From yesterday's decision by the Nebraska Court of Appeals in Ewing v. Evans, by Judge Francie Riedmann, joined by Judges Riko Bishop and Lawrence Welch:
Joseph Evans appeals the order of the Lancaster County District Court that overruled his complaint to modify a custody order and parenting plan. We conclude that Evans failed to show a material change in circumstances to warrant modification. Furthermore, we find the district court did not abuse its discretion in enjoining Evans from taking the child into sweat lodges ….
Evans and Ewing are the biological parents of a son born in May 2013. The parties were never married, and their relationship ended in February 2014. On January 23, 2015, Evans was in a severe automobile accident in which he collided with a wall at 75 miles per hour. Among his many injuries, he suffered a broken back, a traumatic brain injury, and bleeding in his brain.
In March 2015, the district court issued a custody order … regarding the parties' son. The order was based on a joint stipulation filed by the parties in which Ewing received sole physical and legal custody of their son and Evans received parenting time set out under a parenting plan….
In 2021, the trial court ordered Evans not to take his son to a sweat lodge, and the Court of Appeals upheld the injunction. There's a lot going on in the opinion, but I'll focus on the sweat lodge issue:
