Nevada family-law case summaries

Richard and Margarita Rosiak married in 2000 and divorced after Margarita filed for divorce in Nevada in 2018. Richard, an attorney, ran his own law firm; Margarita worked for him as his only employee, and, according to the district court's findings, went unpaid for roughly 20 years. Throughout the marriage, everything - law firm income, rent from properties, and all personal and business expenses - flowed through one account: the law firm's operating fund. Richard never paid himself a salary, stopped filing tax returns in 2015, and kept essentially no financial records. The couple also owned multiple properties in California and Las Vegas, plus a house at 9917 Wiley Burke that had a complicated ownership history involving Margarita's family. After trial, the district court found Richard was not credible and had made multiple material misrepresentations. Because he provided no documents to support the income figure on his financial disclosure form, the court calculated his gross monthly income at $57,438 based on deposits into the law firm operating fund, and ordered him to pay $3,178 in monthly child support. It also awarded Margarita $202,500 in lump sum alimony, gave her a $224,011 share of the law firm's value, divided the couple's property unequally (Margarita received $3,040,889 in assets and $218,228 in debt; Richard received $8,764,891 in assets and $1,491,647.09 in debt), made Richard solely responsible for at least $204,805 in tax liability, found Richard owed $63,955 in child support arrears, and awarded Margarita attorney fees. On appeal, the Nevada Court of Appeals affirmed almost all of these rulings. A recurring theme was the "invited error" doctrine - the principle that a party cannot complain on appeal about a problem he himself created. Because Richard commingled all money in one account, kept no adequate records, paid no salaries, stopped filing tax returns, and hired no accountant or expert, the court held he could not now fault the district court for working with the only evidence available: the gross deposits into his firm's account. The appellate court did, however, send three related issues back to the district court. First, Richard receives Social Security benefits, and his minor child K.R. receives a dependent benefit that Margarita now collects directly. Margarita conceded on appeal that Richard should get a credit against his child support for that benefit. The court therefore vacated the monthly child support order only as to the Social Security dependent payment and sent the issue back for the district court to consider an offset (and to explain its decision if it declines one). Second, because that offset could change the arrears calculation, the court also vacated the $63,955 arrears order. Third, because parts of the judgment supporting the attorney fee award were vacated, the fee award was vacated too. Separately, the court vacated a portion of the order that made both spouses each 100 percent responsible for the same debt on 9917 Wiley Burke - which the court described as what "appears to be a clerical error" - and remanded for correction.