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.

This case concerns a custody dispute between two people who were never married but share one child, born in 2016 and diagnosed with Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). The child receives supplemental security income (SSI), a government benefit for people with disabilities, and Kymberlie was the person designated to receive those payments. In 2021, Mario asked the court for joint legal custody and primary physical custody; Kymberlie asked for the same thing in return. At first, the parties agreed to share custody temporarily, with Mario having parenting time from Thursday evening to Sunday evening. That arrangement broke down, and Kymberlie eventually stopped letting Mario see the child during his scheduled time. After a November 2021 drug test showed Kymberlie tested positive for methamphetamine, amphetamine, and barbiturates, the court gave Mario temporary sole physical custody in January 2022, and later temporary sole legal custody. Kymberlie was allowed weekly supervised parenting time through a third-party supervisor called Family First, which she was to pay for instead of paying child support. The court also ordered Kymberlie to hand the child's SSI payments over to Mario while he had custody. An evidentiary hearing on custody was set for August 2022. Kymberlie did not attend. On the day of the hearing she filed a last-minute request to postpone it, saying she had not learned of the hearing until a few days before, even though she acknowledged receiving an email from the court's law clerk in June 2022 listing the date and time. The court went ahead with the hearing anyway and issued a written order awarding Mario sole legal and physical custody, ordering Kymberlie to pay $600 a month in child support (including $180 a month toward arrears for January through August 2022), and ordering her to turn over future and past SSI money to Mario. The Court of Appeals reversed. It concluded the district court did not do the analysis now required when a court awards sole physical custody: the court must either find the other parent unfit or make specific written findings explaining why primary (shared-time) physical custody would not be in the child's best interest, and it must then order the least restrictive parenting-time arrangement consistent with the child's best interest. The district court here did not do that. The appeals court also found the parenting-time part of the order confusing and self-contradictory. The order let Mario decide what contact Kymberlie could have with the child, yet also made Kymberlie responsible for coordinating her supervised visits - and then, in the child-support section, the order stated that "we do not have supervised visits at this time." The court further criticized the trial court's "best interest" findings as too vague to review, noting the trial court repeatedly pointed to exhibits without explaining what in those exhibits supported its conclusions. The appeals court also pointed out that the trial court speculated Kymberlie "most likely" used the child's SSI funds for drug use, and that it blurred the difference between neglect of a child and domestic violence against a child - two separate factors under the law. Finally, the court found the arrearages award inconsistent, because no support had been due during the period covered by the arrears (Kymberlie had instead been ordered to pay for supervised visits in place of support). The Court of Appeals sent the case back for the district court to redo the custody and parenting-time analysis correctly, reversed the arrearages determination, and vacated the child support determination. In the meantime, it left the October 17, 2022, custody arrangement in place, subject to modification by the district court.

Dimonaco and Ferrando share joint legal and physical custody of their minor child. After their custody decree was entered, they disagreed about who should watch the child after school on the days when the child is with Dimonaco. Dimonaco works during some of that time, so the question was what happens to the child until he gets off work. Ferrando asked the court for permission to provide after-school care herself — including help with homework — until Dimonaco finished work on his parenting days. She argued it was better for the child to be with a parent than in an after-school program run by the child's school, which is what Dimonaco had proposed and had already enrolled the child in. Dimonaco countered that the program gave the child educational services and chances to socialize, and he argued that having Ferrando provide care on his days would confuse the child, undermine the child's sense of belonging in his home, and force extra child exchanges between two parents who were in significant conflict. The district court sided with Ferrando and ordered that she provide the after-school care on Dimonaco's days. Dimonaco then asked the court to reconsider, requesting an evidentiary hearing — a proceeding where each side presents actual testimony and admitted evidence rather than just written arguments. He pointed out that the court had ruled without taking any evidence and had not made proper findings about what was in the child's best interest. The court denied the hearing request but added findings favoring Ferrando, saying Dimonaco had not shown "adequate cause" for a hearing. The Court of Appeals disagreed with how the district court handled the matter. It held that Ferrando herself had actually shown enough reason ("adequate cause") to justify an evidentiary hearing, because the parties genuinely disputed facts — such as whether the school's program provided beneficial educational services, whether the child needed those services, and how much conflict the additional exchanges would create. The court explained that resolving these questions required an evaluation that could not be done on paper alone. The appellate court also found that the district court had relied on materials that do not legally count as evidence: exhibits attached to motions that were never formally admitted, and the arguments of the attorneys. Because a decision about a child's best interest must rest on substantial evidence, and because the sworn statements in the case only vaguely addressed the key issues, the court concluded the district court did not have enough evidence to make its decision. The Court of Appeals therefore reversed the amended order and sent the case back so the district court can hold an evidentiary hearing on the after-school care issue.