Nevada family-law case summaries

Richard and Melissa were divorced in 2014 by a stipulated decree - an agreement the parties reached and the court entered as its order. Under that decree, the two shared joint legal custody of their five children, but Melissa had primary physical custody, meaning the children lived mainly with her, while Richard had parenting time on Tuesday nights and alternating weekends. In November 2021, Richard asked the court to change this arrangement. He filed a motion after an argument in September 2021 between Melissa and their oldest son, C.D. According to Richard, when he arrived to pick up the children, Melissa was arguing with C.D. and told him he could not leave with Richard, and that if he did, he could not come back. Richard said Melissa would not let C.D. gather his belongings and later cut off his access to his cell phone and bank accounts. Richard said that, apart from a few exceptions, C.D. had lived with him since then. Richard also claimed Melissa had a history of keeping him from seeing the other children during his weekday parenting time. He asked the court to give him primary physical custody of C.D., to adjust his child support, and to hold an evidentiary hearing (a hearing where witnesses testify and evidence is presented) and to interview the children. Melissa disagreed. She said she never prevented C.D. from coming home and that C.D. chose to go with Richard to avoid discipline for not finishing schoolwork and for sneaking out to see his girlfriend. She said the children were doing well in her care and that Richard had not shown enough of a change in circumstances to justify changing custody. She also said C.D. had actually returned to her home at various times, including a two-week period while Richard was on vacation. She asked the court to award her attorney fees, calling Richard's motion frivolous. The district court held a hearing without taking evidence. It denied Richard's request to change custody and to hold an evidentiary hearing, finding he had not made out a "prima facie case" for modification - meaning he had not, on the face of his filings, shown enough to justify a full hearing. Because C.D. was almost 17, the court said it had "no problem granting [C.D.] teenage discretion," letting C.D. choose which parent to live with. The court also denied Richard's request to interview the children and to change child support, and denied Melissa's request for attorney fees. Both parents appealed. The Court of Appeals concluded the district court should have held an evidentiary hearing. When someone asks to modify custody, the court generally must assume the moving party's specific factual claims are true unless the other side's evidence conclusively proves them false. Here, Richard's claims - that Melissa tried to prevent C.D. from leaving, that C.D. had been living mainly with Richard since the incident, and that Melissa interfered with his parenting time - were new, were relevant, and, if true, could show a substantial change in circumstances affecting the child's welfare. Melissa's disagreement might eventually prove correct, but at this early stage she had not conclusively disproven Richard's claims. So the court decided a hearing was required. The Court of Appeals also found a problem with the "teenage discretion" ruling. By giving C.D. unlimited discretion to choose where to live, while not actually changing the custody order, the court created a situation where C.D. was living mainly with Richard, yet Richard was still paying child support as though Melissa had primary custody, and Melissa - though still officially the primary custodian - could not actually exercise that custody. The court concluded this was an abuse of discretion. The Court of Appeals reversed and sent the case back to the district court for further proceedings, including an evidentiary hearing. Because of that, it did not decide the child support and attorney fees questions, leaving those for the district court to revisit on remand.