Nevada family-law case summaries

Alfredo and Cristiane have two children together but never married. When their relationship ended, the children lived with Cristiane while Alfredo lived in Australia working as a circus performer. In December 2018, Cristiane filed a complaint asking for child custody, future child support, and arrears (past-due child support) dating back to 2007. Alfredo also filed his own custody complaint, in which he proposed paying $600 per month in child support. The district court combined the two cases. Because Alfredo was in Australia and did not answer, the court entered a default order in May 2014 giving Cristiane custody but leaving child support unresolved. After Alfredo moved to Las Vegas in 2016, the court granted him parenting time and set his child support at $600 per month in a June 27, 2016, order. Cristiane also filed a separate motion to review arrears going back to January 2014, but the court vacated that hearing. Alfredo then moved to reduce his support to $300, and at an August 18, 2016, hearing the court reduced his support and ordered him to pay $30 per month toward arrears. The written order from that hearing was not filed until June 2017 and left out language the court had stated at the hearing about how Cristiane should pursue arrears. In April 2022, Cristiane asked the court to hold Alfredo in contempt for failing to pay arrears and to modify his support based on his income. In August 2022, she asked the court to amend the August 2016 order to make clear she was entitled to arrears. Alfredo opposed, arguing the statute of limitations (a legal deadline for bringing a claim) had run out. After an October 2022 evidentiary hearing, the court amended the 2016 order "nunc pro tunc" - a Latin phrase meaning "now for then," used to correct a record to reflect what was actually decided earlier - to add the language that Cristiane could seek arrears. The court found the parties had a verbal agreement that Alfredo would pay $600 per month, that he was current until December 2013, and that he owed $47,160 in arrears plus $24,360 in interest. It also awarded $14,890 as a lump sum from Alfredo's "America's Got Talent" earnings and said attorney fees and costs were warranted. On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed with the district court that Cristiane was entitled to arrears for December 2013 through July 2016. The court explained that the parties had a verbal agreement, that Alfredo had admitted in his own custody complaint that he would pay $600 per month, and that filing deadlines did not bar the claim because Cristiane's 2013 complaint tolled (paused) the statute of limitations. The court declined to consider Alfredo's laches argument because he raised it for the first time on appeal, and did not address the attorney fees issue because the fee order was not part of this appeal. However, the court agreed with both sides that the district court got the math wrong. Both parties agreed that a second amended schedule of arrears correctly listed $27,600 in arrears and $9,128.41 in interest, not the higher $47,160 and $24,360 figures in the order. It was also unclear from the record whether the $14,890 lump sum had already been paid. For those reasons, the court sent the case back for the district court to recalculate the amounts.