Nevada family-law case summaries

This case involves a former married couple and their child. Alaa, a Syrian citizen, and Susan Swensen, a U.S. citizen, married in 2013 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and had a child there in 2014. In 2017 Susan and the child moved to the United States, settling in Nevada in July 2019. Alaa stayed in the UAE. According to the opinion, the parties kept in touch amicably through Facebook, email, and video calls. In May 2020, Susan started divorce and custody proceedings in Nevada, asking for joint legal custody, primary physical custody, and a change to the child's last name. Alaa was served with the papers but chose not to participate. He instead told Susan that he was not subject to U.S. law and that UAE law should apply. Because he did not respond, Susan obtained a clerk's default, and in March 2021 the court entered a default divorce decree granting joint legal custody, giving Susan primary physical custody, and approving the name change. No appeal was filed from that decree. More than two and a half years later, in October 2023, Alaa filed a motion asking the court to undo the divorce decree, return the child to the UAE for a custody decision, and restore the child's birth name. He said he had tried to begin divorce proceedings in the UAE in April 2020 but could not because he lacked the child's birth certificate and related documents. He said a UAE court issued its own default divorce decree in August 2020 but declined to decide custody, and that this UAE decree was never shown to the Nevada court before it entered its decree. He argued Susan had unlawfully removed the child from the UAE. Susan opposed the motion and asked for an abduction prevention order. She argued the motion was too late under the rule governing motions to set aside judgments, that Nevada was the child's home state, that their communications contradicted the abduction claim, and that Alaa had not shown reversing the name change was in the child's best interest. The district court denied Alaa's motion. It found no factual or legal basis to set aside the decree, noting the parties had communicated extensively after Susan left the UAE and that the child had lived in Nevada for more than six months before Susan filed for divorce. The court found Nevada was the child's "home state" and the United States the child's "home country," giving it authority (jurisdiction) over the case. It also noted Alaa could have participated in the Nevada proceedings but declined to, and had not requested parenting time. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. It concluded the district court properly had authority over the custody dispute because Nevada was the child's home state and no competing custody proceeding existed in the UAE when Susan filed in Nevada. The court also rejected the abduction argument, pointing to the parties' friendly communications in the record. Finally, the court declined to consider several of Alaa's other arguments because he had either not raised them properly in the lower court or had raised them too late.

Jennifer and Paul Martinez divorced in California, where Jennifer received primary physical custody of their child, L.M., and permission to move with the child to Nevada. Once the Nevada courts took over the custody case, Paul asked for primary physical custody. Jennifer opposed that request and asked the court to require that Paul's time with the child be supervised until he underwent a neuropsychological evaluation confirming he could care for L.M. without supervision. Both parents also asked the court to change the parenting-time schedule. After a hearing where evidence was presented, the district court kept primary custody with Jennifer but gave Paul more parenting time than before, refused to require supervision, and declared Paul the "prevailing party" - the side that won - for purposes of attorney fees and costs. Jennifer appealed. The Nevada Court of Appeals rejected each of Jennifer's arguments. First, she argued the district court went beyond its power and violated her due-process rights by giving Paul more parenting time than he asked for. The court disagreed, explaining that the parenting-time schedule was squarely before the district court because both parties had asked to change it. Even where the parents' proposed schedules overlapped, the district court was not locked into those points of agreement - Nevada law requires courts deciding custody matters to evaluate what is in the child's best interest. Second, Jennifer argued the hearing should not have gone forward because Paul allegedly failed to turn over medical records as previously ordered. The court found she cited no relevant discovery or evidence rules and presented no cogent argument, and noted that district courts may revise their earlier, non-final orders at any time before final judgment. Third, on the merits of the new schedule, the appeals court reviews such decisions only for "abuse of discretion" - meaning it will not second-guess the trial judge unless the decision was outside the bounds of reason. The district court addressed all the statutory best-interest factors, and the appellate court does not reweigh conflicting evidence or revisit credibility calls. Even if the trial court misread some individual pieces of evidence, the appellate court could not say the overall result would reasonably have been different. Fourth, Jennifer argued the district court failed to make required findings before ordering her to pay all costs of transporting L.M. to and from California for Paul's parenting time. The court agreed with Paul that the travel-cost order was not an adjustment of child support - the court set child support at the standard base amount and separately ordered Jennifer to pay travel costs because she was the relocating parent - so the regulation requiring those findings did not apply. Finally, because the district court had only declared Paul a prevailing party and had not yet actually awarded any fees or costs, Jennifer's challenge to any award was premature; such an award can be appealed once it is actually entered. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's judgment.

Mehmet and Kathleen Kar divorced in Nevada. Their decree gave them joint legal custody, with Kathleen having primary physical custody and Mehmet getting visitation. Mehmet later moved to Turkey, and Kathleen, an Air Force servicemember stationed at Creech Air Force Base, obtained an order giving her sole legal and physical custody. The Air Force then reassigned Kathleen to England, and she took the child with her. Two months after Kathleen and the child arrived in England, Mehmet filed a motion in Nevada to modify custody and child support. Kathleen asked the Nevada court to dismiss the case, arguing that Nevada no longer had jurisdiction because nobody involved still lived there. The district judge agreed, saying that the "second" the mother and child moved to England, the court "lost jurisdiction." The judge dismissed the case. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It explained that the UCCJEA, the law that governs which state (or country) can decide custody disputes, has multiple layers. Yes, Nevada lost what is called "exclusive, continuing jurisdiction" once everyone moved away. But losing exclusive jurisdiction does not mean losing all jurisdiction. The Nevada court still had to ask whether it could exercise jurisdiction under a separate set of rules - the rules that govern when a state can make an "initial" custody determination - because the UCCJEA allows a court that previously decided a custody case to modify its order if those initial-jurisdiction rules are satisfied. Under those rules, Nevada could potentially still hear the case if (a) no other place qualified as the child's "home state" (a place where the child lived for at least six consecutive months), (b) the child and at least one parent still had a "significant connection" with Nevada beyond mere presence, and (c) substantial evidence about the child's well-being remained available in Nevada. At the time Mehmet filed his motion, the child had only been in England for two months, so England was not yet the child's home state. The court below never analyzed whether Nevada or England had a "significant connection" with the child or where the substantial evidence about the child was located. Those are factual questions, and the Supreme Court ruled that the district court must answer them. The Supreme Court also addressed Kathleen's argument that Nevada was an "inconvenient forum" and that England was a better place to litigate. Even if that were true, the UCCJEA does not allow the court to simply dismiss the case. It must stay (pause) the case and direct the parties to file in the more appropriate forum, so that the family is not left "in limbo" with no court anywhere to decide their dispute. The Supreme Court sent the case back so the district court can perform the full jurisdictional analysis the UCCJEA requires. The opinion did not decide whether Nevada actually has jurisdiction; it decided only that the district court must do the analysis instead of stopping at "everyone left."