Nevada family-law case summaries

This case is about who can be legally recognized as a parent in Nevada when a child was born through a surrogate arrangement and one of the adults raising the child has no biological connection to the child. Mary Lorenzo and Pierre Gendebien were in a relationship and lived together starting in 2016. In 2017, Gendebien signed a gestational agreement - a contract to have a child through a surrogate (a woman who carries and gives birth to a child for someone else). The child, A.G., was conceived using Gendebien's sperm and an egg from an anonymous donor. The agreement named Gendebien as the only intended parent and left the space for a mother's name blank. Before the child was born, Gendebien obtained a court order establishing himself as the sole parent, and the child's birth certificate left the mother's name blank. A.G. was born in June 2018. Lorenzo and Gendebien raised the child together in their shared home until their relationship ended in November 2021. At first they shared equal time with A.G., but Gendebien gradually reduced Lorenzo's access and eventually cut it off. Lorenzo then went to court in September 2022, asking to be recognized as A.G.'s mother and seeking joint legal and physical custody. She said she and Gendebien had held her out as A.G.'s parent, that they had lived together as a family since before the child's birth, and that Gendebien had promised to add her name to the birth certificate. Gendebien asked the court to throw out her complaint, arguing she had no right to seek parentage because she did not give birth to A.G., did not adopt A.G., was not married to Gendebien, and was not named in the gestational agreement. The district court agreed and dismissed her maternity and custody claims (though it allowed a separate request for nonparent visitation to continue, which was later denied). The Court of Appeals reversed. The court explained that when someone asks a court to dismiss a complaint at the very start of a case, the court must assume the facts the person alleges are true. The question is only whether those alleged facts, if proven, could entitle the person to relief. The court held that Nevada's parentage statutes do not limit motherhood claims only to women who have a biological link to the child. Under NRS 126.231, "any interested party may bring an action to determine the existence of a mother and child relationship," and Nevada's rules about how fatherhood can be presumed apply to motherhood cases "insofar as practicable." The court held that two of the ways a man can be presumed to be a father - living with the child's other natural parent for at least six months before conception and continuing through the period of conception, and receiving the child into his home and openly holding the child out as his own - can apply equally to a woman seeking to be recognized as a mother. Because Lorenzo alleged facts fitting these situations, her case should not have been dismissed at the outset. The court also addressed the surrogacy contract. It held that the contract locked in Gendebien's rights as the intended parent "immediately upon the birth of the child," but did not permanently block other interested people from later trying to establish that they are also a parent - unless they had agreed to be left out. The court noted that the surrogacy statutes were mainly designed to prevent a surrogate from later claiming to be the child's parent, not to forever shut out everyone else. The court sent the case back to the district court with instructions. On remand, the district court must hold an evidentiary hearing. Lorenzo must first prove, by a preponderance of the evidence (meaning more likely than not), that she qualifies as a presumptive parent. If she does, Gendebien then gets the chance to rebut - to overcome - that presumption, but only by clear and convincing evidence (a higher standard). To decide whether rebuttal is appropriate, the court announced a new three-part test looking at how the family was formed, whether the person voluntarily took on parental responsibilities, and whether anyone else is claiming to be the child's second parent. If Lorenzo's presumptive status is not rebutted, she is recognized as a parent and the court moves on to decide custody based on the child's best interest. If it is rebutted, judgment goes to Gendebien.

This case involves a fight in a child custody matter. Alisha Rumley asked a higher court - the Court of Appeals - to step in immediately and order the lower court (the family court) to change or stop a ruling. She sought two kinds of extraordinary orders: a writ of mandamus (a court order forcing a lower court to do something it is legally required to do) and a writ of prohibition (a court order stopping a lower court from acting beyond its authority). The specific ruling she was upset about came from a family court judge who had denied her request to "quash service and to dismiss" - in other words, her attempt to throw out the case on the grounds that she had not been properly served with legal papers - and who had also addressed some other issues. The Court of Appeals did not decide whether the family court was right or wrong. Instead, it turned the petition away for a procedural reason: the ruling she was challenging existed only as a "minute order," which is a brief note of what happened in court, not a formal, signed, and file-stamped written order. Under Nevada law, a minute order is not effective for any purpose, so the appeals court said it could not review the decision without a proper written order in hand. The court also said that, even setting aside the missing written order, Rumley had not shown that this kind of extraordinary emergency relief was warranted right now. The court explained that a person asking for a writ carries the burden of showing that such relief is justified, and that whether to even consider a writ petition is within the court's own discretion. Finally, the court addressed why the matter did not need emergency treatment. Rumley had raised a jurisdictional challenge (a claim that the court lacked authority over her, tied to whether she was properly served). The appeals court noted that this challenge was already preserved because she raised it through her motion to quash service - meaning she would not lose the ability to argue it later, even if she keeps appearing before the family court. For those reasons, the court denied the petition "without prejudice," which means Rumley is free to file a new petition later if she obtains a written, file-stamped order and believes it appropriate.