Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

NRS 128.012

“Abandonment of a child” defined

Applied in 20 court decisions — leading case Matter of Parental Rights as to NJ (2000)

Most recently applied in IN RE: PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO S.A.T. (FAMILY) (October 2025)

(Added to NRS by 1975, 963; A 1981, 1753)

How often courts cite this section

19801990200020102020202520
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

1. “Abandonment of a child” means any conduct of one or both parents of a child which evinces a settled purpose on the part of one or both parents to forego all parental custody and relinquish all claims to the child.

2. If a parent or parents of a child leave the child in the care and custody of another without provision for the child’s support and without communication for a period of 6 months, or if the child is left under such circumstances that the identity of the parents is unknown and cannot be ascertained despite diligent searching, and the parents do not come forward to claim the child within 3 months after the child is found, the parent or parents are presumed to have intended to abandon the child.

Official source: Nevada Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Nevada statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.