Nevada family-law case summaries

Heavenly Hope Elmore and Bryce Drew Herrin are the parents of two young children, J.H. and A.H. They were never married. After they separated, Elmore moved with the children from Nevada to Kansas in April 2022, with Herrin's permission. In May 2022, Herrin went to court asking for sole legal and sole physical custody of the children. Elmore responded by also asking for sole custody. Early in the case, the court issued a temporary order giving the parents joint legal custody, giving Elmore primary physical custody, and giving Herrin parenting time consisting of three video calls per week and one four-day visit. At the custody trial in January 2023, the parents agreed to joint legal custody and each said they wanted primary (not sole) physical custody. The judge heard testimony from Herrin, Elmore, Herrin's sister, and Herrin's father. Herrin testified that after Elmore moved to Kansas he had very little contact with the children and that all contact was blocked. Elmore testified about concerns over the children's care during Herrin's parenting time and acknowledged that she had cut off communication with Herrin after moving, saying she was afraid he would take the children. After the trial, the judge issued a final order giving Herrin primary physical custody. The judge briefly discussed the legal factors used to decide a child's best interest but then gave only a three-sentence explanation for the decision, essentially saying both parents care about the children, neither has behaved perfectly, conflict between them is high, and that it was in the children's best interest for the parties to share joint legal custody with Herrin having primary physical custody. Elmore appealed. The Court of Appeals explained that Nevada law requires a trial court to consider specific factors when deciding a child's best interest and to connect those factors to its final custody decision with enough detail that a reviewing court can tell whether the decision was made for appropriate reasons. The court found that here the trial judge had mostly summarized the trial testimony without saying which factors favored which parent and without explaining why it awarded primary physical custody to Herrin. Because the trial court's order did not adequately explain how the custody decision served the children's best interest, the Court of Appeals concluded the trial court abused its discretion, reversed the decision, and sent the case back for further proceedings. The appellate court left the current custody arrangement in place while the case is on remand, and said the trial court would have discretion to decide whether a new evidentiary hearing is necessary.

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.

Wesley and Maria Lewis divorced in 2011 and shared joint physical custody of their child. Wesley was ordered to pay child support. In 2013, after Maria asked the court to enforce the support obligation, the district court found Wesley in contempt for not paying, entered a judgment for arrears, and required him to take the child to tutoring classes and pay half of the cost. In 2014, Maria asked the court to modify custody and again to enforce the prior orders. After a hearing where Wesley represented himself, the district court awarded Maria primary physical custody, kept the tutoring requirement in place, and held Wesley in contempt again - this time sentencing him to a total of 80 days in jail for missed support payments and missed tutoring trips. The court stayed (paused) the jail sentence on the condition that Wesley "follow the Orders of the Court." Wesley appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court addressed three main questions. First, was the contempt order "civil" or "criminal"? This matters because the Sixth Amendment right to a court-appointed lawyer applies only to criminal proceedings. Civil contempt is meant to coerce someone into complying (for example, "you sit in jail until you pay"). Criminal contempt is meant to punish someone for past disobedience. The court explained that for a contempt order with a fixed jail term to count as civil, it must contain a "purge clause" - language that lets the contemnor get out of the punishment by complying with the order (for example, paying what is owed). Wesley's order had no purge clause: if his stay were lifted, he had no described path to avoid or shorten jail by paying. The court therefore held the order was criminal in nature and that Wesley's Sixth Amendment rights were violated because he had no lawyer at the contempt proceedings. The contempt order was vacated, and counsel must be appointed on remand if Wesley is found indigent. Second, did the district court properly modify custody? The Supreme Court said no. Nevada law forbids using a custody change to punish a parent for disobeying court orders. The district court's written and oral explanations leaned heavily on Wesley's failure to pay support, pay medical insurance, and pay tutoring costs - in other words, his disobedience. The district court also failed to make specific findings on each of the best-interest-of-the-child factors required by NRS 125.480(4) (2009). For both reasons, the custody modification was reversed, and because the child support modification was based on the custody modification, it was also reversed. Third, did the district court err in continuing the tutoring obligation? The Supreme Court said no. The 2013 order required tutoring until the child tested at or above grade level "as tested by [the tutoring school]." She had not yet met that benchmark in math at the tutoring school, even though she did well on Clark County School District tests. The tutoring obligation was therefore affirmed. The court also rejected Wesley's claim of judicial bias, finding nothing in the record that would cause a reasonable person to doubt the judge's impartiality.