Nevada family-law case summaries

This case is a dispute between two parents, James Ramseier and Nohelia Moldestad, who were never married but have one child together, named N.R. in the opinion. The child is about eleven years old. The parents had been sharing custody under a 2016 court order that set a parenting-time schedule and required them to agree in writing about the child's extracurricular activities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the parents made a separate written agreement in 2020 for the 2020-2021 school year. That agreement covered how the child would be schooled (homeschooling for fifth grade) and a parenting-time schedule the parents described as each having the child "50% of the time." This 2020 agreement was never filed with the court. When disagreements arose, both parents went back to court. Moldestad asked to change the custody and holiday schedules, to use an app called Our Family Wizard to communicate, and for attorney fees. Ramseier asked the court to decide which middle school the child would attend, to change the schedule and holiday plan, and for attorney fees. They disagreed about which school was best, about the child's participation in synchronized swimming and how it affected Ramseier's time with the child, and about how child support should be calculated. The district court held a hearing and eventually ruled that the child would attend Sig Rogich Middle School (the school in Moldestad's zone), applying a set of ten factors the Nevada Supreme Court laid out in an earlier case, Arcella, for deciding a child's schooling. The court also ordered Ramseier to take the child to synchronized swimming during his parenting time and to share equally in the recurring costs of that activity, on top of his $2,000-per-month child support. On child support, the record showed that Ramseier had agreed (stipulated) to the $2,000 monthly amount. On appeal, Ramseier raised eight arguments, including that the judge was biased, that the court wrongly considered the child's progress at her current school, that the court did not fully analyze his alternative school choices, that tying school to Moldestad's residence was improper, that he should not be forced to take the child to an activity he did not agree to, that the court ignored the 2020 agreement's 50/50 schedule, that child support calculations should have accounted for both parents' household incomes, and that the upward deviation in child support for synchronized swimming was improper. The appeals court rejected each argument. On judicial bias, it found Ramseier had not overcome the presumption that judges are unbiased. On several points, it found he either failed to support his argument with legal authority, failed to object below, or took positions on appeal that contradicted what he had argued or conceded in the trial court (for example, he had stipulated to the child support amount and had testified he supported the swimming activity). On the school-choice order, the court noted that the order was not permanently fixed - it allowed for future modification if Moldestad moved or if the parents could not agree - so Ramseier had not shown he was harmed. On the 2020 agreement, the court found the parenting schedules were substantially the same as the 2016 order, that the 2020 agreement was only for a school year that had already ended, and that no substantial change in circumstances justified modification. The court affirmed the district court's judgment in full.

David and Christie Stucke entered a domestic partnership in May 2015, married in May 2016, and have two children together. After about two and a half years of marriage, David filed for divorce. The case was, in the district court's words, "hotly contested and litigated," with a five-day trial that included testimony from both spouses and a jointly retained custody expert, psychologist Dr. John Paglini. Both sides asked the appeals court to review parts of the final divorce decree. The disputes fell into two groups: how property was split, and how the children's custody and support were handled. On property, David argued that a house on West Maule Avenue should not have been divided equally. He said he had used his own money — poker winnings earned before the domestic partnership — for the down payment and for repairs, and that the house was meant to stay his. Because the parties acquired the house after entering their domestic partnership, the law presumed it was community property (property both partners own together). David wanted the court to use a formula from an older Nevada case, called Malmquist, to give him credit for his separate contributions. The appeals court explained that this formula only applies when separate property increased in value through community effort, or community property increased in value because of separate contributions. David never argued that his contributions increased the home's value, and he did not provide the supporting evidence needed to run that calculation. So the court upheld the equal division. Christie, in turn, challenged the district court's decision to give David all the sale proceeds from two other houses — one on Birkland Court and one on Grandview Place — as his separate property. For the Birkland property, David had bought it with separate funds and set up a rental business through an LLC; Christie had signed paperwork acknowledging the house was David's separate property. The law says that once property is separate, turning it into community property ("transmutation") must be proven by clear and convincing evidence — a high standard. Christie did not point to anything in the record meeting that standard, so the appeals court upheld that award. For the Grandview property, Christie had signed a quitclaim deed giving up any interest, David had used pre-marriage retirement funds, and there was no evidence community funds paid the mortgage. Nevada law treats a spouse-to-spouse transfer of real estate as a presumed gift that also requires clear and convincing evidence to undo. The appeals court upheld that award too. David also asked that Christie repay the community for "marital waste" — money he claimed she wasted, mostly through gambling and by allegedly devaluing her businesses. The district court found Christie's credibility about her finances "questionable" but also found it "impossible" to figure out how much money, if any, was actually wasted, partly because David's financial summaries were incomplete and he had no accounting background. Because the court could not determine an actual amount of waste, it declined to order reimbursement (though it did make Christie responsible for the businesses' expenses and taxes). The appeals court found this supported by the evidence and upheld it. On custody, David argued that he should not have to share joint physical custody, pointing out that several of the district court's findings were unfavorable to Christie. The expert, Dr. Paglini, had spent extensive time with the family, produced an 88-page report, found both parents fit, and recommended joint physical custody with roughly a 60/40 split in David's favor. Dr. Paglini noted Christie's unsubstantiated allegations that David had raped her and molested their daughter, and said that if the court found she fabricated those claims for advantage in the divorce, David should get primary custody — but Dr. Paglini himself did not reach a conclusion that she had fabricated them. The district court found the allegations unsubstantiated but also could not conclude Christie had fabricated them. It went through each statutory "best interest" factor and adopted Dr. Paglini's recommendation. The appeals court noted that "a different court may have reached a different conclusion," but concluded this was not an abuse of discretion, and it upheld the joint-custody award. It also upheld the label "joint physical custody" for the roughly 60/40 schedule, because Christie had the children at least 40 percent of the time and more than 146 days per year. Finally, David argued the district court should have imputed more income to Christie and ordered her to pay child support. The court found Christie had not accurately reported her income and that her actual income was "almost impossible to discern." It concluded she could earn at least as much as David, set both incomes at David's monthly figure of $8,333, and ordered equal child support, netting to zero. The appeals court pointed out that the district court had actually imputed income to Christie — the opposite of what David claimed — and that David never provided figures showing what the correct amount should have been. Finding the decision supported by the evidence, the court affirmed the entire judgment.