Nevada family-law case summaries

Kevin De Vincenzi and Jennifer Reeves entered into a domestic partnership in Nevada in November 2018 and have two children together. In August 2021, Reeves took the children to visit her sister in Midland, Texas. While she was there, De Vincenzi told her he had begun a relationship with the children's nanny and was ending his relationship with Reeves. In September 2021, De Vincenzi filed a petition to terminate the domestic partnership and obtained a temporary protective order barring Reeves from their shared Las Vegas home. According to the opinion, Reeves had not initially planned to stay in Texas, but she decided to remain because she and the children had no return airline tickets, she was unemployed and financially dependent on De Vincenzi, and De Vincenzi did not respond to her messages about returning to Las Vegas with the children. She eventually decided to relocate permanently to Midland, where she got a job and a house. After extended litigation and a trial at which both parties testified and presented evidence, the district court entered a written order giving Reeves primary physical custody in Texas. De Vincenzi appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The court explained that it does not overturn a district court's custody decision unless there was a clear abuse of discretion, and that it does not re-weigh the evidence or reassess which witnesses were believable — that job belongs to the trial judge who heard the testimony. De Vincenzi first argued that Reeves broke the law by relocating without the consent required under a Nevada statute. The court held that statute did not apply because it only governs situations where a court has already issued a custody order, and here no court order about custody existed when Reeves went to Texas or when she decided to stay. The court also examined a separate criminal-type statute about wrongfully removing or concealing a child. It held that statute did apply (because there was no custody order, both parents shared legal and physical custody by default), but that Reeves did not violate it: the trial court found she had traveled for a short visit, kept communicating with De Vincenzi about returning, and got no response from him after he ended the relationship and obtained a protective order keeping her out of their home. De Vincenzi next argued the district court should not have considered relocation because Reeves never filed a formal relocation petition. The court rejected this, again noting the consent statute did not apply, and pointing out that De Vincenzi had agreed early in the case to a custody evaluation that included relocation and to admitting the relocation assessment at trial, so he had notice that relocation would be decided. Finally, De Vincenzi challenged the trial court's conclusion that primary physical custody with Reeves served the children's best interests. The court held the district court had conducted a thorough analysis of the statutory best-interest factors, and that De Vincenzi was essentially asking the appellate court to re-weigh the evidence — something it does not do. The court affirmed.