Nevada family-law case summaries

This is a family-law appeal about which parent gets primary custody of two children and whether one parent may move out of state with them. Brent and Caitlin St. George divorced in October 2020 and initially shared custody equally - both joint legal custody (the right to make major decisions for the children) and joint physical custody (roughly shared parenting time). In March 2021, Caitlin asked the court to change that arrangement. She wanted primary physical custody so that she could move with the children to Orlando, Florida. After a hearing where the judge heard testimony and reviewed documents from both sides, the trial judge sided with Caitlin, giving her primary custody and permission to relocate. Brent then appealed to the Court of Appeals of Nevada. The appeals court explained that it does not re-decide these cases from scratch. Instead, it checks whether the trial judge "abused" her discretion - meaning made a decision without adequate support in the evidence or law. The court will keep the trial judge's factual findings so long as they are backed by "substantial evidence," which the court described as evidence a reasonable person could accept as enough to support the decision. In custody matters, the guiding question is the best interest of the child. Brent's main argument was not that the evidence failed to support the judge's findings. Instead, he complained that the judge did not directly compare, side by side, what the children's lives would look like in Las Vegas with him versus in Orlando with Caitlin. The appeals court rejected this argument. It noted that even though the written order did not lay out a literal side-by-side comparison, the judge clearly considered Brent's evidence about the children's Las Vegas life - finding, for example, that the children were doing well in school, had a nice home with Brent, that Brent is a great father, and that the children have extended family in Las Vegas. The judge nonetheless concluded that moving to Orlando with Caitlin served the children's best interest, partly because the children could maintain a relationship with a half-sibling and because the judge found Caitlin more likely to allow the children to keep a relationship with the other parent. The appeals court emphasized that it does not reweigh witness credibility or the evidence on appeal. Brent also argued, briefly, that his constitutional right to parent was violated because the judge gave too much weight to the children's relationship with the new sibling. The appeals court declined to grant relief on this point, in part because Brent did not develop the argument or cite supporting authority, and in part because considering a sibling relationship is a permitted part of the best-interest analysis. The court affirmed the trial judge's decision.

Scott Anthony and Katarina Kurz married in Nevada in 2008, later moved to Nebraska, and had one child, M.A., born in 2014. They separated in early 2017, and Katarina moved back to Nevada. Scott filed for divorce in Nebraska. The Nebraska divorce decree gave Katarina sole legal and physical custody and permission to relocate to Nevada with the child, while giving Scott roughly 70 to 75 days of parenting time per year without restrictions. According to the opinion, the divorce decree did not include a finding that Scott had committed domestic violence, even though Katarina had alleged it during the divorce. In 2020, Scott moved to Nevada. Katarina then agreed to give him extra time with M.A. but would not agree to split time 50/50. Scott went to a Nevada court and asked to change custody to joint physical and legal custody. Katarina opposed this. At the hearing, she again raised her claim that Scott had committed domestic violence in Nebraska, and she argued it was best for the child that she keep sole custody. To back up her domestic-violence claim, Katarina tried to introduce a letter she said was written by the Nebraska divorce judge. The letter, in a section titled "REMOVAL," stated that the evidence supported a finding that Katarina had moved from Omaha in part because "she had suffered physical abuse by [Scott]." Scott objected, arguing the letter was hearsay - an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of what it says, which is generally not allowed as evidence. Katarina argued the letter fit the "business records" exception, a rule that lets certain routine business records in despite the hearsay bar. The district court refused to admit the letter, finding it did not fit any hearsay exception. After the hearing, the district court found that Scott had shown a substantial change in circumstances affecting the child's welfare and that switching to joint legal and physical custody was in M.A.'s best interest. The court granted Scott's request. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. First, it held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in treating Scott's move to Nevada as a substantial change in circumstances, because the district court connected that move to concrete, positive changes in the child's life - more parenting time with Scott and a regular, loving relationship with his father. Second, the appeals court addressed the excluded letter. In the district court, Katarina had argued only that the letter qualified under the business records exception. On appeal, she switched to a different rule, the public records exception. The Court of Appeals declined to consider the new argument because she had not raised it in the lower court, and Nevada treats the business records exception and the public records exception as two separate rules. The court also noted that the Nebraska divorce decree contained no finding of domestic violence and imposed no restrictions on Scott's parenting time, which Nebraska law would have required had such a finding been made. The court added that even if excluding the letter had been an error, it would have been harmless: the district court did in fact consider Katarina's domestic-violence allegation, found no credible evidence supporting it, and Katarina testified she had no present concerns about Scott's care of the child.