Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Phillip Grigalanz, Petitioner v. Elizabeth Copas

Supreme Court briefAug 26, 2026

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ORIGINAL

FILED

No.

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

AUG 2 6 2026

OFFICE OF THE CLERK

SUPREME COURT, U.S.

PHILLIP SCOTT GRIGALANZ,

Petitioner,

ELIZABETH MARIE COPAS,

Respondent.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE

COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEVADA

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

PHILLIP SCOTT GRIGALANZ

Petitioner, Pro Se

1410 Albion Street, Apartment 6

Denver, Colorado 80220

pgrigalanzl @gmail.com

(269) 369-4812

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

1. Whether the Fourteenth Amendment permits a State, in the name of parental autonomy, to

make the absence of biological or adoptive status conclusive at the courthouse door and deny any

evidentiary process to establish de facto or psychological parent status where the caregiver alleges

that a legal parent affirmatively created and fostered a durable parent-child relationship and the

children developed corresponding dependent family bonds.

2. Whether that categorical rule is constitutionally permissible where the State's own child

custody jurisdiction code recognizes a nonparent as a legally consequential "person acting as a

parent" who "claims a right to legal custody pursuant to the law of this state," gives that class

jurisdictional and interstate-enforcement consequences, but provides no original proceeding in

which the claimed status can be adjudicated - thereby also foreclosing judicial consideration of the

children's interests in the asserted family relationship.

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING

Petitioner Phillip Scott Grigalanz was the appellant in the Court of Appeals of the State of

Nevada and the petitioner for discretionary review in the Supreme Court of Nevada. Respondent

Elizabeth Marie Copas was the respondent in those proceedings. No party is a corporation, and no

party has a stock ticker symbol.

DIRECTLY RELATED PROCEEDINGS

Eighth Judicial District Court of Nevada, Family Division, Clark County: Phillip Scott

Grigalanz v. Elizabeth Marie Copas, No. D-25-713639-P; written dismissal entered October 14,

2025.

Court of Appeals of the State of Nevada: Grigalanz v. Copas, No. 91619-COA; Order of

Affirmance filed July 9,2026.

Supreme Court of Nevada: Grigalanz v. Copas, No. 91619; Order Denying Petition for Review

filed August 7,2026.

Supreme Court of Nevada: Grigalanz v. Eighth Judicial District Court, No. 91066; Order

Denying Petition for Writ of Mandamus or Prohibition filed August 6, 2025 (same district-court

custody matter).

Court of Appeals of the State of Nevada: Grigalanz v. Eighth Judicial District Court, No.

91396-COA; Order Denying Petition filed October 9, 2025 (same district-court custody matter).

CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Not applicable. The parties are natural persons.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING

DIRECTLY RELATED PROCEEDINGS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

OPINIONS AND ORDERS BELOW

JURISDICTION

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS INVOLVED

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

I. THE DECISION BELOW MAKES BIOLOGY A CONCLUSIVE GATE AND

iii

FORECLOSES ANY PROCESS FOR ESTABLISHING THE FAMILY RELATIONSHIP

ALLEGED.

II. TROXEL IS A LIMITING PRINCIPLE FOR A SCREENED CLAIM, NOT A RULE

OF CATEGORICAL BIOLOGICAL EXCLUSION.

III. NEVADA'S UCCJEA ARCHITECTURE CREATES A CIRCULAR, STATUS-

BASED COURTHOUSE BARRIER THAT SHARPENS THE FEDERAL QUESTION.

IV. THE STATES ARE DEEPLY DIVIDED, AND MODERN LAW SHOWS THAT

THE QUESTION IS RECURRING AND JUDICIALLY MANAGEABLE.

V. THIS CASE IS A CLEAN VEHICLE FOR RESOLVING THE PROCESS

QUESTION WITHOUT CREATING A NEW SUBSTANTIVE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT.

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U.S. 545 (1965)

Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C., 28 N.Y.3d 1 (2016)

9, 13

Conover v. Conover, 146 A.3d 433 (Md. 2016)

9, 13 .

In re C.J.C., 603 S.W.3d 804 (Tex. 2020)

In re Custody of H.S.H.-K., 533 N.W.2d 419 (Wis. 1995)

2, 9, 13

In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967)

In re Interest of H.S., 550 S.W.3d 151 (Tex. 2018)

In re Parentage of L.B., 122 P.3d 161 (Wash. 2005)

Jones v. Barlow, 154 P.3d 808 (Utah 2007)

Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248 (1983)

Mast v. A.A., 925 S.E.2d 665 (Va. 2026)

14_15

Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110 (1989)

Mullins v. Picklesimer, 317 S.W.3d 569 (Ky. 2010)

Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979)

Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400 (1991)

Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982)

4, 7

Smith v. Guest, 16 A.3d 920 (Del. 2011)

Smith v. Org. of Foster Fams, for Equal. & Reform, 431 U.S. 816 (1977)

6-7

Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972)

4? 6, 8

T.B. v. L.R.M., 786 A.2d 913 (Pa. 2001)

Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000)

5, 8-10, 14, 16

V.C. v. M.J.B., 748 A.2d 539 (N.J. 2000)

2,9,13

Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997)

10, 16

Constitutional Provisions

U.S. Const, amend. XIV

1, 6, 15

Statutes and Rules

28 U.S.C. § 1257(a)

28 U.S.C. § 2403(b)

Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 125A.085, .135, .305, .315, .325, .345, .445, .465, .475

1-4, 11-12

12, 14

Sup. Ct. R. 10; Sup. Ct. R. 13.1

Other Authorities

UNIF. PARENTAGE ACT § 609 (UNIF. L. COMM'N 2017); Mass. Gen.

Laws ch. 209C, § 25; R.I. Gen. Laws § 15-8.1-501; Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 15C, § 501

OPINIONS AND ORDERS BELOW

The Court of Appeals of the State of Nevada filed an unpublished Order of Affirmance on July

9,2026. Grigalanz v. Copas, No. 91619-COA (Nev. Ct App. July 9,2026), reproduced at App. la6a. The Supreme Court of Nevada denied discretionary review without opinion on August 7,2026.

Grigalanz v. Copas, No. 91619 (Nev. Aug. 7,2026), reproduced at App. 7a.

JURISDICTION

The Court of Appeals of the State of Nevada entered judgment on July 9,2026. The Supreme •

Court of Nevada denied discretionary review on August 7, 2026. This petition is timely under Rule

13.1 because it is filed within 90 days of the denial of discretionary review. This Court has

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a).

Because this petition challenges the constitutionality, as applied, of Nevada’s categorical

interpretation of its custody-standing statutes, 28 U.S.C. § 2403(b) may apply. In accordance with

Rule 29.4(c), Petitioner is serving the Attorney General of Nevada with this petition.

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS INVOLVED

The Fourteenth Amendment provides in relevant part: "No State shall... deprive any person of

life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction

the equal protection of the laws." U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1. The Amendment speaks in terms of

"persons," and children are not outside its protection. See In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 13 (1967).

Nevada's Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) defines a

"person acting as a parent" to include a nonparent who has qualifying physical custody and who

either has been awarded legal custody or "claims a right to legal custody pursuant to the law of this

state." Nev. Rev. Stat. § 125A.135. The same chapter gives that class express significance in

defining the child's home State, initial jurisdiction, continuing jurisdiction, modification

jurisdiction, and registration of sister-state custody determinations. See id. §§ 125A.085,125A.305,

125A.315,125A.325,125A.465. It also provides that intervention and joinder remain governed by

Nevada law. Id. § 125A.345(3). The pertinent provisions are reproduced at App. 16a et seq.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

A. Petitioner alleged a parent-child relationship deliberately created and fostered by the legal

parent.

This case concerns a threshold question: whether a court must permit a claimant to prove the

family status he alleges before the court treats nonbiology as dispositive. Petitioner has never

claimed to be the children's biological or adoptive father. He alleged instead that Respondent invited

him into the household, entrusted him with sustained parental responsibilities, and fostered a

relationship in which the children came to rely upon him as a parent.

The Nevada appellate filings alleged that Petitioner lived with the children from approximately

September 27,2024, through May 24,2025; provided meals, transportation, school routines,

supervision, medical and dental coordination, emotional support, discipline, and daily care; and

performed those responsibilities without compensation. They further alleged that the children

addressed him as "Dad," "Father," or "Papi." See App. 8a-15a.

Those allegations track the factual questions used by leading de facto-parent doctrines: whether

a legal parent consented to and fostered the relationship; whether the claimant and children lived

together; whether the claimant assumed substantial parental obligations; whether the arrangement

endured long enough to create a bonded and dependent parental relationship; and whether abrupt

destruction of the bond threatens cognizable harm to the child. See V.C. v. M.J.B., 748 A.2d 539,

551-52 (N.J. 2000); In re Custody of H.S.H.-K., 533 N.W.2d 419, 435-36 (Wis. 1995). Petitioner

asked for an evidentiary determination of that threshold status, not an automatic award of custody.

B. Nevada treated nonbiology as dispositive and therefore never adjudicated the alleged

relationship or the children's interests in it.

The district court dismissed for lack of standing. The Court of Appeals affirmed de novo. It

held that Nev. Rev. Stat. § 125A.135 is definitional and does not itself confer standing, that Nevada

precedent had not used in loco parentis to pennit an unrelated person to seek custody, and that

decisions from other jurisdictions did not establish standing under Nevada law. App. 3a-5a.

The dispositive step was categorical. The Court of Appeals reasoned that standing presented a

"purely legal question" because Petitioner conceded that he was not biologically related to the

children. It therefore held that no evidentiary hearing was required and that the district court need

not make Nevada's statutory best-interest findings. App. 5a-6a. Service and judicial-bias issues were

left unresolved. App. 6a.

Thus Nevada did not find that Petitioner failed a de facto-parent test. It held that, because he

lacked biology, there was no such test he was entitled to take. No court determined whether

Respondent actually consented to and fostered the alleged parental relationship, whether Petitioner

actually performed the asserted parental functions, whether the children became dependent upon

that relationship, or what effect an abrupt termination of the asserted family bond had upon them.

C. Nevada's UCCJEA simultaneously recognizes a legally consequential class of "persons

acting as parents."

Nevada's jurisdictional code makes the resulting gap unusually concrete. A child's "home state"

may be the State in which the child lived for six months with "a parent or a person acting as a

parent." Nev. Rev. Stat. § 125A.085. Initial jurisdiction may depend on the continued Nevada

residence or significant Nevada connection of a "person acting as a parent," together with evidence

concerning the child's "care, protection, training and personal relationships." Id. § 125A.305(l)(a)-

(b). Continuing and modification jurisdiction likewise .expressly account for a "person acting as a

parent." Id. §§ 125A.315,125A.325.

Most strikingly, the definition includes a nonparent who, after the required period of physical

custody, either has been awarded legal custody or "claims a right to legal custody pursuant to the

law of this state." Id. § 125A.135. Yet the decision below holds that this statutory status does not

itself open an original Nevada proceeding, and no other Nevada doctrine was held to do so. At the

same time, Nevada must recognize and enforce qualifying sister-state determinations, and its

registration statute expressly contemplates a "person acting as a parent" who has already been

awarded custody or visitation. Id. §§ 125A.445,125A.465.

Petitioner does not contend that the UCCJEA itself creates substantive parentage. The Act

allocates jurisdiction, and Nevada expressly provides that intervention and joinder remain governed

by Nevada law. Id. § 125A.345(3). The point is structural: Nevada law gives the asserted status

jurisdictional consequences and recognizes it after another sovereign has adjudicated it, while the

decision below supplies no original Nevada pathway in which the predicate claimed status can be

tested.

D. The federal questions were preserved.

Petitioner's Fast Track Statement challenged the refusal to hear evidence as a denial of due

process and a meaningful opportunity to be heard on standing; challenged categorical status-based

decisionmaking under Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972), Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745

(1982); and argued that Nevada's use of a biology-only threshold ignored the children's welfare and

asserted parental bonds. App. 12a-15a.

The Petition for Review then squarely asked whether Nevada could recognize a "person acting

as a parent" in interstate jurisdiction and enforcement while denying any original Nevada pathway,

and whether the absence of biology could be treated as a purely legal answer to a status defined

elsewhere by Consent, caregiving, duration, and dependency. App. 8a-1 la. The Court of Appeals

stated that arguments not specifically addressed had been considered and rejected, App. 6a, and the

Nevada Supreme Court denied review, App. 7a.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

This petition asks for a narrow constitutional rule at the threshold of adjudication. It does not

ask the Court to declare Petitioner a parent, award him custody, diminish the presumption favoring

a fit legal parent, or constitutionalize every emotionally important relationship with a child. It asks

whether a State may make biology conclusive before allowing any inquiry into an alleged parentcreated family relationship - and thereby make the children's side of that alleged relationship legally

invisible.

The question is important and recurring. States have divided sharply between screened

functional-parent doctrines, restrictive biology-or-adoption rules, and detailed legislative models.

Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), protects fit parents against undifferentiated third-party

intervention, but it deliberately did not define the constitutional treatment of every nonparent

relationship. Nevada's decision presents the unresolved boundaiy in unusually clean form because

standing alone ended the case.

I. THE DECISION BELOW MAKES BIOLOGY A CONCLUSIVE GATE AND

FORECLOSES ANY PROCESS FOR ESTABLISHING THE FAMILY RELATIONSHIP

ALLEGED.

A. This Court’s precedents do not reduce constitutionally significant family relationships to

biology alone.

The Constitution gives extraordinary protection to parental decisionmaking. Troxel, 530 U.S. at

65-69. But this Court's family cases also reject the proposition that a biological fact, standing alone,

invariably answers the legal status of a developed parent-child relationship. Lehr v. Robertson

explained that an unwed father's biological connection does not by itself command full

constitutional protection; what matters is whether he has developed a relationship by accepting

parental responsibilities. 463 U.S. 248, 261-62 (1983). Stanley likewise held that the State could not

use a categorical presumption to avoid the individualized hearing necessary to determine parental

fitness. 405 U.S. at 654-58.

Smith v. Organization of Foster Families for Equality & Reform is especially instructive, while

also marking the limits of the argument. The Court did not decide that every foster relationship is a

constitutionally protected family. 431 U.S. 816, 842-47 (1977). But it recognized that the

importance of family life can arise from the emotional attachments created by the intimacy of daily

association, not blood alone. Id. at 844. That insight matters where the legal parent herself allegedly

created the relationship and the State refuses to determine whether it became parental in fact.

The claim here is therefore narrower than a freestanding assertion that affection creates

constitutional parenthood. Petitioner alleges intentional parental delegation and fostering, sustained

performance of parental obligations, co-residence, and a bonded and dependent relationship. Those

are facts. Nevada treated them as legally irrelevant because one different fact - nonbiology - was

undisputed.

B. Children are constitutional persons, and a court cannot assume their interests disappear

merely because they ordinarily cannot litigate for themselves.

The Fourteenth Amendment protects "any person" within a State's jurisdiction. U.S. Const,

amend. XIV, § 1. Children are not constitutional nonpersons. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1,13 (1967).

Parham v. J.R. recognized both a child's substantial liberty interest and the ordinarily dominant role

of parents, while emphasizing that parental authority is not absolute and that the State sometimes

must provide independent review of decisions affecting the child. 442 U.S. 584, 600-06 (1979).

Santosky likewise described the child and parent as sharing a vital interest in preventing erroneous

destruction of their family relationship before the State establishes grounds for doing so. 455 U.S. at

760.

Smith addressed the practical representational problem directly. Children usually lack the

capacity to decide for themselves how their legal interests should be protected; ordinarily parents or

guardians speak for them. 431 U.S. at 841 n.44. In that federal litigation, the Court permitted foster

parents with sufficient attributes of guardianship to present the children's interests as well as their

own. Ibid. That prudential standing ruling does not dictate Nevada's domestic-relations standing

law. The same representational logic appears in this Court's third-party-standing cases, which

consider the closeness of the relationship and whether the rights-holder faces a genuine hindrance to

asserting his or her own interests. Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 410-11 (1991). Minors ordinarily

cannot prosecute a custody claim on their own, and the relationship Petitioner seeks to prove is

alleged to be parental rather than casual. It does, however, refute the premise that a child's relevant

interests necessarily vanish from judicial consideration whenever the adult who invokes them lacks

biological status.

This case exposes the problem acutely. If the legal parent is the person alleged to have created a

second parental relationship and later seeks to terminate it, the children cannot ordinarily file their

own custody pleading to ask whether that relationship is legally cognizable. A categorical rule

barring the alleged functional parent from even establishing threshold status can therefore ensure

that no one is permitted to present the children's side of the asserted bond. The State has not

protected the family by doing so; it has prevented the court from determining what family

relationship exists.

C. A threshold evidentiary determination protects rather than displaces the line between

standing and custody.

The relevant constitutional distinction is between being awarded parental authority and being

allowed to prove threshold status. A hearing on the latter does not adjudicate the former. It asks

whether the claimant belongs to the narrow class entitled to proceed at all. If the claimant fails to

prove legal-parent consent and fostering, substantial parental responsibilities, duration, and a

bonded dependent relationship, the case ends before merits adjudication.

That limited process accords with the Court's insistence that meaningful family-status

adjudication not rest on irrebuttable shortcuts. See Stanley, 405 U.S. at 656-58; cf. Armstrong v.

Manzo, 380 U.S. 545, 552 (1965) (due process requires a meaningful opportunity to be heard in an

adoption proceeding). It also respects the State's monopoly over legal custody status: only a court

can confer or deny the legal consequences Petitioner seeks to establish. The requested rule is

therefore about access to an adjudicative process, not an entitlement to a custody result.

IL TROXEL IS A LIMITING PRINCIPLE FOR A SCREENED CLAIM, NOT A RULE OF

CATEGORICAL BIOLOGICAL EXCLUSION.

A. Troxel addressed open-ended third-party visitation, not a parent-created parental

relationship screened at the courthouse door.

Troxel invalidated, as applied, a Washington statute that permitted "any person" to seek

visitation "at any time" based on a judge's view of the child's best interests. 530 U.S. at 60, 67. The

plurality emphasized the fit parent's fundamental liberty interest, presumed that a fit parent acts in

the child's best interests, and required special weight for the parent's decision. Id. at 65, 68-70.

Those protections remain central here.

But Troxel expressly declined to define the precise scope of the parental due-process right in

every visitation setting and stressed that constitutionality depends upon how a standard is applied.

Id. at 73. A claimant who alleges that a legal parent intentionally installed him in a parental role,

lived with the children, delegated substantial parenting responsibilities, and fostered a durable

dependent bond is not situated like the unrestricted "any person" authorized to sue under the

Washington statute.

Parental autonomy therefore supplies the gatekeeper rather than the automatic answer. A legal

parent's affirmative consent to and fostering of the relationship is what distinguishes a de factoparent claim from stranger intervention. The doctrine can require clear and convincing proof of that

consent, plus co-residence, uncompensated parental responsibility, duration, and dependency,

before any merits question is reached.

B. State high courts demonstrate that standing and strong fit-parent protection can coexist.

New Jersey's V.C. test requires legal-parent consent and fostering, co-residence, assumption of

parental obligations without expectation of compensation, and a relationship of sufficient duration

to create a bonded and dependent parental tie. 748 A.2d at 551-52. Wisconsin's H.S.H.-K. test is

materially similar. 533 N.W.2d at 435-36. Maryland adopted the same basic gatekeeping approach

in Conover v. Conover, 146 A.3d 433, 447-48 (Md. 2016), and New York abandoned its former

biOlogy-or-adoption bright line in Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C., 28 N.Y.3d 1,14,27-28 (2016),

in favor of a consent-based rule.

Texas is particularly useful because its cases separate the threshold from the merits. In re

Interest of H.S. construed a statute granting standing to nonparents who had exercised actual care,

control, and possession in a parent-like role. 550 S.W.3d 151,160 (Tex. 2018). Two years later, In

re C.J.C. held that the fit-parent presumption still governs what relief a nonparent may obtain over a

fit parent's objection. 603 S.W.3d 804, 817-19 (Tex. 2020). The same legal system can therefore

permit a qualified nonparent through the courthouse door while preserving Troxel's presumption at

the merits stage.

Delaware provides another example. Its Supreme Court upheld a statutory de facto-parent

scheme because the claimant, if she satisfied the statutory test, was not an undifferentiated third

party; the legal parent's consent to formation of the relationship was central to the status claimed.

Smith v. Guest, 16 A.3d 920, 930-32 (Del. 2011). These decisions do not bind Nevada, but they

demonstrate that recognizing threshold process does not logically require dilution of parental

constitutional protection.

C. The rule sought is deliberately narrower than a new substantive constitutional right to

functional parenthood.

Petitioner does not ask this Court to announce that de facto parenthood itself is a new

fundamental right. That broader claim would raise the history-and-tradition methodology associated

with Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720-21 (1997), and later substantive-due-process

decisions. Nor does Petitioner contend that an outsider may override an intact family merely by

invoking a biological or emotional connection. Cf. Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110,122-30

(1989) (plurality opinion).

The requested holding is procedural and relational: where the claimant alleges that a legal

parent affirmatively created and fostered a parental relationship, and where state law itself gives the

asserted category legal consequences, the State may not make nonbiology conclusive before

permitting a narrowly screened factual determination of whether the alleged status exists. If status is

established, Troxel's fit-parent presumption and any heightened Nevada merits standard remain

fully available. If status is not established, the parent prevails at the threshold.

III. NEVADA’S UCCJEA ARCHITECTURE CREATES A CIRCULAR, STATUS-BASED

COURTHOUSE BARRIER THAT SHARPENS THE FEDERAL QUESTION.

A. Nevada gives ’’persons acting as parents’’ jurisdictional significance at every stage except

the original adjudication of the claimed status.

Nevada's UCCJEA provisions cannot fairly be dismissed as an isolated definition. The Act uses

"person acting as a parent" to define home-state jurisdiction, initial jurisdiction, continuing

jurisdiction, modification jurisdiction, and interstate registration. Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 125A.085,

125A.305,125A.315,125A.325, 125A.465. The initial-jurisdiction section expressly directs

attention to evidence concerning the child's "care, protection, training and personal relationships."

Id. § 125A.305(l)(b)(2).

Yet § 125A.135 defines the class to include someone who "claims a right to legal custody

pursuant to the law of this state." A claim ordinarily precedes adjudication. Under the decision

below, however, the definition cannot confer standing, Nevada has no recognized in loco parentis

route for an unrelated claimant, and lack of biology itself makes the threshold question purely legal.

The asserted Nevada-law claim is therefore recognized as part of the jurisdictional definition while

the claimant is denied any original process in which to test it.

Nevada has thus created an unusual circularity: the claimant cannot establish the legal status

because he lacks standing to litigate it, and he cannot obtain standing because no Nevada authority

has yet established the legal status. Meanwhile, a functionally identical claimant who first obtains a

qualifying judgment elsewhere may return to Nevada as a person whose judgment Nevada's

UCCJEA machinery must recognize and enforce. See id. §§ 125A.445, 125A.465, 125A.475.

B. The UCCJEA does not itself supply substantive standing, but other courts have understood

the same uniform language very differently.

The UCCJEA is principally jurisdictional, not substantive custody law. Nevada also expressly

provides that the right to intervene and the obligation to join parties remain governed by forum law.

Nev. Rev. Stat. § 125A.345(3). Petitioner therefore does not ask this Court to transform a uniform

jurisdiction act into a federal substantive parentage code.

The structural problem nevertheless is real, and Kentucky's construction of materially identical

UCCJEA language demonstrates it. In Mullins v. Picklesimer, the Kentucky Supreme Court

reasoned that the new UCCJEA language allowing a "person acting as a parent" to participate in

initial jurisdiction could supply standing in a shared co-parenting situation when the nonparent

satisfied the statutory definition, including a claimed right to custody under Kentucky law. 317

S.W.3d 569, 574-76 (Ky. 2010). The court distinguished a person intentionally functioning as

another parent from a babysitter, grandparent, or romantic partner who merely helps with childcare.

Id. at 576.

Nevada chose the opposite reading: the same kind of uniform-act definition has jurisdictional

consequences but cannot open an original proceeding. App. 3a-5a. That is not a Rule 10(b) conflict

on a federal holding; the States remain free to structure substantive family law. It is powerful

evidence, however, that the uniform text exposes a recurring national question about what process is

constitutionally required when a State's jurisdictional law recognizes the category but its standing

law makes original adjudication unavailable.

C. The interstate disparity places responsibility on courts to preserve constitutional process

without rewriting substantive state law.

The constitutional issue is not that Nevada must adopt Kentucky's substantive rule. It is that

Nevada's courts cannot simultaneously rely on the absence of a Nevada cause of action as the

reason the status is improvable and treat the absence of an already-proven status as the reason no

cause can be heard, if that circularity extinguishes a claimed family relationship without any factual

process.

Courts routinely distinguish interpretation from legislation by enforcing constitutional minima

while leaving substantive policy to the State. Here that minimum can be narrow: an opportunity to

establish threshold status under a demanding, parent-consent-centered test. Nevada would remain

free on remand to define the precise elements, burden of proof, remedies, and fit-parent

presumption, so long as nonbiology is not treated as a conclusive substitute for the factual inquiry

the claimed status necessarily entails.

IV. THE STATES ARE DEEPLY DIVIDED, AND MODERN LAW SHOWS THAT THE

QUESTION IS RECURRING AND JUDICIALLY MANAGEABLE.

A. A substantial group of States recognizes carefully screened functional-parent claims.

New Jersey, Wisconsin, Maryland, New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, and other

jurisdictions have recognized forms of psychological, de facto, or in loco parentis parenthood when

a legal parent created or fostered the relationship and the claimant assumed the obligations of

parenthood. See, e.g., V.C., 748 A.2d at 551-52; H.S.H.-K., 533 N.W.2d at 435-36; Conover, 146

A.3d at 447-48; Brooke S.B., 28 N.Y.3d at 27-28; In re Parentage of L.B., 122 P.3d 161,176-77

(Wash. 2005); T.B. v. L.R.M., 786 A.2d 913, 916-20 (Pa. 2001). Their tests differ, but their shared

premise is that consent and sustained parental conduct can justify a threshold adjudication without

making biology irrelevant to family law generally.

B. Other States have refused judicial recognition absent legislative authorization.

Other high courts have taken the opposite institutional path. Jones v. Barlow declined to create

a common-law de facto or psychological-parent doctrine, emphasizing parental autonomy and the

legislature's superior ability to define the class. 154 P.3d 808, 818-20 (Utah 2007). Similar

restrictive approaches have treated biology, adoption, or express statutory authorization as the

gateway. The resulting legal landscape is not a neat split on identical statutory text, but it is a

pronounced and persistent disagreement over the constitutional boundary between parental

autonomy, children's reliance interests, and access to adjudication.

C. Modern statutes show that courts can screen claims without opening the door to

generalized third-party litigation.

The Uniform Parentage Act (2017) responds to the concern with a detailed de facto-parent

procedure. Section 609 requires specific allegations and proof of a parent-like relationship rather

than an unrestricted best-interest petition. Several States have enacted similarly demanding

schemes. See, e.g., Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 15C, § 501; R.I. Gen. Laws § 15-8.1-501; Mass. Gen. Laws

ch. 209C, § 25. The details vary, but the common architecture is screening: consent or fostering,

substantial caregiving, duration, bond or dependency, notice to legal parents, and heightened proof.

Those enactments matter under Rule 10(c). They demonstrate that the problem is recurring, that

the relevant facts are judicially administrable, and that there is a middle ground between a biology-

only bar and Troxel's rejected world of "any person" suing "at any time." The federal question is

likely to become more important as families move between States with different definitions of

parent-like status and as UCCJEA recognition rules carry adjudicated relationships across borders.

D. A closely related de facto-parent due-process question is contemporaneously before

this Court.

The recurrence of this question is not theoretical. In Mast v. A. A., 925 S.E.2d 665 (Va. 2026),

the Supreme Court of Virginia held that nonbiological, nonadoptive caregivers who had not been

judicially appointed guardians possessed no protected liberty interest in a child’s care, custody, and

control under a theory of de facto parenthood. Id. at 690—92. The losing caregivers have sought

review in this Court. Their extension proceeding, A.A. v. Mast, No. 26A77, is now linked on this

Court’s docket with No. 26-164, and the Chief Justice extended the time to file their petition for

certiorari through September 18,2026. Supreme Court

Mast arises from a dramatically different procedural and factual setting: a completed adoption,

a statute of repose, asserted Afghan familial rights, and foreign-affairs issues. This case presents

none of those complications. But the constitutional question identified by the Virginia court is

adjacent to the question here: whether a relationship parental in fact can possess any federal

constitutional significance when biology, adoption, and formal guardianship are absent. The

Virginia court answered that question categorically against the caregivers. Nevada reached the same

practical destination through standing, holding that nonbiology made Petitioner’s claimed status a

purely legal question for which no factual inquiry was necessary. App. 5a-6a.

The contrast makes this case particularly useful. Petitioner does not ask the Court to recognize

a freestanding substantive constitutional right to custody for all de facto parents, to disturb a final

adoption decree, or to elevate a caregiver over a fit legal parent. He asks the antecedent procedural

question: whether a State may refuse even to determine whether a parent-created, dependent

family relationship exists when its own law recognizes “persons acting as parents” as legally

consequential and the children themselves have interests that cannot otherwise be presented.

The contemporaneous Mast proceeding confirms that lower courts are confronting the constitutional

status of functional-parent relationships now, under sharply different legal frameworks, and that

guidance from this Court is warranted.

V. THIS CASE IS A CLEAN VEHICLE FOR RESOLVING THE PROCESS QUESTION

WITHOUT CREATING A NEW SUBSTANTIVE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT.

A. Standing was dispositive and the factual inquiry was refused precisely because of the

challenged rule.

The Court of Appeals affirmed sol ely because Petitioner failed to establish standing under the

legal theories it recognized. It expressly declined to reach service and judicial-bias issues. App. 6a.

The absence of factual findings is not a vehicle defect; it is the consequence of the rule challenged

here. Nevada held that the facts defining functional parenthood did not need to be heard because

nonbiology made standing a purely legal question.

Petitioner therefore does not ask this Court to resolve disputed historical facts. He asks the

Court to decide whether Nevada may refuse to hear those facts because of one undisputed fact - lack

of biology. If the judgment is vacated, Nevada courts can determine on remand what was actually

consented to, what parental functions were performed, whether a bonded dependent relationship

existed, and whether any state-law threshold is satisfied.

B. The federal issues were timely and specifically presented.

The Fast Track Statement expressly invoked federal due process and equal protection, attacked

categorical decisionmaking, and challenged the refusal to hear evidence on standing and child

safety. App. 12a-15a. The Petition for Review expressly presented the Fourteenth Amendment, the

UCCJEA/status disparity, the factual nature of psychological-parent standing, and the need for an

evidentiary hearing. App. 8a-1 la. The Nevada Supreme Court denied review. App. 7a.

C. The Court can decide the case narrowly.

The Court need not hold that every State must recognize de facto parenthood, nor decide that

Petitioner possesses a fundamental substantive right equivalent to a biological or adoptive parent. It

need not displace Glucksberg's disciplined approach to new substantive-due-process claims or the

history-and-tradition analysis emphasized in later cases. The requested judgment can rest on the

much narrower proposition that a State may not use nonbiology as an irrebuttable threshold when

the asserted status depends on parent-created facts and the State's own law gives the category legal

consequences.

On remand, Nevada could require clear and convincing proof of legal-parent consent and

fostering, substantial co-residence, significant uncompensated parental responsibility, and sufficient

duration to create a bonded and dependent relationship, together with a legally cognizable child

interest. Only then would custody or visitation be adjudicated, with the legal parent's decision

receiving Troxel's special constitutional weight and with whatever heightened merits standard

Nevada law requires.

That remedy protects all three interests: the legal parent's constitutional autonomy, the

children's interest in avoiding unexamined destruction of an alleged parent-created family bond, and

the claimant's opportunity to prove threshold status. Protecting that opportunity is not, in this

narrow circumstance, an intrusion upon the family. It is the process by which a court determines

what family relationships the State is being asked to protect.

CONCLUSION

The petition for a writ of certiorari should be granted. The Court should vacate the judgment

below and remand for proceedings that permit a narrowly screened factual determination of

threshold status before the absence of biology is treated as dispositive, while preserving the fit legal

parent's Troxel protections at every merits stage.

4^ Respectfullxsubmitted,

PH1LL1P stoTTGRIGALAN^5^

Petitioner, Pro Se

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.