Nevada family-law case summaries

This case is about what a parent must prove before a Nevada court can let that parent move out of state with a child over the other parent's objection. Teshome and Jiru were never married but share one young child, A.N.T., born in March 2021. In August 2022, the district court entered an initial custody order giving the parents joint legal and physical custody on a week on/week off schedule. Before that order, Teshome had asked for primary custody so he could move to Georgia, but the court denied that request, finding joint custody was in the child's best interest. After the order was entered, Teshome decided not to move to Georgia because he did not want to give up joint custody, and the parents followed the alternating-week schedule for about seven months. In March 2023, Jiru asked the court to give her primary custody and let her move with A.N.T. to Richmond, Virginia, where she had previously lived and had friends and a godmother, and where she believed she and the child would have a support network and the child could learn about his Ethiopian heritage. After a hearing, the district court granted her request. It found she had a sensible, good-faith reason for the move, that the move was not intended to cut into Teshome's parenting time, that "what is best for [Jiru] is best for [A.N.T.]," and that Jiru's mental health would improve in Virginia. The Court of Appeals reversed. Nevada law (NRS 125C.007(1)) requires a relocating parent to prove three threshold things: a sensible, good-faith reason for the move that is not intended to deprive the other parent of parenting time; that the move serves the child's best interests; and that both the child and the relocating parent will gain an actual advantage from the move. The appellate court agreed that the district court's findings on the first factor - Jiru's good-faith reason - were supported by the evidence. But it held that the district court failed on the other two. On the child's best interests, the district court said only that A.N.T. "will be fine regardless of where he resides" and that what is best for Jiru is best for the child. The Court of Appeals called these "conclusory statements" - broad conclusions without the specific, factor-by-factor findings the law requires. The district court never evaluated the statutory best-interest factors in NRS 125C.0035(4), even though its own earlier custody order had found that Teshome was more likely to foster the child's relationship with Jiru and that "each parent" was bonded with A.N.T. The court also did not weigh evidence that the move could affect Jiru's ability to provide for the child - higher rent, state income tax, no daycare lined up, and a job change from a roasting-plant position paying $21.82 per hour to a barista job with different pay. On the "actual advantage" requirement, the district court found only that Jiru's mental health would improve. It made no findings that the child would benefit, and the Court of Appeals noted that Jiru herself had stated her mental health struggles did not affect her parenting - so her advantage from moving "is not automatically an actual advantage for A.N.T." Because the threshold requirements were not properly analyzed, the appellate court reversed and sent the case back to the district court. It declined Teshome's request to assign the case to a different judge, concluding he had not shown the judge was biased.