Nevada family-law case summaries

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.