Monday was the first day the Nevada Supreme Court held hearings at the not-quite-perfect Regional Justice Center. The sound wasn't working. The podium for lawyers had a bullet lamp attached, because some design genius decided not to light the area where the attorneys argue before the justices. (If you can't read your notes, it's a lot tougher to pack everything you want to say into 15 minutes.)

I was there for the third case, but the arguments for all three cases were fascinating.

While the justices took all three cases under advisement, it seemed like in two of the cases, you could guess the outcome based on the questions asked by the panel -- Justices Bill Maupin, Mark Gibbons and Jim Hardesty.

The third case wasn't quite so clear.

The first case posed an interesting question: If an elected official tells you something, can you count on it? OK, stop laughing. This is a serious legal question.

A payday loan company called USA Cash Services had sued the city of Las Vegas. The company said it had relied on an assurance from former Councilwoman Janet Moncrief that, after a special use permit had been denied, she would get it placed back on the agenda for reconsideration. Then she didn't. And because the statute of limitations expired, the company lost its right to challenge the initial denial.

"It's a sad day in Nevada if we cannot rely on commitments made by elected officials," attorney Matt Dushoff argued.

Except the city attorney said there was no evidence Moncrief had committed to place the item back on the agenda.

Maupin cut to the chase: "These kinds of promises can be made all the time. She didn't put it in writing."

Just think what might happen if everyone relied on conversations with politicians. Chaos would reign!

The second case involved a suicide in 2002. A patient who had tried to kill herself with prescription medication was taken unconscious to Desert Springs Hospital, where emergency room doctor Keith Mower ordered 100 milligrams of morphine for her. He says he ordered "up to" that amount. She died.

The Nevada Board of Medical Examiners found him guilty of malpractice and revoked his medical license.

Mower's attorney, Michael Wall, argued there had been flaws in the board's process, that it hadn't met the burden of proof necessary. Unless the board did something terrible in its disciplinary procedure, I'm guessing Mower won't win.

The third case was one I've been following, a guardianship dispute between a Las Vegas grandmother who wants custody of her sixth grandchild and the state's Division of Child and Family Services, which placed the infant with a foster family.

A family court judge said the foster family, which wants to adopt the child, should have custody of the infant, and the grandmother is appealing that decision.

Attorney Barbara Buckley of Clark County Legal Services argued on behalf of Maria Lopez, the grandmother, who was found suitable to have custody of five grandchildren and wants custody of the sixth.

"Does government have the right to decide how large a family should be and take a grandchild away from a loving grandmother and her brothers and sisters because of an unsupported fear that the family is too large and the grandmother would be overwhelmed with another child?" asked Buckley, the likely next speaker of the Assembly.

This truly is the most heart-wrenching of cases. The baby has lived her entire life, two years, with the foster family. The issues are multiple and complex, and Hardesty focused on one issue: The girl has already bonded with the foster family.

Attorney Dan Polsenberg, also representing Lopez, asked whether it's right that when a government agency makes a mistake by placing a child in foster care when there is a loving family eager to take the child, that bonding would be the deciding issue.

"The bonding has started and that has to be a consideration," Maupin said.

Those were chilling words for the Lopez family, uplifting words for the foster family.

Whatever the justices decide, there will be tears and broken hearts over this well-loved child.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.