Nevada family-law case summaries

Brittany and Joey divorced in 2016 and share three children. Under a 2021 agreement, the parents shared joint legal custody, but Joey had sole authority over schooling, medical, and extracurricular decisions, primary physical custody of the two older children (J.O. and R.O.), and joint physical custody of the youngest (C.O.) with Brittany. In September 2022, Brittany asked the court to give her sole legal and primary physical custody of all three children. In sworn filings, she alleged, among other things, that Joey gave alcohol to J.O., failed to address J.O.'s suicidal thoughts, called their daughter R.O. "fat" and put her on a restrictive diet, screamed at the children and broke things in the home, and created an environment where the children felt they "walk[ed] on eggshells" around him. Joey denied the allegations and filed his own countermotion seeking primary physical custody of C.O., alleging among other things that Brittany had left the children for three months, entered a relationship with an ex-felon who abused her in front of the children, assaulted Joey's girlfriend, skipped most of her parenting time, and tried to unilaterally pull the children out of their schools. At a November 2022 hearing, the district court ordered the children to be interviewed by the Family Mediation Center (FMC), ordered the parents to attempt mediation, and set a December 2022 "return" hearing. The court indicated that the return hearing would focus on the FMC child interview report and mediation - not the children's custody status. But at the December hearing, after reviewing the interview report and hearing argument, the judge placed both parents under oath, questioned only Joey, and then denied both motions on the spot, concluding neither parent had shown enough of a change in circumstances to justify a full evidentiary hearing (a hearing where the parties can present evidence and question witnesses). The Court of Appeals reversed for two reasons. First, the court held that the district court violated Brittany's due process rights - the constitutional guarantee of notice and a fair opportunity to be heard before important rights are affected. Nothing in the district court's written order or oral statements told the parents that the December hearing might end with a final custody decision, and the hearing itself was one-sided: only Joey was allowed to testify under oath, while Brittany never got the same chance. Second, the appellate court held that both parents' sworn allegations - taken as true, as the law requires at this stage - were detailed enough to establish a "prima facie case" (a threshold showing) for modifying custody, which entitled each of them to a full evidentiary hearing. Because neither parent's allegations conclusively proved the other's false, the district court was not allowed to weigh credibility or pick between the competing stories without holding a hearing. The case goes back to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on whether changing custody serves the children's best interests.