Nevada family-law case summaries

Heavenly Hope Elmore and Bryce Drew Herrin are the parents of two young children, J.H. and A.H. They were never married. After they separated, Elmore moved with the children from Nevada to Kansas in April 2022, with Herrin's permission. In May 2022, Herrin went to court asking for sole legal and sole physical custody of the children. Elmore responded by also asking for sole custody. Early in the case, the court issued a temporary order giving the parents joint legal custody, giving Elmore primary physical custody, and giving Herrin parenting time consisting of three video calls per week and one four-day visit. At the custody trial in January 2023, the parents agreed to joint legal custody and each said they wanted primary (not sole) physical custody. The judge heard testimony from Herrin, Elmore, Herrin's sister, and Herrin's father. Herrin testified that after Elmore moved to Kansas he had very little contact with the children and that all contact was blocked. Elmore testified about concerns over the children's care during Herrin's parenting time and acknowledged that she had cut off communication with Herrin after moving, saying she was afraid he would take the children. After the trial, the judge issued a final order giving Herrin primary physical custody. The judge briefly discussed the legal factors used to decide a child's best interest but then gave only a three-sentence explanation for the decision, essentially saying both parents care about the children, neither has behaved perfectly, conflict between them is high, and that it was in the children's best interest for the parties to share joint legal custody with Herrin having primary physical custody. Elmore appealed. The Court of Appeals explained that Nevada law requires a trial court to consider specific factors when deciding a child's best interest and to connect those factors to its final custody decision with enough detail that a reviewing court can tell whether the decision was made for appropriate reasons. The court found that here the trial judge had mostly summarized the trial testimony without saying which factors favored which parent and without explaining why it awarded primary physical custody to Herrin. Because the trial court's order did not adequately explain how the custody decision served the children's best interest, the Court of Appeals concluded the trial court abused its discretion, reversed the decision, and sent the case back for further proceedings. The appellate court left the current custody arrangement in place while the case is on remand, and said the trial court would have discretion to decide whether a new evidentiary hearing is necessary.

Jordan Cristos and Sarah Tolagson have two young children together and separated in February 2019. After they split up, the case describes several conflicts between them, including physical altercations in 2019 and 2020, and a 2021 incident at a park. Sarah obtained temporary protection orders in 2019, 2020, and 2021. In the 2020 incident, Jordan entered a nolo contendere plea (a plea in which a defendant does not contest a charge without formally admitting guilt) to a misdemeanor battery charge and was convicted. There was also a separate child dependency case alleging abuse and neglect that was eventually closed after Jordan complied with what Child Protective Services (CPS) recommended. Both parents asked the court for primary physical custody and joint legal custody. After a six-day trial, the district court gave Sarah primary physical custody and set up a "hybrid" joint legal custody arrangement: Sarah handles day-to-day decisions, but Jordan gets access to the children's medical and school records and is to be involved in major and moderate decisions about healthcare, education, and religion. Jordan was also ordered to pay $1,985 per month in child support, and he was given parenting time every weekend from Friday at 6:00 p.m. to Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Jordan appealed. He argued the trial court should not have considered three things: his nolo contendere plea, the closed child dependency case, and a CPS report. The appeals court explained that Jordan did not object to this evidence during the trial, which normally means the argument is given up ("waived"). The court can still review for "plain error," but Jordan did not argue plain error, and even looking at the substance of his complaints, the court found the trial judge's decisions were supported by the evidence. The appeals court also emphasized that it does not re-weigh witness credibility or evidence on appeal. On the child dependency case, Jordan argued the doctrine of issue preclusion (a rule that stops a party from re-litigating an issue already decided) barred the court from considering it. The appeals court found he had not shown the required elements—including that he did not even provide the juvenile court records to support his claim that the case was "dismissed." On legal custody, Jordan argued the court effectively gave Sarah sole legal custody and violated his due process rights. The appeals court disagreed, noting that in a joint legal custody arrangement the parent with the child at the time typically makes day-to-day decisions, and that Jordan still participates in major decisions and has access to records. The court looked at the judge's oral statements to interpret the written order. The one point where Jordan succeeded was the child support amount. Both sides agreed the math was wrong: the correct base obligation is $1,895 per month, not $1,985. The appeals court affirmed everything else but sent the case back solely to fix that clerical error.

Leslie and Brett Miller divorced in 2015. They have two minor children. Through mediation they agreed on most issues, including custody: they share joint physical custody of one child, but Leslie has primary physical custody of the other child, who lives with her and stays with Brett every other weekend. They could not agree on child support. The trial judge ordered Brett to pay Leslie $345 per month. When Leslie asked the judge to explain how he reached that number, the judge said he had "run the numbers" using statutory percentages (18% for one child and 25% for two children) along with deviation factors permitted by Nevada law, but did not show the calculations. Leslie appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court took the case to answer a question it had never directly answered before: how do you calculate child support when parents share joint physical custody of one child but one parent has primary physical custody of another child? Several different formulas had been proposed by the parties and by the State Bar of Nevada's Family Law Section, producing wildly different numbers from $345 to $832.19 per month. The Court walked through Nevada's child support statutes. NRS 125B.070 sets baseline percentages of a parent's gross monthly income that the parent owes for child support, based on the number of children (18% for one child, 25% for two, etc.). The Court emphasized that this percentage depends on how many children the parents have, not on the custody arrangement. After that obligation is calculated, the custody arrangement determines who pays what to whom. The Court announced this step-by-step formula for the Millers' "split custody" situation: 1. Calculate each parent's support obligation under NRS 125B.070 based on the total number of children (here, 25% of each parent's gross monthly income because there are two children). For Leslie, that was $996.67; for Brett, $1,076.24. 2. Divide each parent's obligation by the number of children to get a per-child amount. Leslie: $498.34 per child; Brett: $538.12 per child. 3. For the child in joint physical custody, offset the per-child amounts (under the Court's prior decision in Wright v. Osburn): the higher earner pays the lower earner the difference. Brett owed Leslie $39.78 for the joint-custody child. 4. For the child in Leslie's primary physical custody, Brett owes the full per-child amount ($538.12) with no offset. 5. Add those two figures together: Brett owes $577.90 per month. 6. Make sure the result does not exceed the presumptive maximum amount per child in NRS 125B.070(2). 7. The district court may then deviate from that amount under NRS 125B.080, but if it does, it must make written findings of fact explaining the deviation and stating what the support amount would have been under the formula. Because the trial court used the wrong starting percentage (18% for one child rather than 25% for two), failed to state the pre-deviation amount, and failed to explain the deviation factors that produced $345, the Supreme Court reversed and sent the case back with instructions to follow the formula above. The Court also flagged an "anomaly": under its formula, Brett owes $577.90 for two children, but if there were only one child in Leslie's primary physical custody, he would owe $774.80. The Court noted that this is a matter for the legislatively created Committee to Review Child Support Guidelines to consider, since the Legislature in 2017 (through A.B. 278) directed that new guidelines be developed.