Nevada family-law case summaries

Natasha and Michael Neyman married in 2002, had two children, separated in 2006, and divorced in 2015 through an agreed-upon (stipulated) divorce decree. The decree gave Natasha primary physical custody and required Michael to pay child support, the children's extracurricular costs, and two kinds of spousal support (alimony): $3,000 per month in general family support and $2,000 per month in "rehabilitative" alimony to help pay for Natasha's education. To get the rehabilitative alimony, Natasha had to give Michael proof she was enrolled in school. These payments were to run for seven years, starting May 1, 2015, meaning the final payment was due April 20, 2022. Natasha stopped going to school at the end of 2020 because she and the children had health problems, and by January 2021 she was no longer enrolled. She did not give Michael proof of enrollment, but Michael kept paying her $2,000 per month for 15 more months — a total of $30,000. On June 30, 2022 — about two months after the alimony period ended — Natasha filed a motion asking the court to increase child support and family support because Michael's income had gone up sharply, and to recover money she said Michael still owed her. Michael agreed his child support should go up, but said his alimony obligation had ended in May 2022 and that he was not behind on any payments. The district court ruled that it had no power (jurisdiction) to change the alimony because the alimony period had already expired when Natasha filed her motion, and there was no evidence Michael was behind. It raised Michael's monthly child support to $4,035. It also found that Natasha had failed her duty to give proof of school enrollment for 15 months, but that Michael knew or should have known she was no longer in school. Splitting the difference, the court ordered Natasha to repay Michael $15,000 — half of what he had paid during that period — then subtracted $6,500 in attorney fees Michael still owed her, leaving Natasha owing Michael $8,500. The court found neither side was a "prevailing party," so each paid their own fees. On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed with the district court on most points but reversed the order requiring Natasha to repay the rehabilitative alimony. The court explained that under Nevada law, once an alimony period ends, a court can only modify alimony if the paying spouse was behind ("in arrears") when the motion was filed. Here, the alimony period had ended on April 30, 2022, and Natasha herself had admitted Michael had made all his payments before she filed. The text messages she pointed to as a supposed agreement to push the start date back did not count, because the decree said it could only be changed by a written agreement signed by both parties. The most important reversal concerned the order that Natasha repay $8,500. The court found that Michael never properly asked for that money back. He mentioned in passing that he had overpaid, but he did not formally request reimbursement, and did not say how much, until his pretrial memorandum — filed after Natasha's lawyer had quit, after the discovery period closed, and just two weeks before the hearing. The court concluded this violated Natasha's right to fair notice and a chance to respond (due process). It therefore reversed the repayment order and directed that Natasha receive the full $6,500 in unpaid attorney fees with no reduction. The court also upheld the child support ruling (finding Natasha had not properly argued below that the base amount was too low for the children's needs), upheld the denial of her request to postpone the hearing, and upheld the court's refusal to accept her digital documents, which she needed to bring in physical form so they could be authenticated and so Michael could object.

Justin and Lynsey Freelove were married for a little over a year and share one child. After the divorce, Lynsey was given primary physical custody of the child and lives in Nevada, while Justin lives in Idaho and shares joint legal custody. Before moving, Justin filed a motion apparently seeking primary physical custody and permission to relocate with the child. After hearings, his child support obligation was set at $750 per month in November 2019, and he was ordered to pay support starting in October 2019, when Lynsey was apparently awarded primary physical custody. Justin says he did not receive notice of the 2019 order, which is why he did not initially pay. The record does not show whether the order was actually served on him. Later, the district court entered an amended order clarifying that his obligation began in October 2019. Justin acknowledged he knew about this amended order and began making payments after receiving it, but he contested the past-due amount, arguing he had not been notified of the original 2019 order. By June 2020, he owed $6,031.59 in arrears, interest, and penalties. In February 2021, Justin got a new job in Idaho that cut his gross monthly income by about 33 percent. He asked the court to lower his child support to match his new, lower income. At the hearing before the court master, neither Justin nor Lynsey had a lawyer. The master decided there were no significant changed circumstances that would justify changing the support amount. Neither party filed a formal objection, so the master's decision became the court's judgment, and Justin appealed. The Court of Appeals ruled in Justin's favor on one point and against him on another. First, it rejected Lynsey's argument that Justin gave up (waived) his right to appeal by not objecting to the master's decision below. The court explained that failing to object only prevents you from challenging the master's report in the district court; it does not stop you from appealing to a higher court. Second, on the merits, the court agreed with Justin that the master made a mistake. Because Justin's income dropped by more than 20 percent, Nevada law required the master to conduct a review of the child support order. The master's one-sentence conclusion that there was "not a significant change of circumstances" did not include the specific factual findings the law requires. Importantly, the court noted that the master was required to review the order but was not required to actually change it. Because the master left the support at $750 when the guideline calculation would have produced $555, that had the effect of an "upward deviation" from the required amount without the necessary findings. So the court reversed and sent the case back for a new hearing. Third, the court rejected Justin's due process arguments about the interest and penalties on his arrears. It found he waived these arguments because he did not raise them before the court master and did not file a motion to set aside the earlier order. The court also noted he was present at the 2019 hearing with his lawyer, and that he failed to appeal the amended order clarifying the October 2019 start date.

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.