed later after a caseworker found a motel room with animal feces, urine, dirty diapers, and significant clutter that posed a safety risk to the now-mobile baby. WCDSS gave Jacqueline a written "case plan" - a list of things she needed to do to get her children back. The plan required her to find and keep housing, obtain stable income (through work or welfare), and show she could meet her children's basic needs. WCDSS and a nonprofit called the Children's Cabinet then provided extensive help: referrals to the Reno Housing Authority and Section 8 housing, victim-assistance programs, low-income energy assistance, job-search help, resume help, mental-health referrals, hotel funds, diapers, donated furniture, bus passes, clothing for job interviews, and more. Despite this assistance, Jacqueline lived in roughly 15 different shelters, apartments, and motels between October 2012 and July 2015. She quit or was fired from nearly every job within a month. She did not complete therapy with any of three referred therapists. She did not use a Section 8 voucher she received, did not apply for Victims of Crime Act funds, and did not submit paperwork for low-income energy assistance. After a six-day trial with 21 witnesses, the district court terminated her parental rights, finding that she had made only "token efforts" toward reunification and that termination served the children's best interests. The Supreme Court affirms. Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice Parraguirre uses the case to make a clear public statement: under Nevada law, a parent cannot be found neglectful or unfit simply because she lacks money. The relevant statutes themselves require the parent to be "financially able" before failing to provide basic care counts against her. But that protection does not shield a parent who fails to use the resources she is given. The Court concludes there was substantial evidence that Jacqueline's failure to reunite with her children was not caused by poverty, but by her not following through on the help offered. The Court also rejects Jacqueline's argument that the district court was required to find "serious harm" to the children before terminating her rights. Nevada law lists several possible grounds for parental fault, and the trial court only needs to find one of them.