Nevada family-law case summaries

This case involves a custody dispute over V., a child born in May 2019 to Terry Rosser and Joan Taylor, who briefly dated but never married. According to the opinion, Rosser initially told Taylor she would be the child's primary caregiver, at one point during the pregnancy tried to self-terminate his parental rights, and eventually stopped communicating with Taylor. He was not present at the birth and sent only three messages over the next year. In April 2020, Rosser filed a complaint seeking joint legal and physical custody; Taylor counterclaimed for primary physical custody, sole legal custody, and child support, including retroactive child support. The trial was continued seven times and finally took place in November 2023. In the intervening years, problems accumulated. Rosser missed a large share of his scheduled parenting time - Taylor estimated more than 100 missed exchanges, over half his parenting time, and Rosser himself testified he missed dozens of visits. He refused to cooperate meaningfully in discovery (the pretrial exchange of evidence), refused during his deposition to say how much money he earned, and sent blank HIPAA authorizations when Taylor requested his medical records. He also fell behind on the $84 monthly temporary child support and refused to pay Taylor directly because he "just didn't want to interact ... with the mother at all." At trial, Rosser - who had been diagnosed with cancer - stipulated (formally agreed) that Taylor would have primary physical custody, but he still sought joint legal custody and requested four days a week of three unsupervised hours of parenting time. He also testified that he "[chose] not to [work], let's put it that way," that his father gave him over "six figures" each year, and that the court could impute (attribute) $4,000 to $5,000 a month of income to him. The district court awarded Taylor primary physical custody, gave Rosser two days a week of four-and-a-half unsupervised hours each, plus every Father's Day and Christmas Day and every other Thanksgiving and Easter, and granted Taylor sole legal custody after finding the parties' communication and cooperation were dysfunctional. It imputed Rosser's income at $8,333 per month, set child support at $1,147 per month, ordered $56,507 in retroactive support, required Rosser to pay the remaining medical expenses of V.'s birth and half of her health insurance, and awarded Taylor $60,000 in attorney fees. The Nevada Court of Appeals affirmed on every issue. It held that substantial evidence - evidence a reasonable person would accept as adequate - supported the finding that the parents' dysfunction rebutted the presumption favoring joint legal custody, pointing to the district court's findings that Rosser was dishonest and not credible, had long absences from V.'s life, and "views disagreement on nearly all issues involving [V.], many of which are trivial, [as] a game." On parenting time, the court noted Rosser had never exercised more than three hours a day and had missed a significant amount of his pretrial time; it also observed that the nine hours per week awarded nearly matched the twelve hours he requested, "which is akin to invited error" - a doctrine barring a party from complaining on appeal about something he asked for. The court rejected Rosser's argument that his schedule was really "sole" rather than "primary" physical custody, explaining that his time is unsupervised, occurs twice weekly, and includes holidays - unlike the highly restrictive arrangements that define sole physical custody. On money issues, the court held the imputed income was supported by Rosser's own testimony, that retroactive support was permitted (Taylor sought it when V. was one year old, and the statute allows recovery of up to four years of support furnished before the action), and that the statute making "[t]he father ... also liable to pay the expenses of the mother's pregnancy and confinement" is clear and unambiguous. Finally, the attorney fee award was upheld because the district court reviewed the required reasonableness factors and awarded significantly less than the $100,434.81 Taylor requested. A request to reassign the case to a different judge was deemed moot because the case was not being remanded and the trial judge no longer serves on the district court bench.

This case is a dispute between two parents, James Ramseier and Nohelia Moldestad, who were never married but have one child together, named N.R. in the opinion. The child is about eleven years old. The parents had been sharing custody under a 2016 court order that set a parenting-time schedule and required them to agree in writing about the child's extracurricular activities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the parents made a separate written agreement in 2020 for the 2020-2021 school year. That agreement covered how the child would be schooled (homeschooling for fifth grade) and a parenting-time schedule the parents described as each having the child "50% of the time." This 2020 agreement was never filed with the court. When disagreements arose, both parents went back to court. Moldestad asked to change the custody and holiday schedules, to use an app called Our Family Wizard to communicate, and for attorney fees. Ramseier asked the court to decide which middle school the child would attend, to change the schedule and holiday plan, and for attorney fees. They disagreed about which school was best, about the child's participation in synchronized swimming and how it affected Ramseier's time with the child, and about how child support should be calculated. The district court held a hearing and eventually ruled that the child would attend Sig Rogich Middle School (the school in Moldestad's zone), applying a set of ten factors the Nevada Supreme Court laid out in an earlier case, Arcella, for deciding a child's schooling. The court also ordered Ramseier to take the child to synchronized swimming during his parenting time and to share equally in the recurring costs of that activity, on top of his $2,000-per-month child support. On child support, the record showed that Ramseier had agreed (stipulated) to the $2,000 monthly amount. On appeal, Ramseier raised eight arguments, including that the judge was biased, that the court wrongly considered the child's progress at her current school, that the court did not fully analyze his alternative school choices, that tying school to Moldestad's residence was improper, that he should not be forced to take the child to an activity he did not agree to, that the court ignored the 2020 agreement's 50/50 schedule, that child support calculations should have accounted for both parents' household incomes, and that the upward deviation in child support for synchronized swimming was improper. The appeals court rejected each argument. On judicial bias, it found Ramseier had not overcome the presumption that judges are unbiased. On several points, it found he either failed to support his argument with legal authority, failed to object below, or took positions on appeal that contradicted what he had argued or conceded in the trial court (for example, he had stipulated to the child support amount and had testified he supported the swimming activity). On the school-choice order, the court noted that the order was not permanently fixed - it allowed for future modification if Moldestad moved or if the parents could not agree - so Ramseier had not shown he was harmed. On the 2020 agreement, the court found the parenting schedules were substantially the same as the 2016 order, that the 2020 agreement was only for a school year that had already ended, and that no substantial change in circumstances justified modification. The court affirmed the district court's judgment in full.

Alfonso Estrada, an attorney living in Los Angeles, and Ida Arzola, who worked in Las Vegas, had a child together, A.E., born in May 2019. After the relationship ended, both parents went to court seeking primary physical custody - the arrangement where one parent has the child most of the time. Alfonso asked for primary custody; Ida asked for primary custody and also for child support (regular payments from one parent to help cover the child's needs). While the case was pending, the court set up a temporary schedule of joint physical custody, with the parents exchanging the child in Barstow, California, each week. During that temporary period, Alfonso was ordered to pay Ida $1,583 per month in support plus $5,000 in attorney fees, reflecting that Alfonso earns roughly ten times what Ida makes. After a two-day trial, the district court changed course. It awarded primary physical custody to Alfonso, ordered that the child's "habitual residence" stay in Nevada, and directed Ida to pay Alfonso $400 per month in child support. It also ruled that Alfonso, as the "prevailing party," could recover attorney fees, and later ordered Ida to pay Alfonso $40,000 in combined fees and costs. Ida appealed. The Court of Appeals split its decision into three parts. On custody, the court sided with Alfonso and left the custody award in place. It rejected Ida's argument that Alfonso had to meet a higher legal bar to "modify" custody, explaining that because no prior custody order existed, this was an initial determination, not a modification. It rejected her argument that the arrangement should have been called joint custody, noting that the best interest of the child is the main consideration and that percentage of time is only one factor. It rejected her argument that the court should have considered joint custody even though neither parent asked for it, in part because Ida herself never requested joint custody as an alternative. And it found the court's detailed analysis of the best-interest factors was supported by the evidence. On the relocation argument, the court declined to overturn the custody order. Ida had not raised the relocation issue in the lower court, cited no legal authority showing the relocation statute applied to her situation, and did not show that considering relocation factors would have changed the result. On child support, the court agreed with Ida. The district court had said "no adjustment evidence was provided" that would justify lowering Ida's payment - but its own findings described a large income gap (Alfonso earning about $250,000 a year while Ida attended community college), plus travel costs and Ida's limited ability to pay. Because that evidence supported considering a downward adjustment, the Court of Appeals reversed the support order and sent it back for the district court to apply the deviation factors. On attorney fees and costs, the court also agreed with Ida. The district court had awarded fees based only on Alfonso being the "prevailing party," without citing a legal basis, without making required findings, and without addressing the income disparity between the parties. The statutes Alfonso relied on did not fit the situation, and the order lumped fees and costs together without saying how much was which, making it impossible to review. The Court of Appeals reversed that award and sent it back as well.

This case is about a custody, child-support, and attorney-fee dispute between two parents of a young child. Alfonso Estrada is an attorney living in Los Angeles who met Ida Arzola in 2017 at a Las Vegas strip club where she worked as a dancer. They had a relationship, and a child, A.E., was born in May 2019. After the birth, the relationship became contentious. Alfonso asked the court for primary physical custody (meaning the child would live with him most of the time). Ida asked for primary physical custody too, and she also asked for child support. The parents agreed to share legal custody (decision-making about the child). While the case was pending, the court set up a temporary arrangement where they shared physical custody, exchanging the child each week in Barstow, California, and temporarily ordered Alfonso to pay Ida $1,583 per month in child support plus $5,000 in attorney fees. By this time, Ida was working as a food server earning about one-tenth of Alfonso's salary and had started nursing school. After a two-day trial, the district court awarded primary physical custody to Alfonso on a three-week-on, two-week-off schedule, with two extra weeks for Alfonso during the year. The court kept Nevada as the child's official home ("habitual residence") and set a status check before the child starts school. It also ordered Ida to pay Alfonso $400 per month in child support and awarded Alfonso attorney fees, saying only that he was the "prevailing party." Alfonso later asked for $48,217 in fees and $2,138.77 in costs; the court ultimately ordered Ida to pay a combined $40,000 in fees and costs, without saying how much was fees and how much was costs. Ida appealed. The Court of Appeals reached three main conclusions. First, on custody, the court upheld the district court's decision to give Alfonso primary physical custody. The court rejected Ida's arguments: that this was really a modification of an existing custody arrangement (it was not, because there had been no prior custody determination); that a case called *Bluestein* required treating the arrangement as joint custody (the court explained percentage of time is just one consideration and the child's best interest controls); that the court had to consider joint custody even though neither parent asked for it (Ida had not requested it and could not now complain of an error she helped cause); and that the court misapplied the best-interest factors (the court found the district court's detailed findings were supported by the evidence). Second, on the claim that the court improperly "relocated" the child to California, the court found Ida had not raised this argument below, had not cited supporting authority, and had not shown that a relocation analysis would have changed the outcome. Third, on child support and attorney fees, the court sided with Ida. On child support, the court held the district court should have considered whether to reduce Ida's payment given the large income gap between the parties, and it reversed and sent that issue back. On attorney fees, the court held the award could not stand because the district court gave no legal basis for it and failed to make required findings — including about the income disparity — and because Alfonso's own filings were deficient. The court reversed and remanded the fee-and-cost order.