Court Opinion

ID: 9557520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:51:39.428299+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:54.967908
License: Public Domain

*717Springer, J.,
dissenting:
This is yet another in the spate of recent cases in which an ever-increasing number of natural parents are losing their children to the State because they are flunking their “reunification test.”
The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. §§ 620-628, 670-679 imposes upon the states a duty, when the state removes children from their homes, to use “reasonable efforts” to “make it possible for the child to return to his home.” The Act requires that a “case review system” be set up by the states. In response to the federal legislation, the state has set up standards and regulations which require “continued assessment” of any child placement and the “development, revision and implementation” of a “written case plan.” (“Substitute Care Manual,” issued by Nevada State Welfare Division). The referred-to, written case plan is part of the federally mandated requirement that states use reasonable efforts to return to their homes children who have been removed from their homes by welfare officials. The case plan is sometimes referred to as a “reunification plan.”
The mentioned Substitute Care Manual emphasizes that periodic evaluation is an “integral part of the casework process” and provides that the purpose of periodic evaluation of case plans is “to measure the extent to which treatment goals have been or are being realized.” In other words, the primary duty of Welfare in cases where children have been removed from their homes is to monitor parental progress or lack of it with respect to the case plan.
When Mr. Weipner’s child was removed from his home, Welfare set about the formulation of a reunification plan and arranged for periodic court reviews of the “reasonable efforts” that they were supposedly engaging in so that the child might be returned to its father. When this matter came before the district court for review on November 22, 1994, the court made a startling discovery. The case manager presented to the court the identical report that had been presented at the previous, May, 1994 hearing, only the date had been changed. The case manager’s failure to file a proper and current report is not just an example of official laziness and neglect, it goes to the basic rights of this father, who was being denied the right to earn the return of his child by his compliance with the reunification plan. The trial court had given this father an “ultimatum” in May and told him that if he did not “shape up” (to use the vernacular), he was in danger of losing his child permanently. In response to the judge’s ultimatum, the father did a number of things to improve his chances of having his child returned, including attempts to get work; but he suffered *718set-backs in his employment by reason of injuries and his having served seven weeks on a federal jury.
The trial court decried the fact that the case manager had “chosefn] to submit an exact duplicate of a prior report rather than inform the court of the events during the review period.” This, concluded the court, made it “impossible to review the efforts of the parents or of the DCFS when this is done. It is particularly regrettable when the Court has stated an ultimatum to a parent to comply.”
The district court further observed that this was the second time that this particular case worker had tried to hoodwink the court. The court commented that these proceedings were not “meant to be a sham” and that case workers have the duty to act “responsibly” when submitting these kinds of reports. Said the court:
This conduct cannot be tolerated, will not be tolerated, and as far as I’m concerned that conduct puts my decision today in substantial jeopardy . . . that conduct creates a difficulty that cannot be overcome.
In my judgment the proceedings leading up to this termination decree were, as recognized by the court a “sham”; and I agree with the trial court that it is “impossible to review the efforts of the parents” or the welfare agents when welfare agents are guilty of this kind of misconduct. The trial judge was, of course, correct, when he recognized that his decision was put in “substantial jeopardy” by the mentioned misconduct and that it “create[d] a difficulty that cannot be overcome.”
Here we have a father who was trying. Here we have a father who does not deserve to lose his child. Given the gross misconduct of the Welfare agents in this case, I would remand the matter back to the trial court and order that the trial court provide the father with another six month’s trial period, after which his efforts would be reviewed and a decision made, based upon a non-fraudulent welfare report, as to whether he is a fit parent and as to whether he “deserves”1 to lose his child.

“[A] parent does not deserve to forfeit the sacred liberty right of parenthood unless such unfitness is shown to be severe and persistent and such as to render the parent unsuitable to maintain the parental relationship.” Champagne v. Welfare Division, 100 Nev. 640, 648, 691 P.2d 849, 855 (1984) (footnote omitted).