Nevada family-law case summaries

This case involves a custody dispute between two parents, Jennifer Crosier and Garrett Crosier, who married in Utah and had three children. After separating in 2017, Jennifer moved to Nevada with the children and Garrett moved to Colorado. Although they divorced in Utah in 2019, the parties agree that no Utah court ever issued a final custody decree. In April 2022, Jennifer filed a complaint in Nevada asking for sole legal and sole physical custody of all three children. In her complaint, Jennifer raised concerns about Garrett's alleged domestic violence, stating that he had a prior child abuse/neglect conviction from Utah and that the children were afraid of him. The two older children were interviewed by the Family Mediation Center (FMC) and described instances of alleged physical abuse by Garrett - one child said he slapped her and caused her to hit her head, and that he kicked the other child with a steel-toed boot; the other child said he picked her up and pulled her by her hair. Both older children said they preferred to stay with Jennifer in Nevada. At a single-day hearing in May 2023, both parents represented themselves without lawyers. The judge told the parties he would "take control of the questioning" to avoid wasting time, and the court itself questioned the parties and witnesses. The court admitted the FMC child interview report into evidence, but it never asked any questions about the abuse allegations in that report or the domestic violence claims from Jennifer's complaint. When Jennifer tried to raise the abuse issue in her closing argument, the court did not allow her to continue, stating she had offered "zero evidence" that Garrett abused the children. At the end of the hearing, the judge said he had to consider "certain factors in evaluating what is in a child's best interest," but he addressed only two of the twelve factors that Nevada law requires. The court decided the parents would share joint legal custody, that Jennifer would have primary physical custody of the two older children, and that Garrett would have primary physical custody of the youngest child in Colorado. The written custody decree that followed did not mention any of the twelve best interest factors and contained no factual findings about the children's best interest. A later post-decree order also failed to address those factors. The Court of Appeals reversed. It explained that when deciding custody, a court's only consideration is the best interest of the child, and the court must consider all twelve factors listed in the statute and put its findings in a written order that ties those findings to the custody decision. Because the decree here contained no such findings, the court found this was an abuse of discretion and reversible error. The court also held that the trial court should have addressed the domestic violence allegations - the FMC report containing those allegations was in evidence, yet the court never determined whether domestic violence occurred. Finally, the court held the trial judge should have analyzed whether moving the youngest child to Colorado was in that child's best interest, using a five-factor test from prior Nevada case law. The case was sent back for a new evidentiary hearing.

This is a custody dispute between two parents, Nereida Cobian and Armando Emmanuel Ramirez, who had a child, L.R., born in Utah in October 2015. Early on, the parents submitted a letter to a Utah court in which Ramirez appeared to give up his parental rights, but the court did not treat it as a full waiver. Instead, the Utah court gave Cobian sole legal and physical custody and gave Ramirez standard parenting time, and it required Ramirez to pay child support. Cobian moved with the child, first to California and later to Las Vegas. Ramirez, who worked for and then as a civilian contractor connected to the Air Force, moved to Las Vegas as well. Over time, conflict grew. According to the district court's findings, Cobian repeatedly restricted Ramirez's time with L.R., moved to California in June 2021 without Ramirez's consent or a court order, and reported Ramirez to California child-welfare authorities for physical and sexual abuse. That investigation ended with the allegations found "unsubstantiated or inconclusive." California, which had briefly taken emergency jurisdiction, gave jurisdiction back to Nevada in July 2022. Ramirez asked the Nevada court to register the Utah order and to change custody. After an evidentiary hearing that was rescheduled four times, the district court awarded Ramirez primary physical custody, gave the parents joint legal custody, ordered L.R. returned to Las Vegas and enrolled in a Las Vegas school for the spring semester, ended Ramirez's child-support obligation, and held Cobian in contempt (with a $500 fine) for blocking Ramirez's parenting time over Thanksgiving 2023. Cobian appealed. On review, the Court of Appeals rejected each of her arguments. It concluded that Nevada was the child's "home state" and that the district court properly had jurisdiction to register the Utah order and decide custody. It found no abuse of discretion in the district court's decision to keep the case in Nevada rather than transfer it to California, because Ramirez still lived in Nevada and the Nevada court was familiar with the case. It upheld the custody change, noting that the trial judge made detailed findings that circumstances had substantially changed and that the child's best interests favored Ramirez. The appellate court explained that it does not re-weigh evidence or second-guess a trial court's credibility findings, including the trial court's determination that Cobian's abuse allegations were not credible. It upheld the relocation order, the contempt finding, and it declined to order the case reassigned to a different judge, finding that Cobian had not shown bias. The court did not decide certain issues. It declined to address the child-support challenge in detail because that challenge depended on reversing the custody award, which the court affirmed. It found the school-enrollment issue moot because the order concerned only the 2024 spring semester. And it concluded it lacked jurisdiction over the attorney-fees issue because the order under appeal only found that Ramirez was "entitled to" fees rather than actually awarding them.

Erika and Michael Kragen married in 2016 in San Diego and have three children. In August 2022, the family moved from California to Henderson, Nevada, where they lived with Michael's parents and enrolled the children in a private school. Erika worked at the school as a teacher's aide. In mid-January 2023, Erika told Michael she wanted a separation. According to Erika, Michael responded by grabbing a kitchen knife, threatening suicide, and stabbing it through the children's trampoline; Michael said he threw the knife and accidentally cut the trampoline. Erika did not call the police or seek a protective order at that time. On January 31, 2023, while Michael was at work, Erika took the children to San Diego to live with her family and texted Michael afterward saying they "need[ed] a divorce." Important date: that was just four days short of six months after the family's August 4, 2022, arrival in Nevada. For several weeks after January 31, the children remained enrolled in their Nevada school, Erika remained on the school's payroll, and the couple began marriage counseling. By late February, Erika withdrew the children from the school and stopped communicating with Michael. On February 26, 2023, Michael filed for divorce in Clark County, Nevada. Two days later, Erika filed for legal separation in San Diego County, California. About a month after that, Erika sought an emergency domestic violence restraining order in California. The two states' courts both issued temporary custody orders, then conferred by phone. The California court agreed to defer to Nevada on the question of which state should decide custody. The Nevada district court, after an evidentiary hearing on remand from an earlier writ proceeding, found that Nevada was the children's "home state" under the UCCJEA. The legal puzzle: under the UCCJEA, a state is a child's "home state" only if the child lived there with a parent for at least six consecutive months before the case was filed - but the statute counts "any temporary absence" as part of that six months. The children were physically in Nevada for only about five months and 27 days. Whether Nevada qualified as the home state therefore turned on whether the children's time in San Diego from January 31 to February 26 counted as a "temporary absence." The Court of Appeals used this case to formally adopt the "totality of the circumstances" test for deciding whether an absence is temporary - the same test most other UCCJEA states use. Under that test, courts can weigh many factors, including the parents' intent, the length of the absence, whether one parent wrongfully kept the children away, the circumstances of the children's arrival and continued presence, and when the other parent had reason to know any move was permanent. Applying that test, the Court of Appeals upheld the district court's findings. The district court had credited Michael's testimony over Erika's, found that Erika did not actually leave to escape domestic violence (noting she did not seek a Nevada protective order and waited until after Michael filed for divorce to seek one in California), and pointed to the children's continued school enrollment, Erika's continued employment at the school, and the couple's marriage counseling as evidence supporting an expectation of return. Counting the absence as temporary, the children had effectively lived in Nevada for 206 days - more than six months - so Nevada was the home state. The Court of Appeals therefore denied Erika's writ petition. The court also noted that the district court had referred to Erika's "unjustifiable conduct" in removing the children, citing NRS 125A.375(1). The Court of Appeals clarified that NRS 125A.375(1) lets a court decline jurisdiction based on unjustifiable conduct but does not itself create jurisdiction; to the extent the district court relied on it as an independent basis for jurisdiction, that was error, but harmless because the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis independently supported home state jurisdiction. The court rejected Erika's request to reassign the case to a different judge, finding she had not overcome the presumption of judicial impartiality.

Lauren and Taylor Wooten were married and had one child together. On December 31, 2020, Taylor filed for divorce in Nevada and asked for joint legal custody and primary physical custody (the arrangement where a child lives most of the time). Taylor's papers said Lauren had been served with the divorce documents at her Florida home. Lauren did not respond in time, and the court entered a divorce decree giving Taylor primary physical custody. Lauren then asked the court to undo the decree, arguing she had not been properly served because the documents went to a former address. In that same request, she asked for primary physical custody herself, for child support, and said the child had lived with her in Florida since 2019. The court decided to keep the parties divorced but to reopen and decide the disputed custody and support issues on their merits. Because Lauren argued the child's "home state" was Florida, the Nevada court held a conference with a Florida judge to figure out which state should decide custody, as required under a law called the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) - a set of rules that decides which state's courts handle a child custody case. The judges concluded the child had no true "home state" in 2020 because he had not lived in either state for six straight months before the case was filed. Since the Nevada case was filed first and a custody order already existed there, the Florida judge declined to take the case, and Nevada kept jurisdiction. After an evidentiary hearing where both parents testified, the court gave the parties joint legal custody but gave Taylor final say on important educational and urgent medical decisions when the parents could not agree. It also gave Taylor primary physical custody. The court found, among other things, that Lauren had moved to Florida with the child without Taylor's consent, had at times blocked Taylor's communications, and had withheld the child during the holidays, while Taylor was more focused on the child's needs and made sure the child wore his prescription eyeglasses. On money, the court ordered Lauren to pay Taylor $300 per month in child support - a reduced amount, adjusted downward to account for the cost of transporting the child to Florida for Lauren's parenting time and the parties' relative incomes. It also had the parties split extracurricular costs. The court rejected Lauren's later request for about $41,000 in back child support, finding Taylor had credibly testified that he supported the child financially even after the move. The court denied both sides' requests for attorney fees. The Court of Appeals affirmed everything. On service of process, it held Lauren had given up that argument because she asked the court to decide the case on the merits instead of asking it to dismiss. On the other issues, it found the district court's decisions were supported by the evidence and within its discretion, and it noted that an appeals court does not reweigh evidence or second-guess a trial judge's credibility findings.

This case involves a custody dispute between two parents, Joshua Lee Perry and Nae-Ryung Lee, over their young child. The couple married and lived in San Diego, California, where their child was born in March 2019. In October 2021, the family took what began as a six-month vacation to South Korea, Nae-Ryung's home country. That trip was extended by two more months. In June 2022, Joshua and the child returned to the United States while Nae-Ryung stayed in South Korea. Joshua and the child then moved to Las Vegas to live with the child's paternal grandmother, and Nae-Ryung joined them there in August 2022. After living with the family in Las Vegas for several months, Nae-Ryung alleged that Joshua had "kidnapped" the child, claiming the parties had agreed to return to South Korea. In October 2022, she filed for divorce in Las Vegas and asked for primary physical custody, permission to relocate with the child, and an order preventing Joshua from taking the child out of state. Both parents asked the Nevada court to take jurisdiction over the custody question, although Nae-Ryung also argued the child had no home state. The district court issued temporary custody orders, asked both sides to submit written arguments about jurisdiction, and held a hearing. It then decided that Nevada was not the child's "home state" - a legal term describing where a child has lived for a set period before a case begins - and dismissed the entire custody portion of the divorce case. Importantly, the court stopped there and did not consider whether Nevada might still have jurisdiction for other reasons allowed by law. The Court of Appeals reversed. It explained that Nevada law lists several different grounds under which a court can take jurisdiction over a custody case, not just the "home state" rule. Because the district court looked only at the home-state ground and never analyzed the other possible grounds, the appeals court concluded the dismissal was premature. The court sent the case back so the district court can properly examine whether any of the other jurisdictional grounds apply. The appeals court also instructed that, if there is a custody case pending in South Korea, the district court must take that into account when analyzing jurisdiction on remand.

This is a family-law case about whether a father could get parenting time with his teenage son. After Jose and Zully divorced, a judge gave Zully sole legal and physical custody of their children, and also gave Zully the power to decide whether Jose could spend any time with the children at all. Jose then asked the court for more parenting time with the couple's son, I.P. Zully objected. At a hearing, the court weighed evidence about what would be best for I.P. Part of that evidence involved a plea Jose had entered years earlier. Specifically, Jose had entered what is called an "Alford plea" - a type of no-contest plea, named after a U.S. Supreme Court case, where a defendant does not admit guilt but accepts a conviction - related to sexual coercion of I.P.'s older sister, who is now an adult. The trial judge wrote an 18-page order examining each factor Nevada law requires courts to consider when deciding what is in a child's best interest. The judge found that granting Jose parenting time was not in I.P.'s best interest. The judge relied on things like: I.P. (who is over 12) became frightened, depressed, and anxious when he learned his father wanted parenting time; a high level of conflict between the parents, including Jose's attempts to have Zully deported and his continuing anger toward her; and the fact that Zully had been I.P.'s sole caretaker for more than six years, including while Jose was incarcerated, and had met all of I.P.'s needs. On appeal, Jose argued the judge's findings were not adequately supported by evidence. He also correctly pointed out that under Nevada law, an Alford plea should not be used against a person in a civil case. The Court of Appeals agreed that the trial judge made a mistake by considering Jose's plea. But the appeals court concluded the mistake was "harmless" - meaning it did not change the outcome - because the judge's other findings, which did not depend on the plea, independently supported the decision to deny parenting time. The appeals court also declined to consider Jose's challenge to the attorney-fees-and-costs award because he did not develop a real argument about it. In the end, the appeals court affirmed (upheld) the trial court's decisions.

Shinichi and Yoko Ogawa married in Japan in 1997 and moved several times between Japan and the United States, buying a home in Henderson, Nevada. Their three children were all born in Japan. In June 2004, the children traveled from Nevada to Japan. The parents told very different stories about that trip: Yoko said it was only a summer vacation and that Shinichi refused to send the children back in August 2004; Shinichi said the whole family had planned to live in Japan permanently. Either way, the children stayed in Japan with Shinichi. About eight months after the children left, in February 2005, Yoko filed for divorce in Nevada and asked the Nevada court to order the children's immediate return, calling their retention in Japan an international abduction. The Nevada court agreed with Yoko, ordered the children returned, later held Shinichi in contempt when they were not returned, and ultimately - after a hearing at which Shinichi's lawyer appeared but Shinichi personally did not - entered a "default" divorce decree. That decree gave Yoko sole legal and physical custody with "no contact" for Shinichi, all of the community property (including a share of a house in Japan), spousal and child support, and attorney fees and costs. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court decided three questions. First, did the Nevada court have power to decide custody at all, given that the children had been out of Nevada for eight months when the case was filed? Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) - a law that generally gives custody-deciding authority to a child's "home state" - a child's temporary absences from a state do not break the required six-month residency period. Because the evidence supported the district court's finding that the children left Nevada in June 2004 for a temporary three-month vacation, Nevada remained their home state, and the Nevada court properly had jurisdiction. Second, was the order sending the children back to the U.S. proper? The district court had relied on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, an international treaty designed to ensure the prompt return of children wrongfully taken from their home country. But Japan has not signed that treaty, so the Convention and its U.S. implementing statute provide no remedy here. Even so, the Supreme Court held that the district court did not need the treaty: because it had custody jurisdiction under the UCCJEA, it had authority to order the children's return as part of the custody case. So the return order stood, even though the Hague Convention did not apply. Third, was the default divorce decree proper? A "default" is what happens when a party fails to respond to a lawsuit. Here, Shinichi had filed an answer and a countercomplaint for divorce, and his lawyer appeared at the divorce hearing - only Shinichi himself was absent. The Supreme Court held that under those circumstances a default was inappropriate, and that the district court erred by treating the hearing as a one-sided "prove-up," awarding Yoko everything she asked for, cutting off meaningful cross-examination, and never deciding the case on its merits. The court reversed the decree's awards of custody, property, support, and fees, and sent the case back for a hearing on the merits. It denied Shinichi's request that the case be reassigned to a different judge on remand, because he cited no record support or legal authority showing reassignment was necessary.