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."

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.