Filed on November 14th 2006
Nebraska Court of AppealsA-06-616
Termination of a mother’s parental rights was in the child’s best interest because the mother failed to meet case plan requirements, and the child had formed a positive relationship with a foster family willing to adopt. Further, signed reports prepared by caseworkers were acceptable and fundamentally fair [...]

Filed on November 14, 2006
Not designated for permanent publication
Nebraska Court of Appeals, A-06-546
SUMMARY: “To challenge a dispositional order entered by the juvenile court on the basis of an assertion that the permanency objection differs from the case plan proposed by DHHS and that such a ruling and plan so adopted is not the in the [...]

Filed on November 14, 2006
15 Neb. App. 179, 723 N.W.2d 652
SUMMARY: The court found that the father’s “failure to intervene, when he was provided with substandard information, [did] not constitute abandonment,” and that the father’s use of the “automatic withdrawal payment process for child support” was not “a token effort, nor [did] it someone negatively [...]

In re Interest of Chloe H. and Katrina H.
Filed on October 31, 2006
15 Neb. App. 148, __ N.W.2d __
SUMMARY: For the purposes of interpreting when DHHS is required to make reasonable efforts towards reunification under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-286.01, a family is defined as either the biological parents or a stepparent when such stepparent [...]

Filed on September 29, 2006
272 Neb. 370, 721 N.W.2d 651
SUMMARY: Under § 43-285, the juvenile court has the authority to remove a case manager, “when after nearly a year of limited progress” the court ordered DHHS to “reassign th[e] case to an experienced case manager with demonstrated knowledge of incest cases and the needed treatment [...]

Filed on September 22, 2006
272 Neb. 314, 721 N.W.2d 638
SUMMARY: A timely appeal of an order terminating parental rights may be allowed to proceed in forma pauperis when the motion is accompanied by a poverty affidavit that has been” properly made and authenticated, out of state before a person authorized to administer oaths in the [...]

Filed on September 19, 2006
15 Neb. App. 47, 721 N.W.2d 676
SUMMARY: The juvenile court properly exercised its emergency jurisdiction over Maxwell while one parent was incarcerated and the other parent was in alcohol treatment.  Although there was a South Dakota custody order, the Nebraska court could continue its jurisdiction so long as the emergency persisted.  [...]

Filed on August 29, 2006
Not designated for permanent publication
Nebraska Court of Appeals, A-06-194
SUMMARY: Even though the mother was “not at fault for her present situation and that she very much desire[d] [her daughter’s] return” the court recognized that “when a parent is unable or unwilling to rehabilitate himself or herself within a reasonable time, the [...]

Filed on August 22, 2006
Not designated for permanent publication
Nebraska Court of Appeals, A-06-127
SUMMARY: The court upheld the juvenile court’s order terminating a father’s parental rights to both children where the child who suffered the alleged abuse was under the father’s care when the alleged abuse occurred.  The injuries were of a type that would not [...]

Filed on July 11, 2006
14 Neb. App. 891, 719 N.W.2d 304
SUMMARY: “The stated purposes of the ICWA are best served by allowing parents to raise, in their direct appeal from a termination of parental rights, the issue of the State’s failure to notify the child’s Indian tribe of the termination of parental rights proceedings as [...]