Nevada family-law case summaries

Jesusa and Wayne Conte married in 1986 and divorced in 2012. Their divorce decree required Wayne, a military veteran whose only income comes from a retirement pension, supplemental security income, and veterans' disability income, to pay Jesusa $1,000 per month in alimony for 15 years. According to the opinion, Wayne refused to voluntarily pay, so Jesusa repeatedly had to go to court to garnish his pension (garnishment means taking money directly from a source of income under a court order). Over the years, courts entered judgments confirming what Wayne owed, including a December 2014 judgment for $16,307.50 in unpaid alimony (which the parties agree was later paid off) and a February 2021 judgment for $45,680.68. In February 2023, with the help of a pro bono attorney, Wayne asked the district court to eliminate or reduce his alimony. Among other things, he argued that a Nevada statute, NRS 125.165, barred the court from counting his veterans' disability payments as income when figuring out alimony. He also asked for sanctions under NRCP 11 - a court rule allowing penalties for improper filings - based on statements Jesusa made in her written opposition to his motion. Without holding a hearing, the district court granted both requests in January 2024. It refused to count Wayne's $4,456.22 per month in veterans' disability benefits as income, concluded that Jesusa's net income exceeded Wayne's, terminated the alimony, and made the termination retroactive to August 2022. On its own, the court also went back through a decade of the case's history, decided that the December 2014 order had "overcharged" Wayne by $6,698, credited that amount against his arrears, and imposed $5,000 in sanctions against Jesusa and/or her counsel based on its own review of past filings - not on the four arguments Wayne had actually made in his sanctions motion. The Nevada Court of Appeals reversed. First, it held that NRS 125.165 only forbids courts from attaching, levying, or seizing veterans' disability benefits to satisfy alimony - it does not stop a court from considering those benefits when calculating how much alimony a veteran can afford to pay. Federal law does not forbid such consideration either. If the district court had counted the disability benefits, Wayne's net monthly income would have been over $300 higher than Jesusa's, rather than negative, so the error could have changed the outcome. Second, the appellate court held that the district court should not have gone back and recalculated arrears from the 2014 order on its own. Wayne never asked for that, Jesusa had no notice or chance to respond, and the 2014 judgment was final and could not be reopened under the doctrine of res judicata (claim preclusion) - the rule that a valid, final judgment ends the dispute it resolved. Third, the court vacated the $5,000 sanctions award because the district court never addressed the arguments Wayne actually raised in his NRCP 11 motion and instead sanctioned Jesusa based on its own investigation of her filings over many years, without giving her the required notice and opportunity to respond. Finally, given these circumstances, the Court of Appeals directed that the case be reassigned to a different judge on remand "to ensure fairness in the ongoing proceedings."

Paul and Jennifer Martinez divorced in California in 2015 and share a child, L.M. Jennifer received primary physical custody, and the parents shared joint legal custody. Jennifer later moved with the child to Nevada with court permission, and the case eventually transferred to Nevada courts. After further disputes, the Nevada district court increased Paul's visitation time and ordered Jennifer to pay all the costs of transporting L.M. to and from visits with Paul, reasoning that because Jennifer was the parent who moved away from California, she should bear those costs. Jennifer challenged two parts of that ruling: the order making her pay 100% of travel costs, and the decision to expand Paul's visitation beyond what the parties had specifically asked the court to address. On the travel-cost issue, the Nevada Supreme Court agreed with Jennifer. Nevada has a detailed administrative regulation, NAC 425.150, that lists factors a court must consider before adjusting child support away from the standard formula. One of those factors is the cost of transporting the child for visitation. The Court held that a district court cannot simply impose all travel costs on one parent as a stand-alone order; instead, those costs must be evaluated as part of the overall child support analysis, looking at the child's needs and both parents' financial circumstances. The district court's reliance on the fact that Jennifer had moved years earlier, by itself, was not a proper basis for assigning her all the costs. On the visitation issue, the Court sided with the district court. Although Jennifer argued she did not have fair notice that the court might broadly change the visitation schedule, the Court found she had put visitation squarely before the court (by asking that Paul's visits be supervised), testified at length on the topic, and had the chance to present evidence. The Court also found enough evidence in the record - including doctor notes and Paul's own testimony - to support letting Paul have a standard out-of-state unsupervised visitation schedule. The Court reversed the travel-cost portion of the order and sent the case back to the district court with instructions to apply the NAC 425.150 framework. It affirmed everything else and declined to sanction Jennifer for bringing the appeal.

This case is a custody dispute between two parents. David D. Hines, Jr., filed a second amended complaint asking the court to declare him the child's father (DNA testing showed he was), to put his name on the child's birth certificate, and to give him sole legal and physical custody. He alleged that Boyd had a history of domestic violence and that child protective services had become involved with the child. Boyd did not dispute that Hines was the child's biological father, but she asked for sole legal and physical custody herself and pointed out that Hines lived outside Nevada, in Houston, Texas. The parents agreed on some parenting issues but not all, so the district court held an evidentiary hearing - a court proceeding at which witnesses testify and evidence is presented. Hines testified about learning he was the child's father through DNA testing, about child protective services removing the child from Boyd's custody, and about Boyd refusing to cooperate with court-ordered parenting time in Houston. Boyd testified about her criminal history, including a prior charge for child abuse and neglect and a felony grand larceny conviction, and about a violent incident with a former boyfriend that led child protective services to remove the child from her care for a time. She explained that she no longer had contact with the former boyfriend and that the child had been returned to her. The district court gave the parents joint legal custody but awarded Hines primary physical custody, meaning the child would live primarily with Hines in Texas. The court walked through the "best interest of the child" factors that Nevada law requires courts to consider. It acknowledged that Boyd was the victim of domestic violence, but it also found there had been ongoing domestic violence between Boyd and her former boyfriend that occurred in front of the child - including an incident in which a firearm was discharged - that the child had spent six months in foster care because of the risk of danger, and that Boyd had demonstrated a lack of capacity to protect the child. The court also found Boyd had interfered with Hines' parenting time. On appeal, Boyd argued the district court's findings were not supported by the evidence, that the court failed to properly weigh the required factors, that it did not understand she was the victim in the domestic-violence incident, that it did not let her participate in decision-making about the child, and that it did not consider the disruption of moving the child out of Nevada. The Court of Appeals rejected these arguments. Appellate courts review custody decisions only for an "abuse of discretion" - a deferential standard - and will not re-weigh evidence or second-guess a trial judge's assessments of witness credibility. Because the district court's factual findings were supported by substantial evidence in the record, the Court of Appeals found no abuse of discretion. Boyd also argued that the district court judge was biased against her. The Court of Appeals rejected that argument too, explaining that Boyd had not shown the court's decisions were based on knowledge acquired outside the proceedings or that they reflected "a deep-seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible." The custody decree was affirmed.

Christopher Fisher and Elia Cobian were never married but were in an on-again-off-again relationship, and their daughter, L.F., was born in May 2019. The relationship ended after a physical altercation in April 2020 in which each parent accused the other of being the aggressor; no arrests or charges resulted, but Elia obtained a temporary protection order from the Elko Justice Court that gave her sole legal and physical custody of L.F. Both parents then went to district court seeking custody. A court-ordered custody evaluator recommended that the parents share joint legal and joint physical custody, and the case proceeded to a two-day evidentiary hearing in February 2022. At that hearing, the court heard testimony about Christopher's 2018 DUI conviction, his ongoing alcohol use, his partner's alcohol use, his refusal to give Elia his address, his estranged relationships with children from a previous relationship, health issues L.F. experienced, and his failures to tell Elia when he traveled out of town with the child. Christopher also acknowledged an incident involving a daughter from a previous relationship in which the Utah Division of Child and Family Services substantiated an abuse and neglect charge against him. Nevada law requires courts deciding custody to weigh a list of "best interest of the child" factors. The district court found that eight of the twelve factors favored Elia and that the rest were neutral or inapplicable, so it awarded her primary physical custody, with Christopher receiving parenting time from Sunday morning through Tuesday afternoon every other week. After hiring a new lawyer, Christopher asked for a new trial, arguing his trial counsel failed to present any evidence on his behalf; the district court denied that motion, and he appealed. The Nevada Court of Appeals affirmed. Christopher argued that the district court had to first work through the statutes expressing a preference for joint physical custody before analyzing the best-interest factors. The appellate court explained that the sole consideration in a custody decision is the best interest of the child, and that even though the district court did not explicitly cite those preference statutes, it recognized the preference for joint custody but specifically found that "joint custody was not appropriate" under the totality of the circumstances. The court of appeals also declined to reweigh the evidence or the district court's credibility determinations, concluding that substantial evidence - evidence a reasonable person could accept as adequate - supported the ruling. As for Christopher's complaints about the court considering events before L.F.'s birth and allegations he said were not properly noticed, the appellate court held those objections were waived because he did not raise them in the trial court. It added that a district court may consider a parent's past conduct when determining a child's best interest, and that any error was harmless because the district court made numerous findings about the current custodial circumstances. Finally, the court noted one clerical mistake: page 12 of the district court's order erroneously refers to awarding Christopher primary physical custody, and it sent the case back solely to fix that error.

This is a divorced-parents custody fight over an eleven-year-old boy, H.R. The mother (Maggie) and father (Jason) had shared the child equally for years under a 2017 stipulated order. In 2020, Maggie asked the court to give her primary custody, saying H.R. had become aggressive and disrespectful toward her, which she blamed in part on Jason's influence. Jason countered with his own request for primary custody. A court-appointed therapist who evaluated the family thought Jason might be engaging in "parental alienation" - turning the child against the other parent - and recommended keeping the week-on/week-off schedule. The court initially adopted that recommendation. Things then got worse. On two occasions, H.R. was taken into police custody for hitting Maggie - once after Maggie's mother called police, once after Jason called. After those incidents, the district court entered an emergency order giving Jason "sole physical custody" temporarily, restricting Maggie to six hours of parenting time per week and reunification therapy with a specific therapist, Dr. Sunshine Collins. Later, the court tightened the restrictions further: Maggie could have no contact with H.R. except through Dr. Collins's therapy sessions. Because Dr. Collins was outside Maggie's insurance and required individual sessions before any joint sessions with H.R., and because Maggie struggled to afford it, the practical effect was that Maggie had no contact with her son for six months. After a March 2022 evidentiary hearing, the district court labeled its final order "primary physical custody" to Jason but limited Maggie's parenting time to cards, texts, and phone calls - no in-person time at all - with any expansion left to Dr. Collins to decide. The court also ordered Maggie to pay Jason over $11,000 in attorney fees because he was the "prevailing party." The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision to change custody (because there was enough evidence of a substantial change in circumstances - the deteriorating relationship and H.R.'s wishes), but reversed the parenting-time portion and vacated the fees. The court used this case to define "sole physical custody" for Nevada law for the first time: it is an arrangement where the child lives with only one parent and the other parent has "no significant in-person parenting time." The court explained that calling something "primary physical custody" does not change what it actually is - if a parent has only cards and phone calls, that is sole physical custody. The court held that before a judge enters a sole physical custody order, the judge must either find the noncustodial parent unfit, or make specific written findings explaining why primary physical custody is not in the child's best interest. The judge must then choose the least restrictive parenting arrangement possible, and if a less restrictive option (like supervised visits) is available but rejected, the judge must explain why on the record. The district court here did none of those things. The court also held that the trial judge improperly delegated decision-making power to Dr. Collins by letting the therapist decide when Maggie's parenting time could be expanded. Under Nevada law, only the court itself can decide substantive custody questions. The opinion further faulted the final order's specificity: it incorporated only an oral mid-hearing statement called "the March 11, 2022, Order," which was never reduced to writing in detail, making the order unenforceable. The attorney-fee award was vacated because being the "prevailing party" alone is not enough to justify fees in a custody case - the court must make additional findings under the relevant statute, and the trial judge did not. Finally, the Court of Appeals took the unusual step of directing that the case be reassigned to a different judge on remand. The court pointed to multiple statements by the trial judge that, in the appellate court's view, raised reasonable doubts about her impartiality - including comments that children listen better to men because of "fisticuffs," that being a stepmother is harder than being a biological mother, and statements indicating the judge had made up her mind before Maggie put on her case.

Maggie Cox and Jason Roe divorced and shared joint custody of their son, H.R. About seven years later, when H.R. was eleven, Maggie asked the court to give her primary physical custody, saying the boy's behavior toward her had become disrespectful and aggressive, which she blamed partly on Jason. Jason opposed and asked for primary custody himself. The court ordered therapy and a "brief focused assessment" by a therapist, Maureen Zelensky. Zelensky's report suggested Jason was likely engaging in "parental alienation" (a dynamic in which a child becomes excessively hostile toward one parent) and that Maggie likely had anxiety and possibly post-traumatic stress disorder. She recommended keeping the shared week-on-week-off schedule and issuing behavior orders for both parents, which the court adopted. The situation then worsened. On two occasions, police took H.R. into custody for battery against Maggie during her parenting time; H.R. was found to be the primary aggressor both times. The opinion notes that Maggie never called the police—her mother called once and Jason called once—and that once police were called, Nevada law generally requires an arrest and a 12-hour detention. Based on those incidents, Jason filed an emergency motion for sole custody. In March 2021, the court granted it, making findings including that "something wrong with the parent who cannot manage an 11-year-old," that Maggie had called the police (which the record contradicts), and that her behavior was "histrionic." The court sharply restricted Maggie's contact with H.R., limited her to reunification therapy with Dr. Sunshine Collins and six hours of parenting time weekly, and appointed a parenting coordinator and a guardian ad litem, with costs split between the parents. Over the following months, contact between Maggie and H.R. was further restricted. Dr. Collins was outside Maggie's insurance network and Maggie fell behind on payments; Dr. Collins required Maggie to complete individual sessions before joint sessions with H.R. In September 2021, the court granted Jason's objection and ordered Maggie to have no contact with H.R. outside of therapy with Dr. Collins—effectively barring all contact between mother and son. This prevented Maggie from contacting H.R. on his birthday and from sending gifts or cards over the holidays. Learning this midway through a later hearing, the court orally modified the order to let Maggie send cards, texts, or calls. At the end of the March 2022 hearing, the court kept joint legal custody but gave Jason "primary physical custody," finding a substantial change in circumstances (the deteriorating relationship between Maggie and H.R.) and that H.R.'s best interests favored living with Jason. In practice, Maggie received no in-person parenting time—only cards, texts, and calls—and any expansion of her time was left to Dr. Collins's discretion. The court also ordered Maggie to pay $11,365 in attorney fees and costs to Jason as the prevailing party. The Court of Appeals reached a split result. It agreed there was substantial evidence supporting the decision that circumstances had substantially changed and that primary physical custody should go to Jason, so it affirmed that part. But it held the district court went too far in limiting Maggie's parenting time—so far that it effectively awarded Jason sole physical custody without adequate justification, cutting off a mother with no criminal history, no substance-abuse history, and no history of domestic violence from any in-person time with her son for over a year. The court also held the district court improperly handed off its own decision-making authority to Dr. Collins by letting her decide when Maggie could see H.R. in person, and that the final parenting-time order was too vague to enforce because it merely referenced an unwritten oral ruling. The Court of Appeals further concluded the case should be reassigned to a different judge on remand, pointing to statements and findings in the record that could cause a reasonable person to question the judge's impartiality. Finally, it vacated the attorney-fee award because the required findings were missing and because part of the underlying order was being reversed.

Jennifer and Paul Martinez divorced in California, where Jennifer received primary physical custody of their child, L.M., and permission to move with the child to Nevada. Once the Nevada courts took over the custody case, Paul asked for primary physical custody. Jennifer opposed that request and asked the court to require that Paul's time with the child be supervised until he underwent a neuropsychological evaluation confirming he could care for L.M. without supervision. Both parents also asked the court to change the parenting-time schedule. After a hearing where evidence was presented, the district court kept primary custody with Jennifer but gave Paul more parenting time than before, refused to require supervision, and declared Paul the "prevailing party" - the side that won - for purposes of attorney fees and costs. Jennifer appealed. The Nevada Court of Appeals rejected each of Jennifer's arguments. First, she argued the district court went beyond its power and violated her due-process rights by giving Paul more parenting time than he asked for. The court disagreed, explaining that the parenting-time schedule was squarely before the district court because both parties had asked to change it. Even where the parents' proposed schedules overlapped, the district court was not locked into those points of agreement - Nevada law requires courts deciding custody matters to evaluate what is in the child's best interest. Second, Jennifer argued the hearing should not have gone forward because Paul allegedly failed to turn over medical records as previously ordered. The court found she cited no relevant discovery or evidence rules and presented no cogent argument, and noted that district courts may revise their earlier, non-final orders at any time before final judgment. Third, on the merits of the new schedule, the appeals court reviews such decisions only for "abuse of discretion" - meaning it will not second-guess the trial judge unless the decision was outside the bounds of reason. The district court addressed all the statutory best-interest factors, and the appellate court does not reweigh conflicting evidence or revisit credibility calls. Even if the trial court misread some individual pieces of evidence, the appellate court could not say the overall result would reasonably have been different. Fourth, Jennifer argued the district court failed to make required findings before ordering her to pay all costs of transporting L.M. to and from California for Paul's parenting time. The court agreed with Paul that the travel-cost order was not an adjustment of child support - the court set child support at the standard base amount and separately ordered Jennifer to pay travel costs because she was the relocating parent - so the regulation requiring those findings did not apply. Finally, because the district court had only declared Paul a prevailing party and had not yet actually awarded any fees or costs, Jennifer's challenge to any award was premature; such an award can be appealed once it is actually entered. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's judgment.

This case concerns two parents fighting over custody of their two young children after a divorce. Jasper and Carlos married in 2013 and divorced in 2017. They had two children, born in 2014 and 2016. Shortly after the divorce, both parents agreed in a court filing that Jasper would have sole legal and physical custody. In 2019, they again agreed that Jasper and Jasper's new husband could move with the children to Hampton, Virginia. In January 2021, Carlos asked the court to change the custody arrangement. His concerns focused on the children's gender fluidity and on Jasper's decision to support the use of certain strong psychiatric medications prescribed to one child. The court issued a temporary order in May 2021 giving Carlos joint legal custody, meaning both parents would share decision-making. Jasper's own attorney wrote that order, and Jasper did not object to it or ask the court to pause it. Two later disputes became important. First, the parents disagreed about whether to vaccinate the children against COVID-19; Jasper wanted to, Carlos did not. Second, an earlier 2019 order gave Carlos time with the children for Christmas 2021. Jasper asked the court either for permission to vaccinate the children or to postpone the Christmas visit. The court denied that request in early January 2022. By then, Jasper had already kept the children from Carlos over Christmas, in violation of the 2019 order. Then, right after the court's denial, Jasper had the children vaccinated and boosted anyway, against Carlos's wishes and against the court's temporary order. In May 2022, after a full-day hearing with testimony from both parents, Carlos's wife, and a clinical psychologist the parents had jointly hired, the court issued a 39-page order. It gave Carlos primary physical custody while keeping joint legal custody shared. The court did not agree that the children's gender fluidity was a "substantial change of circumstance." Instead, it found that Jasper's pattern of violating court orders and withholding Christmas visitation was the change of circumstances that justified revisiting custody. The court then went through each factor the law requires for deciding a child's best interest and concluded that primary physical custody with Carlos served the children's best interest. Because this required the children to move from Virginia back to Nevada, the court also applied the relocation rules and found relocation was warranted. On appeal, Jasper raised four arguments. The appeals court rejected all of them. It held that Jasper had waived the challenge to the temporary order by not objecting to it below, and that Jasper had treated that order as valid anyway. It held that the orders Jasper violated were not void or unenforceable. It held that the district court did not change custody merely to punish Jasper, because the court properly analyzed the required best-interest factors and found several that favored Carlos for reasons unrelated to the order violations. And it held that Jasper had not shown the court was biased against Jasper's transgender status, noting that the statements Jasper pointed to were made by Carlos, not the judge, and that a judge's rulings alone almost never prove bias. The court affirmed the custody modification. The court also declined Carlos's request to sanction Jasper, finding the appeal as a whole was not frivolous.

Burke Hall and Vanessa Marie Loftis were married and had three minor children. Their youngest child died in a tragic accident, drowning in a swimming pool while Loftis failed to provide adequate supervision. Loftis was convicted of a felony count of child abuse, neglect, or endangerment in connection with that accident and placed on probation. (After she was discharged from probation, her conviction was reportedly reduced to a gross misdemeanor, but the amended judgment of conviction was not in the record before the appeals court.) Loftis then started this court case, asking for "separate maintenance" (financial support while remaining married) and for joint legal and physical custody of the two remaining children. Hall responded by asking for a divorce and for sole legal and physical custody of the children. The district court granted the divorce early on but waited to decide the heavily contested custody dispute. Both sides made serious accusations against each other, including claims of abuse, domestic violence, mental health problems, and withholding the children. After a multi-day evidentiary hearing, the district court awarded Loftis sole legal custody and primary physical custody, with discretion to let Hall have supervised parenting time. The court explained that this arrangement was in the children's best interest. It found that although Loftis committed an act of child abuse or neglect connected to the child's death, she afterward took every step possible to redeem herself and become a proper parent. By contrast, it found that Hall bore extreme animosity toward Loftis that harmed the children, refused to cooperate, interfered with the children's relationship with their half-siblings, showed potential mental health issues while refusing to obtain a psychological examination, and committed an act of abduction without just cause. On appeal, Hall first argued the district court had no power (jurisdiction) to grant a divorce because Loftis had only asked for separate maintenance, not divorce. The appeals court rejected this because Hall himself filed a counterclaim for divorce, and Nevada law allows a court to grant a divorce to either party when grounds exist. Hall also argued that a separate divorce case he had previously filed blocked the court's jurisdiction, but he had agreed to dismiss that separate case, and the court found no legal authority creating such a barrier. Hall next challenged the custody decision on three main points. He said the court ignored Loftis's role in the child's death; the appeals court disagreed, noting the court did find Loftis committed abuse or neglect but treated the factor as "neutral" because she had worked to redeem herself, a conclusion supported by evidence including her testimony and the guardian ad litem's testimony. Hall argued the court should have applied a legal presumption against giving custody to a person who commits domestic violence; the appeals court held the drowning did not amount to "domestic violence" under the statute's definition, so the presumption never applied. Hall also argued the court had no jurisdiction to make findings about child abduction because that is a criminal matter; the appeals court held that the family court does have jurisdiction over custody proceedings and that the best-interest statute specifically requires it to consider whether a parent committed an act of abduction. Finally, Hall raised complaints about the district court striking materials he had submitted. The appeals court agreed the district court was correct that exhibits are not evidence until admitted, but said striking them on that basis was an abuse of discretion because the rules contemplate filing exhibits not yet admitted. Even so, the court held any error was harmless because there was a full evidentiary hearing where both sides could offer their materials. Because appellate courts do not reweigh evidence or credibility, and substantial evidence supported the district court's conclusions, the appeals court affirmed. It noted that Hall remains free to seek parenting time and is not barred from revisiting the parenting-time arrangement.

Greg and Heidi Pelkola divorced in 2014 and share legal custody of their three children, with Heidi having primary physical custody. After the divorce, Heidi obtained court permission under Nevada's relocation statute (NRS 125C.006) to move with the children from Nevada to Arizona. In October 2019, she asked the district court for permission to move again, this time from Arizona to Ohio. Greg did not consent. The district court told Heidi she did not actually need permission for this second move, reasoning that the Nevada statute only governed her original move out of Nevada. The court nevertheless granted permission and made limited findings about how the Ohio move would affect Greg's visitation. Greg appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court agreed with him on two points. First, the court read the statute's words literally: NRS 125C.006 requires permission whenever a custodial parent intends to relocate the child "to a place outside of" Nevada, and that language covers a move from one out-of-state location (Arizona) to another (Ohio), not just a move directly out of Nevada. The court noted that the opposite reading would let a parent who had moved with permission to a nearby state then move anywhere in the world - even Japan - without notice to the other parent. Second, because the relocation statute did apply, the district court was required by NRS 125C.007 to make specific findings on a list of factors, including whether there was a sensible, good-faith reason for the move, whether the move served the children's best interests, and whether the move offered an actual advantage to the relocating parent and child. If those threshold factors are met, the court must then weigh additional factors about quality of life, motives, and visitation. The Supreme Court held that the district court did not make the required findings and so abused its discretion by granting the petition. The Supreme Court reversed and sent the case back so the district court can hold an evidentiary hearing and issue specific findings on each applicable factor. The court also reversed the attorney-fee award tied to the relocation petition and instructed the lower court to recalculate it as necessary.