Nevada family-law case summaries

This is a short procedural order, not a decision on the merits of any dispute. Two parties, Renata Popelkova and Howard Miller, had a case in the family court. One side (Popelkova) appealed and the other side (Miller) filed a cross-appeal - meaning both parties asked the Nevada Supreme Court to review something from the lower court. Before the court decided any of the underlying issues, the two sides reached an agreement to end the appeals. This kind of agreement is called a stipulation - a formal, mutual agreement between the parties that is submitted to the court. Based on that stipulation, the court dismissed both the appeal and the cross-appeal. The order also states that each side will pay its own costs and attorney fees. Because this is a dismissal by agreement, the opinion does not explain the facts of the underlying family-law dispute, does not resolve any legal question, and does not address who "won." It simply closes out the appellate proceedings.

Cherelyn and Timothy Harris-Bey had been married, divorced, and then remarried in December 2019. In June 2021, Cherelyn filed for divorce. The main disputes were how to divide the couple's property and whether Cherelyn should receive alimony (financial support paid by one former spouse to the other). After a trial, the district court entered a divorce decree in May 2023 that gave Timothy the couple's home, let each person keep the bank accounts in his or her own name, and ordered Timothy to pay Cherelyn $350 per month in alimony for six months. Cherelyn appealed. Cherelyn's first argument was that the court should not have given Timothy the marital home because his written response in the case (his counterclaim) had actually proposed giving the home to her. The appeals court explained that this proposed division no longer controlled the case, both because Cherelyn had denied that part of Timothy's counterclaim in her reply and because Timothy later said, about a year before trial, that he was no longer willing to give up the home. As a result, the case moved forward on general requests for relief from both sides, which the court said were enough to let the district court divide the property according to each person's interests. On the home itself, the appeals court agreed that Timothy had bought the house as his separate property in June 2019, between the couple's two marriages, and that the district court was entitled to believe his testimony over Cherelyn's (the district court found Cherelyn was not a credible witness, and appeals courts do not re-weigh credibility). But there was a problem: Timothy used money he earned during the second marriage (which counts as community property, meaning property owned jointly by the couple) to pay the mortgage. Under Nevada law, when community money is used to pay for separate property, the community earns a proportional ownership share. The district court never applied the required legal formula (from a case called *Malmquist*) to figure out that share, and it did not make adequate findings to justify giving the whole house to Timothy. So the appeals court reversed that part of the decree and sent it back for the district court to determine each party's interest in the home. Cherelyn also argued that the court wrongly failed to divide certain accounts Timothy had not disclosed: a cryptocurrency account, a thrift savings plan (TSP) account, and an account tied to a Mastercard. The appeals court upheld the district court here, because the district court found Timothy's explanations credible - that he never funded the cryptocurrency account, that he had emptied the TSP account (which had a zero balance) before the remarriage, and that he did not open or know about the Mastercard account. Because testimony counts as evidence and the appeals court does not reassess credibility, this part of the decree was affirmed. The appeals court reached a different result on a Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) bank account in Timothy's name. Both Timothy's employment earnings and Cherelyn's unemployment benefits were deposited into that account during the second marriage, making those funds community property. Once community funds were mixed into the account, the law presumes the entire account is community property, and Timothy offered nothing to rebut that. The district court gave the whole account to Timothy without stating any compelling reason for an unequal split, so the appeals court reversed that part and sent it back for a proper division. The court noted this conclusion was further supported by Timothy's failure to respond to Cherelyn's argument on this point in his brief. The court also directed the district court on remand to address a related question about a 2020 federal tax refund allegedly deposited into that account and a possible community debt from an overpayment of unemployment benefits. On alimony, the appeals court affirmed. The district court had made extensive findings under the statutory factors and concluded that $350 per month for six months was appropriate given the financial disparity between the parties, the short-term nature of the second marriage, and Cherelyn's failure to maintain viable employment even though she was able to work. Cherelyn's arguments failed either because she had not raised them in the trial court or because she had not shown the findings lacked support. Finally, the appeals court rejected Cherelyn's claim of judicial bias. Judges are presumed unbiased, and Cherelyn did not show the judge relied on outside knowledge or displayed the kind of deep-seated antagonism that would make a fair judgment impossible. The court therefore declined to order reassignment.