Nevada family-law case summaries

Parviz and Fatemeh Eivazi were married in Las Vegas in 2001 (after an earlier marriage in Iran). Fatemeh filed for divorce in 2016. The case was hard-fought, with many motions and a multi-day trial. After trial, the judge asked both spouses to submit proposed final orders. The judge then signed Fatemeh's 61-page proposed decree word-for-word, without changing anything. That decree required Parviz to pay Fatemeh more than $400,000 - including ten years of alimony at $5,000 a month, attorney fees, expert fees, repayment for "wasted" community money, and the proceeds from selling the marital home. Parviz appealed. The Nevada Court of Appeals used this case to send a strong message about a common practice: judges sometimes ask the winning party's lawyer to write up the order. The court did not ban the practice. It said adopting a party's proposed order word-for-word is not, by itself, an abuse of discretion - but judges who do so take on the risk that any mistakes in the document will be their mistakes. The court urged judges to read proposed orders carefully and lawyers to make sure those drafts are accurate and legally sound. Turning to the decree itself, the court found a number of problems. On "marital waste" (the idea that one spouse improperly spent community money), the trial court had treated any spending Fatemeh did not know about as waste, and required Parviz to disprove waste by clear and convincing evidence. The Court of Appeals said this flipped the burden the wrong way and used too broad a definition of waste. Under Nevada Supreme Court precedent (Kogod), waste generally means using marital money for a selfish purpose unrelated to the marriage, typically when the marriage is already breaking down. The trial court grouped together years of unexplained checks and cash and called it all waste - that was an abuse of discretion. On alimony, the court found the trial judge had gone through the statutory list of factors only superficially. Among other problems, the judge calculated Parviz's income from a website printout that was never actually admitted into evidence; failed to evaluate Fatemeh's earning capacity (not just her current lack of income); inconsistently described Parviz's ability to pay; and improperly leaned on Parviz's alleged misconduct in the divorce when deciding alimony, which Nevada law forbids. On attorney fees, the trial court had reconsidered an earlier order and awarded Fatemeh all her fees from the very beginning of the case - even fees that had already been ruled on in earlier orders, and costs that Fatemeh had not even asked for in her motion. The Court of Appeals reversed and told the trial court to limit any reconsideration to the fees actually at issue. A separate $59,000 award to "reimburse" Fatemeh for money she borrowed to fund the litigation was reversed because the decree contained no findings explaining it and it appeared to overlap with the attorney fee award. A $7,450 award for translation services as an expert fee was reversed because the trial court did not justify exceeding the statutory cap. The court affirmed two parts of the decree: an award for interim spousal support arrears and the division of insurance proceeds from Fatemeh's car accident. It also affirmed the order to sell the marital home, because Parviz himself had asked the trial court to order the sale - he could not complain on appeal about an outcome he invited. The unequal split of community debt, by contrast, was reversed because the decree gave no reason for the inequality. The case goes back to the trial court to redo the parts that were reversed.

Amr and Huriyeh Hosny married in 1989 in Macau and moved to the United States in 2004, where they ran businesses and held assets together. They separated in 2018, and Huriyeh filed for divorce. After a 2020 trial, the family court entered a divorce decree that, among other things, ordered Amr to pay Huriyeh $5,000 per month in lifetime alimony (ongoing financial support), reimburse her $6,000 for an expert witness, pay a $38,000 loan Huriyeh had taken from her sister (in part to cover her attorney and expert fees), and pay off a U.S. Bank credit card. Amr appealed. The Court of Appeals found several problems with how the trial court reached its decisions. On alimony, the appeals court concluded that the trial court's factual findings were "contradictory, unclear, and not supported by substantial evidence." The trial court noted that Amr's income was $120,000 in 2017 but had dropped to $72,000 by 2019, yet it never settled on which income figure it actually used to set the alimony amount. The appeals court said the trial court appeared to assume Amr could keep earning what he historically had, without accounting for the downturn in his business tied in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. The trial court also divided rental properties between the spouses, which means Amr will collect less rental income going forward — a fact the appeals court said the trial court did not properly factor in when deciding how much support Amr could afford to pay or how much Huriyeh actually needed. The appeals court also identified erroneous findings about how much Amr paid to support the couple's adult children and how much he was already paying Huriyeh during the case. On the demonstrative exhibits (exhibits 5 and 14, which were charts or summaries the trial court relied on), the appeals court held it was error to admit them because the expert who apparently prepared them never testified to establish the foundation for the financial information they contained. The exhibits also contained mathematical errors and information inconsistent with other admitted evidence. Because the trial court leaned on these flawed exhibits in setting alimony and dividing debts, the appeals court found the error prejudicial. On the $6,000 in expert witness fees, the appeals court explained that under Nevada law, an expert generally must testify in order to recover more than $1,500 in fees. Because this expert did not testify, the trial court abused its discretion in awarding fees above that threshold. The appeals court reversed the district court's judgment and sent the case back for further proceedings consistent with its order. On remand, the trial court will need to reassess the full division of community property and debt (including the promissory note, the Bank of America card, and the U.S. Bank card) when deciding alimony, and ensure Huriyeh does not receive a "double recovery" for fees and costs already covered through debts assigned to Amr.

Kirk and Vivian Harrison divorced and agreed to share legal and physical custody of their two minor children. Their written agreement, which the district court adopted, included two unusual provisions. First, once a child turned 14, the child would have "teenage discretion" to choose how much time to spend with each parent. Second, the parties would use a "parenting coordinator" - a neutral outside person - to help resolve disputes about parenting issues. When the older daughter turned 14, conflict erupted over what "teenage discretion" actually meant. Vivian read it to mean the children could decide where to be and the parents had to honor that. Kirk read it to mean the children could only request changes that either parent could refuse. Kirk said he was kept from seeing his daughter for two weeks because of Vivian's reading. The parents also could not agree on a parenting coordinator, so Vivian asked the court to appoint one. The district court appointed a parenting coordinator and clarified that the coordinator could resolve nonsubstantive disputes (like scheduling) and make recommendations; if a parent objected, the parent could seek court review. Kirk then asked the district court to modify the original agreement, arguing both provisions were against public policy. The district court refused, and Kirk appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. As to teenage discretion, the majority held the provision did not violate the children's best interests because it allowed only limited, week-to-week schedule flexibility - not the ability to dismantle the joint custody arrangement the parents had agreed to. The court emphasized that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in raising their children, and small scheduling adjustments do not rise to the level of harm that would justify court interference. The court declined Kirk's alternative request to rewrite the provision so that either parent could veto the child's choice, explaining that courts do not redraft agreements the parties did not make. As to the parenting coordinator, the court held the provision served the children's best interests in this contentious case by providing a faster, less formal way to resolve everyday disputes like sick days, school cancellations, and extracurricular scheduling. The court also rejected Kirk's argument that appointing a parenting coordinator improperly handed off the judge's decision-making authority. The coordinator's role was limited to nonsubstantive matters, the coordinator could not change the underlying custody arrangement, and either parent could ask the district court to review a recommendation. Because the parties had voluntarily agreed to use a coordinator and the court retained final authority, the arrangement did not violate due process. Three justices dissented. They would have invalidated both provisions, arguing that custody decisions belong to the district court and cannot be delegated to children or to a non-judicial coordinator without sufficient judicial review.