Nevada family-law case summaries

Shandell Stanisic and Thomas Shea have a child together, born in 2005. In 2006, while Stanisic was receiving public assistance from Nevada's Division of Welfare and Supportive Services (DWSS), the court found Thomas to be the father and ordered him to pay $100 a month in child support. Thomas was incarcerated at the time and did not try to change that amount. In 2009, Stanisic moved to Arizona. She says she told DWSS her new address but then heard nothing from the agency for eleven years and received no child support payments during that time. In 2021, after Thomas was released from incarceration, she contacted DWSS to enforce the old order, figure out how much back support was owed (called "arrears"), and update Thomas's payment amount because his income had changed. DWSS filed a notice setting a hearing before a "hearing master" (an official who hears certain family cases and recommends decisions to a judge). Oddly, although the notice referred to a "motion to modify," the record shows no such motion was actually filed. DWSS attached records, including an audit of Thomas's payment history. That audit showed that for the period from May 2009 (about when Stanisic moved) to August 2021 (when she got back in touch), Thomas's monthly amount owed was listed as $0 rather than the $100 set by the 2006 order. The hearing master concluded Thomas owed $5,809.97 in total arrears from 2006 to 2021 and set his new monthly support at $516. When Stanisic asked where Thomas's earlier payments had gone, the master told her to take that up with her caseworker. Stanisic objected, arguing the records were inaccurate because they left out roughly $14,700 in support that should have piled up between 2009 and 2021. DWSS responded, without citing any legal authority, that the case had become "recovery only," that arrears might not have accrued if a party was incarcerated, and that Stanisic had "waived" her claim through the "doctrine of Laches" (a legal principle about losing rights by waiting too long) because she lost contact with the agency. The district court affirmed the master without holding a hearing. The Court of Appeals reversed. It explained that under Nevada law, once a court orders child support, each payment becomes a judgment by operation of law when it comes due and cannot be reduced after the fact, and there is no time limit on collecting arrears. So unless someone had gotten the 2006 order changed, Thomas's $100 monthly obligation should have kept accruing the entire time, even if Stanisic's case with the agency had closed. The court also found the record too unclear to review: no proper motion was ever filed, and neither DWSS's paperwork, the master's report, nor the district court's order explained how the $5,809.97 figure was calculated, or even in whose favor the judgment was entered. Because it could not tell whether the arrears figure was money DWSS was recovering for public assistance it had paid, or support money owed to Stanisic, the court sent the case back for the district court to sort out the nature and amount of the arrears and Stanisic's entitlement to any further amounts. The court stressed it was taking no position on who is ultimately right about the arrears.