Nevada family-law case summaries

Hope Backman and Daniel Gelbman share a child, D.G., born in 2013. They originally agreed to joint legal and physical custody. In 2018, after a hearing that showed substantial conflict between the parents, the district court kept joint legal custody but changed the physical-custody schedule. In 2023, Backman (then representing herself) asked to modify custody so she could move with D.G. to San Antonio, Texas, citing financial hardship, reduced income after the COVID-19 pandemic, and family support and job opportunities there. Gelbman opposed the move and filed his own request asking for primary physical custody, arguing circumstances had changed since 2018. Gelbman also asked the court to declare Backman a "vexatious litigant" (a person the court restricts from filing new matters freely), and Backman, through her lawyer, agreed to that designation in exchange for cancelling a scheduled hearing. That agreement required her future filings to go through a screening process before being accepted. The court appointed a custody evaluator, Dr. Herbert F. Coard III, who wrote reports about the parents' mental health and the child's situation. During the evaluation, the court temporarily gave Gelbman primary physical custody and limited Backman's contact with D.G., and by the time of the main hearing, Backman had gone many months without contact with the child. After a multi-day hearing, the court in March 2024 denied Backman's request to relocate and gave Gelbman primary physical custody. It kept "joint legal custody" on paper but gave Gelbman the final say over D.G.'s education and medical and mental-health care, while Backman kept information rights, emergency-care decision-making during her time with D.G., and joint authority over religion and extracurricular activities. Backman received alternating-weekend, holiday, and extended-summer time. The court declined to appoint a "parenting coordinator" (a neutral person who helps parents resolve disputes), reasoning that Backman could not afford to share the cost. The conflict continued. In early 2025, Backman filed an emergency motion claiming Gelbman's fiancée had physically injured D.G. The court screened the motion under the vexatious-litigant procedure, found it had arguable merit, and held a hearing. It then denied the motion, finding the injury was an accidental result of roughhousing rather than abuse. Gelbman asked for his attorney fees, and the court found Backman lacked a reasonable basis to keep pursuing the motion once the evidence was in. The court found more than $9,900 in fees reasonable but reduced the award to $2,000, payable at $100 per month, because of the parties' financial circumstances. Backman appealed both orders. The Court of Appeals rejected all of her arguments and affirmed. On the custody change, the court agreed the district court should have more clearly stated a separate finding that circumstances had "substantially changed" since 2018, but concluded the detailed factual findings already showed such a change, so any error was harmless. The court found the district court was not required to appoint a parenting coordinator, that giving Gelbman final say in certain areas was still a valid form of joint legal custody rather than a hidden grant of sole custody, and that the alleged bias of the evaluator went to how much weight his testimony deserved—not to whether it had to be thrown out. The court also concluded the vexatious-litigant designation was mentioned only in passing and did not drive the custody outcome, and that the attorney fees were properly awarded and reasonably calculated.

Hope Backman and Daniel Gelbman have a child born in 2013 and have been fighting over child support since shortly afterward. From 2014 to 2019, Gelbman paid Backman between $731 and $858 per month. In 2019, Gelbman retired from firefighting at age 44 and asked the court to reduce his payments because his income had dropped by more than 20 percent. At a May 2020 hearing, Backman gave the family court master a required financial declaration, Venmo records from her house-cleaning work, and bank account screenshots. The master decided those records were not enough to figure out her income, so he "imputed" income to her - meaning he assigned her an income figure - equal to Gelbman's, and set child support at zero dollars. Over the next few years, Backman filed several motions asking the court to change the zero-dollar support order, citing things like the COVID-19 pandemic wiping out her work and Gelbman allegedly earning money from real estate and substitute teaching. Some of those motions lacked supporting documents, and all were denied; support stayed at zero. In February 2023, Backman tried again, this time saying she was unemployed, close to homelessness, and wanted to relocate. Before the hearing she submitted a financial statement, her 2022 income information, a 2022 profit-and-loss statement for her cleaning business, a text from her landlord about being behind on rent, a past-due auto loan notice, and a list of jobs she had applied to. At the hearing, when Backman tried to explain that she had lost her cleaning job, the master interrupted and said it was his turn to talk. A deputy district attorney tried to point out that her documents showed a more than 20 percent income drop since the last hearing, but the master interrupted again, said there was no change of circumstances, and ended the hearing. He then recommended denying her motion. The district court affirmed. The Court of Appeals agreed with Backman that the master got it wrong. Nevada law (NRS 125B.145(4)) says a change of 20 percent or more in a parent's income counts as a "changed circumstance" that requires the court to review the support order. The court explained the difference between reviewing an order and actually changing it: presenting evidence of a 20 percent income drop does not automatically lower or raise support, but it does require the master to actually look at the order and run the numbers under the proper guidelines. Because the master refused to conduct that review and made only conclusory findings, the appeals court reversed and sent the case back for proceedings consistent with its order. One thing the court did NOT do was review the original May 2020 order that imputed income to Backman. Because Backman did not name that order in her notice of appeal, the court said it could not review that order for abuse of discretion. But the court still used the May 2020 order as the baseline (the "controlling order") for measuring whether her income had changed by 20 percent.

Virginia and James were married in 2014, have three children, and divorced in 2015. At first Virginia had primary physical custody (meaning the children lived mostly with her), and James had limited parenting time. Over the following years, both parents filed many motions about custody. Virginia repeatedly raised allegations that James abused the children, but investigations by the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and, in one instance, the FBI found those allegations unsubstantiated and led to no charges. In July 2022, James asked the court for sole physical custody, arguing that Virginia was harming the children's relationship with him and coaching them to say he abused them. After a one-day hearing in June 2023 — which included the judge privately interviewing two of the children and testimony from the children's therapist and both parents — the district court awarded James what it called "primary physical custody." The court also suspended Virginia's parenting time for three months, then limited her to one supervised visit per month, and required her to undergo a psychological evaluation before any unsupervised time. The Court of Appeals agreed with Virginia on one point: even though the district court labeled its decision "primary physical custody," the practical effect was to give James **sole** physical custody, because Virginia was left with essentially no meaningful in-person time with the children for the foreseeable future. Under Nevada law, before a court can award sole physical custody, it must make specific written findings — separate from its analysis of the children's best interests — either that the other parent is unfit to have the children live with them, or explaining why primary physical custody is not in the children's best interest. The district court did not make those separate findings, so the Court of Appeals reversed that part of the order. On the other issues, the court sided against Virginia. It held she waived (gave up) several arguments by not raising them at the hearing below — including her objections to the judge considering the 30 exhibits attached to James's motion, and her relocation argument. The court found she had a fair hearing and did not show the judge was biased, so it declined to send the case to a different judge. Because Virginia said in her reply brief that she had already completed the psychological evaluation, the court did not address that issue. The case goes back to the district court to enter a new custody order following the guidelines the court set out in a prior case called *Roe v. Roe*.

Justin and Lynsey Freelove were married for a little over a year and share one child. After the divorce, Lynsey was given primary physical custody of the child and lives in Nevada, while Justin lives in Idaho and shares joint legal custody. Before moving, Justin filed a motion apparently seeking primary physical custody and permission to relocate with the child. After hearings, his child support obligation was set at $750 per month in November 2019, and he was ordered to pay support starting in October 2019, when Lynsey was apparently awarded primary physical custody. Justin says he did not receive notice of the 2019 order, which is why he did not initially pay. The record does not show whether the order was actually served on him. Later, the district court entered an amended order clarifying that his obligation began in October 2019. Justin acknowledged he knew about this amended order and began making payments after receiving it, but he contested the past-due amount, arguing he had not been notified of the original 2019 order. By June 2020, he owed $6,031.59 in arrears, interest, and penalties. In February 2021, Justin got a new job in Idaho that cut his gross monthly income by about 33 percent. He asked the court to lower his child support to match his new, lower income. At the hearing before the court master, neither Justin nor Lynsey had a lawyer. The master decided there were no significant changed circumstances that would justify changing the support amount. Neither party filed a formal objection, so the master's decision became the court's judgment, and Justin appealed. The Court of Appeals ruled in Justin's favor on one point and against him on another. First, it rejected Lynsey's argument that Justin gave up (waived) his right to appeal by not objecting to the master's decision below. The court explained that failing to object only prevents you from challenging the master's report in the district court; it does not stop you from appealing to a higher court. Second, on the merits, the court agreed with Justin that the master made a mistake. Because Justin's income dropped by more than 20 percent, Nevada law required the master to conduct a review of the child support order. The master's one-sentence conclusion that there was "not a significant change of circumstances" did not include the specific factual findings the law requires. Importantly, the court noted that the master was required to review the order but was not required to actually change it. Because the master left the support at $750 when the guideline calculation would have produced $555, that had the effect of an "upward deviation" from the required amount without the necessary findings. So the court reversed and sent the case back for a new hearing. Third, the court rejected Justin's due process arguments about the interest and penalties on his arrears. It found he waived these arguments because he did not raise them before the court master and did not file a motion to set aside the earlier order. The court also noted he was present at the 2019 hearing with his lawyer, and that he failed to appeal the amended order clarifying the October 2019 start date.