Nevada family-law case summaries

Jennifer Gordon and Matthew Geiger divorced in 2011. Their decree gave them joint legal custody of their two minor children, gave Gordon primary physical custody, and gave Geiger limited visitation. In early 2014, the district court increased Geiger's visitation to every other weekend. Later that year, after Geiger was arrested and jailed for 23 days on a parole-violation warrant, Gordon asked the court for sole legal and physical custody and to remove Geiger's visitation. The district court set an evidentiary hearing focused on Geiger's parole warrant and child support. Before that hearing, the judge interviewed the two children privately, off the record, with only a court clerk and marshal present. At the evidentiary hearing, the probation officer testified that Gordon was not responsible for the warrant, and the court denied Gordon's motion to change custody. The judge then described what the children had told her in the off-the-record interviews, including a statement from the older child that Gordon's boyfriend had punched him as a form of discipline. The judge also referenced an unsubstantiated Child Protective Services (CPS) report that had not been admitted into evidence and had not been provided to the parties. At the end of the hearing, Geiger's lawyer asked orally - for the first time - that Geiger's visitation be expanded. Although Geiger had never made any written request to modify custody, the district court on its own ordered a permanent change: Geiger would now have the first four weekends of every month, leaving Gordon at most eight weekends a year with the children. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It held that Gordon's due process rights - her constitutional right to fair notice and a chance to be heard before her parental custody is changed - were violated because she had no notice that visitation would be expanded at that hearing and no opportunity to rebut the evidence (the off-the-record child interviews and the unadmitted CPS report) the judge relied on. The court also held that the modification was not supported by substantial evidence because the materials the judge relied on were never properly part of the record. The court used the case to give broader guidance to family-court judges. When a judge wants to interview a child witness, the interview must be recorded and must follow Nevada's Uniform Child Witness Testimony by Alternative Methods Act, found at NRS 50.500 through NRS 50.620. The opinion walks through the steps the Act requires - notice, a recorded hearing, specific findings, a written order, and a full opportunity for both parents to examine or cross-examine the child. The case was sent back to the district court so the parties can properly litigate whether any modification of custody or visitation is warranted.