Nevada family-law case summaries

Sharlena Polk and Charles Rowland married in 2007 and had two children. In 2020, Rowland filed for divorce and asked the court to divide the couple's shared (community) property. At a hearing on July 15, 2021, the couple told the court they had agreed on most issues - including child custody and many financial matters - but they had not agreed on what to do with the marital home. Rowland wanted to keep the home but first needed to see whether he could refinance the mortgage to buy out Polk's share. Polk did not want to keep the home and agreed to sign whatever paperwork was needed to let Rowland refinance or sell it. The couple did not agree on how much the home was worth or how much each person should receive from its value (its equity). At that same hearing, the court verbally declared the couple divorced but explained the marriage would not actually end until a written divorce decree was signed. The written decree was filed on December 16, 2021. In the decree, the court did not decide the home's value. Instead, it gave Rowland 90 days to either arrange a refinance and buy out Polk's share, or to sell the home. Rowland got an appraisal in August 2021 that valued the home at $360,000. He completed the refinance in May 2022. Using the older August 2021 value (and subtracting child support Polk owed), he calculated that Polk was owed about $56,000. Polk objected, pointing out that a more recent appraisal valued the home at $430,000, and argued Rowland improperly used the lower, older figure. Rowland responded that the couple became divorced at the July 2021 oral pronouncement, so the August 2021 appraisal was the right one to use. The district court agreed with Rowland, ruling that the marital community ended when the judge orally declared the couple divorced in July 2021, and that the home should be valued as of that date. Polk asked the court to reconsider, pointing to a Nevada Supreme Court decision, Kogod v. Cioffi-Kogod, which held that a marital community is not terminated by an oral pronouncement of divorce - it continues until the written decree is entered. The district court acknowledged the Kogod decision but stuck to its view and denied reconsideration. The Court of Appeals reversed. It held that the district court's conclusion that the marriage's community ended at the oral pronouncement conflicted with the binding Kogod decision and was therefore erroneous. Because of that error, the district court never made proper findings about what the home was worth when Rowland actually refinanced it - which is the moment the decree itself had set for distributing the value - or how much Rowland should have paid Polk. The court also rejected Rowland's argument that earlier court minutes had already settled the home's value, finding that no such agreement was ever reached. The Court of Appeals sent the case back to the district court to make specific findings using the home's appraised value at the time of the refinance and to divide that value fairly between the parties as the decree required.

Conrad and Heidi Roberson divorced after Heidi filed in 2018. They have two children, G.R. (born 2006) and J.R. (born 2010). Their case went to trial in 2021, but on the fourth day of trial they reached what they called a "full and final" settlement and read the terms into the record. Part of the deal was that Heidi would move to Arizona with the children, and they agreed this relocation was in the children's best interest. The parties agreed that Heidi's attorney would write the proposed divorce decree, Conrad's attorney would suggest edits, and the judge would settle any disagreements. Early in the settlement hearing, Conrad's attorney had said relocation was agreed "so long as the children are okay with it," but later in the same hearing both parties agreed—without any such condition—that Heidi would move to Arizona with the children. The court entered the divorce decree in October 2021. Conrad did not appeal it or object at the time. Just days before Heidi's planned December 2021 move, Conrad filed motions arguing that the children's consent to relocation was a required condition (a "condition precedent") that had been left out of the decree, and that the older child, G.R., did not want to move. Heidi moved to Arizona with the younger child, J.R., but G.R. refused to get into the car. The parties agreed G.R. could finish the school year in Nevada. Later disputes led the district court to grant Heidi's emergency motion, and G.R. was sent to live with her in Arizona. The district court denied Conrad's motions. It found the decree did not leave out any essential term, that it did not have to analyze the "best interest" factors because the parties had stipulated their agreement was in the children's best interest, and that Conrad had not made a preliminary ("prima facie") case that circumstances had changed enough to justify modifying custody of G.R. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reached two different results. First, it agreed with the district court that the children's consent was never actually part of the parties' agreement. The court noted Conrad relied on a single sentence taken out of context and that Conrad himself never proposed adding a consent-condition to the decree while the parties were exchanging drafts—the only real dispute was over the timing of the move. So the court affirmed the refusal to change the decree. Second, the court disagreed with how the district court handled the request to modify custody of G.R. Conrad had alleged that G.R., then 15, refused to relocate and wanted to stay in Nevada through high school, and he supported those allegations with a declaration. Under the governing standard, a court must accept such specific allegations as true when deciding whether to hold an evidentiary hearing. The court concluded these allegations, if proven, could show a substantial change in circumstances, and that the district court should have held an evidentiary hearing and considered G.R.'s wishes (G.R. was available to testify). The court stressed it was expressing no opinion on whether Conrad should ultimately win—only that a hearing was required first. It left the current custody arrangement in place pending further proceedings.