Nevada family-law case summaries

This is a short procedural order, not a decision on the merits of any dispute. Two parties, Renata Popelkova and Howard Miller, had a case in the family court. One side (Popelkova) appealed and the other side (Miller) filed a cross-appeal - meaning both parties asked the Nevada Supreme Court to review something from the lower court. Before the court decided any of the underlying issues, the two sides reached an agreement to end the appeals. This kind of agreement is called a stipulation - a formal, mutual agreement between the parties that is submitted to the court. Based on that stipulation, the court dismissed both the appeal and the cross-appeal. The order also states that each side will pay its own costs and attorney fees. Because this is a dismissal by agreement, the opinion does not explain the facts of the underlying family-law dispute, does not resolve any legal question, and does not address who "won." It simply closes out the appellate proceedings.

Cherelyn and Timothy Harris-Bey had been married, divorced, and then remarried in December 2019. In June 2021, Cherelyn filed for divorce. The main disputes were how to divide the couple's property and whether Cherelyn should receive alimony (financial support paid by one former spouse to the other). After a trial, the district court entered a divorce decree in May 2023 that gave Timothy the couple's home, let each person keep the bank accounts in his or her own name, and ordered Timothy to pay Cherelyn $350 per month in alimony for six months. Cherelyn appealed. Cherelyn's first argument was that the court should not have given Timothy the marital home because his written response in the case (his counterclaim) had actually proposed giving the home to her. The appeals court explained that this proposed division no longer controlled the case, both because Cherelyn had denied that part of Timothy's counterclaim in her reply and because Timothy later said, about a year before trial, that he was no longer willing to give up the home. As a result, the case moved forward on general requests for relief from both sides, which the court said were enough to let the district court divide the property according to each person's interests. On the home itself, the appeals court agreed that Timothy had bought the house as his separate property in June 2019, between the couple's two marriages, and that the district court was entitled to believe his testimony over Cherelyn's (the district court found Cherelyn was not a credible witness, and appeals courts do not re-weigh credibility). But there was a problem: Timothy used money he earned during the second marriage (which counts as community property, meaning property owned jointly by the couple) to pay the mortgage. Under Nevada law, when community money is used to pay for separate property, the community earns a proportional ownership share. The district court never applied the required legal formula (from a case called *Malmquist*) to figure out that share, and it did not make adequate findings to justify giving the whole house to Timothy. So the appeals court reversed that part of the decree and sent it back for the district court to determine each party's interest in the home. Cherelyn also argued that the court wrongly failed to divide certain accounts Timothy had not disclosed: a cryptocurrency account, a thrift savings plan (TSP) account, and an account tied to a Mastercard. The appeals court upheld the district court here, because the district court found Timothy's explanations credible - that he never funded the cryptocurrency account, that he had emptied the TSP account (which had a zero balance) before the remarriage, and that he did not open or know about the Mastercard account. Because testimony counts as evidence and the appeals court does not reassess credibility, this part of the decree was affirmed. The appeals court reached a different result on a Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) bank account in Timothy's name. Both Timothy's employment earnings and Cherelyn's unemployment benefits were deposited into that account during the second marriage, making those funds community property. Once community funds were mixed into the account, the law presumes the entire account is community property, and Timothy offered nothing to rebut that. The district court gave the whole account to Timothy without stating any compelling reason for an unequal split, so the appeals court reversed that part and sent it back for a proper division. The court noted this conclusion was further supported by Timothy's failure to respond to Cherelyn's argument on this point in his brief. The court also directed the district court on remand to address a related question about a 2020 federal tax refund allegedly deposited into that account and a possible community debt from an overpayment of unemployment benefits. On alimony, the appeals court affirmed. The district court had made extensive findings under the statutory factors and concluded that $350 per month for six months was appropriate given the financial disparity between the parties, the short-term nature of the second marriage, and Cherelyn's failure to maintain viable employment even though she was able to work. Cherelyn's arguments failed either because she had not raised them in the trial court or because she had not shown the findings lacked support. Finally, the appeals court rejected Cherelyn's claim of judicial bias. Judges are presumed unbiased, and Cherelyn did not show the judge relied on outside knowledge or displayed the kind of deep-seated antagonism that would make a fair judgment impossible. The court therefore declined to order reassignment.

Lindsay Marie Clark and Johnathan Matthew Harris share one minor child. After Harris filed for custody, the district court initially gave both parents joint legal and physical custody. Later, each parent asked to move out of state with the child - Harris to North Carolina, Clark to Colorado. After a hearing, the court decided it was in the child's best interest to live with Harris in North Carolina and gave him primary physical custody. At that time, the court calculated that Clark, whose gross monthly income was $2,166.67, would have owed $347 per month in child support, but Harris agreed to waive support because he earned more than Clark, so the court did not order Clark to pay anything. Clark later asked the court to set aside the order allowing Harris to relocate. Harris opposed that request and filed his own motion asking the court to modify the child support order, arguing that Clark's income had gone up substantially. Clark's updated financial disclosure showed her gross monthly income had increased to $4,290 - a jump of more than 20 percent from what she was earning when the earlier order was entered. Under Nevada law, an income change of 20 percent or more is treated as a changed circumstance requiring a review of the support order. The court found that modification was warranted and that Harris, as the parent with primary physical custody, was entitled to support. Using the standard formula, Clark's obligation would have been $686.40 per month. But the court reduced that figure for several reasons: $117 per month for Clark's expenses related to the child's travel between the parents' homes, $100 per month because Clark is financially responsible for another minor child, and a further adjustment because the child lives with Clark two months each year, during which she supports the child directly. The final result: Clark was ordered to pay Harris $469.40 per month for ten months of the year. On appeal, Clark made two main arguments. First, she said the court should not have ordered child support after Harris had waived it. The Court of Appeals rejected this, explaining that even when parents agree about child support, a district court "always has the power to modify an existing child support order, either upward or downward, notwithstanding the parties' agreement to the contrary," because child support involves public policy and the child's best interest. Since Clark's income had risen by more than 20 percent, the court was required to review the support arrangement, and its findings were supported by substantial evidence. Second, Clark argued the district court judge was biased against her. The Court of Appeals concluded relief was unwarranted because Clark did not show that the judge's decisions were based on knowledge acquired outside the proceedings, and the decisions did not reflect "a deep-seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible." The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's judgment.

Mary Snyder and Matthew Walker were never married but had a child together (referred to as T.W., age eight at trial). While living with Matthew, Mary became pregnant with a second child (T.W.2, age five at trial), and Matthew was listed as the father on that child's birth certificate. The couple lived together until October 2019, when Mary moved in with her current husband, Hal, a member of the United States Air Force. Mary and Matthew informally shared custody without going to court. After Hal was transferred to an Air Force base in Maryland, and after Mary and Hal married in July 2021, Matthew filed a court complaint seeking joint legal and joint physical custody of both children. Mary responded by asking for primary physical custody so she could move the children to Maryland. She also claimed another man was T.W.2's biological father and asked for DNA testing. Testing showed Matthew was not T.W.2's biological father, but Mary agreed at the start of trial that the court could treat Matthew as T.W.2's legal father, because the man she believed was the actual father never took a test or appeared in the case. After a four-day trial, the district court ruled against Mary. It found she had not met the legal requirements to move the children out of state, and it gave Matthew primary physical custody of both children. The court also issued a preliminary ruling that Matthew "shall be awarded reasonable attorney fees," but it had not yet set an amount. On appeal, the Court of Appeals of Nevada affirmed. On the relocation issue, the court explained that a parent who wants to move with a child must clear a "threshold test" with three parts, and only if all three are met does the court weigh six additional relocation factors. Mary argued the district court got two of the three threshold parts wrong, but she did not meaningfully challenge the finding that relocation was not in the children's best interests, and she did not challenge the district court's separate findings on the six relocation factors at all. Because those unchallenged findings independently supported the decision, the appeals court affirmed the denial of relocation. On custody, Mary argued that the district court ignored her evidence and effectively forced her to choose between her husband and her children. She disputed the court's findings on several "best interest" factors. The appeals court repeatedly explained that credibility of witnesses is decided by the trial court, not re-decided on appeal, and that the district court had not found Mary's or Hal's testimony credible. Much of Mary's argument amounted to asking the appeals court to reweigh the evidence, which it declined to do. The court found the district court's findings were supported by substantial evidence and affirmed the custody award. On the attorney fees issue, the appeals court held that because the district court had not yet actually awarded any fees, that part of the appeal was premature.