Nevada family-law case summaries

Chandler Jensen and Natasha Peterson share one child, born in 2016. In 2023, Jensen filed for custody. While that case was pending, Peterson obtained a protection order against domestic violence based on encounters and messages she believed were threats. The extended protection order barred Jensen from threatening or harassing Peterson and required the parties to communicate only through an electronic parenting application, in messages that were reasonable in frequency and free of profanity. After a trial in August 2024, the district court awarded the parents joint legal and physical custody. At that time, the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) had an open investigation into Peterson and her boyfriend, and Peterson's parenting time was being supervised by her brother. The custody decree also ordered the parties to avoid abusive communications, including name-calling and foul language. Peterson later asked the court to change the custody arrangement. She pointed out that the DCFS investigation had ended with the allegations found unsubstantiated, that Jensen had been criminally charged with violating the protection order over an incident at a Boys and Girls Club, and that Jensen had continued sending her numerous disparaging and inappropriate messages after the decree, including repeated accusations that her boyfriend was a "pedophile." At an evidentiary hearing, Jensen testified he had not made such statements before the DCFS investigation began, but the court admitted—over his objection—a March 2024 message, sent well before the investigation, in which he called Peterson's boyfriend a "pedo." The parties also acknowledged Jensen had entered a no contest plea (a plea in which a defendant accepts conviction without admitting guilt) to charges stemming from the protection-order violation. The district court found several circumstances had substantially changed since the decree: the DCFS investigation—which had factored into the original joint custody decision—had concluded with the allegations unsubstantiated, and Jensen had violated both the protection order and the custody decree. The court also found, by clear and convincing evidence, that Jensen's harassing behavior amounted to domestic violence, which under Nevada law creates a rebuttable presumption—a starting assumption the parent can try to disprove—that joint physical custody is not in the child's best interest. The court found Jensen did not overcome that presumption, found his testimony not credible, and awarded Peterson primary physical custody. On appeal, the Nevada Court of Appeals affirmed. It held the text message was properly authenticated because Peterson explained why it was offered and provided corroborating evidence that Jensen wrote it. It held the district court's findings of changed circumstances and its best-interest analysis were supported by substantial evidence. The appellate court agreed with Jensen on one point: a no contest plea should not be used as evidence against a party in a civil case, so the district court erred by considering it. But the court concluded that error was harmless—meaning it did not change the outcome—because the district court's other extensive findings independently supported the modification. The court also held that the district court was permitted to consider harassing messages sent before the decree because that information had not been presented during the original custody proceedings.