Eggleston v. Stuart, 495 P.3d 482 (2021)
Sep 23, 2021OUTCOME: The Supreme Court of Nevada found in favor of our client and reversed and remanded the dismissal of his § 1983 civil rights violation, the dismissal of his associated tort claims, and the dismissal of punitive damages.
Our client appealed a variety of different claims resulting from the dismissal of his 42 USC § 1983 civil rights violation claim and other tort claims. The parties have two children and in 2013 the mot ... her of the children started to express suicidal ideations, so the family elicited the help from the Clark County Department of Family Services to join a program to improve the overall wellbeing of the family. One day out of the blue a DFS agent showed up to our client’s home with two police officers and the children’s maternal aunt and demanded that our client sign over temporary guardianship right to the maternal aunt or else the police officers will take his children away. Under duress our client signed over the rights to the maternal Aunt who subsequently fled to Illinois and attempted to get permanent guardianship of the children there. After our client signed over his rights under duress, the DFS made a finding of child maltreatment to which our client appeals, and a fair hearing was set later that year. A year later our client filed a complaint for a 42 USC § 1983 civil rights violation claims against DFS, the agent, and the maternal aunt. The District Court dismissed our client’s claims stating that the claims were deficient and punitive damages were unavailable for this claim. Our client then amended his complaint to add among other things the tort claim of infliction of emotional distress. This time the District Court dismissed the claim on the basis that our client failed to exhaust all administrative remedies in his DFS case before filing civil action. The Supreme Court of Nevada held that first the District Court erred by claiming that our client was required to exhaust his administrative remedies before filing a § 1983. The Supreme Court relied on the reasoning that our client’s claim was a substantive due process violation not a procedural due process violation because the fundamental right to bring up children is linked to the right to Liberty. Substantive due process violations are actionable when the wrongful act occurs, so the exhaustion exception applied to procedural due process claims does not apply here. The Supreme Court of Nevada also found that the District Court erred by linking the DFS findings to our client’s complaint. The complaint for a § 1983 civil rights violation did not have an administrative remedy and thus the District Court erred in dismissed the § 1983 claim for failure to exhaust the administrative remedies.