Nevada family-law case summaries

Samuel and Jeannette Vasquez were married in October 1996. In August 2022, Jeannette filed for divorce. Because their children were already adults and there was no custody dispute, the court's job was to divide the couple's property and debts and decide whether Jeannette should receive alimony (regular financial support paid by one former spouse to the other). At an evidentiary hearing (a court session where both sides present testimony and evidence), Jeannette testified that she had mostly been a homemaker raising the children during their nearly 28-year marriage and had worked as a teacher for the last ten years. She earned about $4,333.33 per month as a teacher and received $524.31 per month in disability income from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for chronic heart disease. She asked for $2,000 a month in alimony for fifteen years. A central dispute was about money in Samuel's Chase savings account. According to the records, Samuel had disclosed $230,000 in that account, but a later disclosure showed the balance had dropped to $20,000 over about seven months - a reduction of roughly $210,000. Jeannette argued Samuel had spent this money deliberately so she would not get her share of it. Samuel said he worked as a director at a healthcare company earning $8,333.33 per month and also received $4,250 per month in rental income from a California property that he had not listed on his financial disclosure forms. He testified that the money in the Chase account came from a gift or inheritance from his mother. When asked how he spent $210,000 in seven months, he said he did remodeling projects and paid bills, but he also acknowledged credit card and bank charges for international travel with his girlfriend. The district court did not find Samuel's explanation credible. Because the money had been deposited during the marriage, the court treated it as community property (property belonging to both spouses). The court found Samuel failed to show the money was a gift and failed to credibly explain where the $210,000 went. The court concluded the spending was "marital waste" - using shared property for selfish purposes unrelated to the marriage at a time the marriage was breaking down. To make up for half of the wasted money, the court awarded Jeannette $105,000. The court also awarded Jeannette $2,000 per month in alimony for ten years, after weighing factors such as the length of the marriage, the difference in the spouses' incomes, Jeannette's role as a homemaker and teacher, and Samuel's higher income and income-producing property. On appeal, Samuel argued the waste finding was not supported by the record, that Jeannette suffered no economic harm, that he had no intent to deprive her of her share, and that she did not need alimony. The Court of Appeals rejected these arguments. It explained that appellate courts do not re-weigh witness credibility, that substantial evidence supported the district court's findings, and that Samuel had not even provided the appellate court with the bank and credit card records from the hearing - so the court presumed those records supported the lower court's findings. The Court of Appeals affirmed the divorce decree in full.

Sharlena Polk and Charles Rowland married in 2007 and had two children. In 2020, Rowland filed for divorce and asked the court to divide the couple's shared (community) property. At a hearing on July 15, 2021, the couple told the court they had agreed on most issues - including child custody and many financial matters - but they had not agreed on what to do with the marital home. Rowland wanted to keep the home but first needed to see whether he could refinance the mortgage to buy out Polk's share. Polk did not want to keep the home and agreed to sign whatever paperwork was needed to let Rowland refinance or sell it. The couple did not agree on how much the home was worth or how much each person should receive from its value (its equity). At that same hearing, the court verbally declared the couple divorced but explained the marriage would not actually end until a written divorce decree was signed. The written decree was filed on December 16, 2021. In the decree, the court did not decide the home's value. Instead, it gave Rowland 90 days to either arrange a refinance and buy out Polk's share, or to sell the home. Rowland got an appraisal in August 2021 that valued the home at $360,000. He completed the refinance in May 2022. Using the older August 2021 value (and subtracting child support Polk owed), he calculated that Polk was owed about $56,000. Polk objected, pointing out that a more recent appraisal valued the home at $430,000, and argued Rowland improperly used the lower, older figure. Rowland responded that the couple became divorced at the July 2021 oral pronouncement, so the August 2021 appraisal was the right one to use. The district court agreed with Rowland, ruling that the marital community ended when the judge orally declared the couple divorced in July 2021, and that the home should be valued as of that date. Polk asked the court to reconsider, pointing to a Nevada Supreme Court decision, Kogod v. Cioffi-Kogod, which held that a marital community is not terminated by an oral pronouncement of divorce - it continues until the written decree is entered. The district court acknowledged the Kogod decision but stuck to its view and denied reconsideration. The Court of Appeals reversed. It held that the district court's conclusion that the marriage's community ended at the oral pronouncement conflicted with the binding Kogod decision and was therefore erroneous. Because of that error, the district court never made proper findings about what the home was worth when Rowland actually refinanced it - which is the moment the decree itself had set for distributing the value - or how much Rowland should have paid Polk. The court also rejected Rowland's argument that earlier court minutes had already settled the home's value, finding that no such agreement was ever reached. The Court of Appeals sent the case back to the district court to make specific findings using the home's appraised value at the time of the refinance and to divide that value fairly between the parties as the decree required.