Nevada family-law case summaries

This case is a dispute between two divorced parents, Tiffany and Christian Olson, over who should have physical custody of their two children, A.O. (born October 2006) and L.O. (born November 2010). When they divorced in 2014, they shared joint legal custody and Tiffany had primary physical custody. Over the following years both parents remarried and Christian's work situation changed. In December 2021, after an evidentiary hearing, the district court found that circumstances had changed and that it was in the children's best interest for Christian to have primary physical custody. The court later ordered Tiffany to pay approximately $900 per month in child support. Less than four months later, in mid-April 2022, Tiffany filed an emergency motion asking the court to temporarily change custody. She claimed Christian had physically abused A.O. two days earlier during a confrontation over A.O.'s cellphone, and that Christian told A.O. to lie to police about it. The district court denied the emergency (ex parte) request but treated the filing as a request for a change of custody and set a hearing. At the January 2023 hearing, the witnesses told very different stories. A.O. testified that her father grabbed her by the chin, straddled her, pulled her hair, hit her in the face with a closed fist, held his arms around her neck, twisted her arm, and threatened her. Christian testified that after he tried to unlock A.O.'s phone using facial recognition, A.O. grabbed his wrist, he lost his balance and fell on her, and she then punched, kicked, and scratched him; he said he moved her to the floor and pinned her wrists until she calmed down, and he denied striking her or touching her neck. Christian's wife Jennifer, the only eyewitness, said she saw A.O. punching, kicking, and scratching Christian and did not see him strike A.O. or put his hands on her neck. The physical evidence and reports were also inconsistent. A.O.'s first written statement to police, made the night of the incident, described her father grabbing her face and arms but did not mention being punched, choked, or having her arm twisted. A second report, made two days later after A.O. spoke with her mother, described punching, hair-grabbing, choking, and an arm-breaking threat. The deputy who took the second report testified he saw only "minute" bruising and no evidence of choking or a punch to the face. A.O. admitted she did not write and had not fully read the affidavit attached to her mother's motion before signing it. Child Protective Services investigated and found the claims unsubstantiated, and Christian was never arrested or charged. A.O. told the CPS worker she felt safe at her father's home and did not think anything like the incident would happen again, and testified nothing similar had happened in the nine months between the incident and the hearing. The district court denied the motion. It found that although Christian and A.O. did have a physical altercation, Christian did not use unlawful force, the incident did not amount to domestic violence, and it was an isolated event that did not qualify as a "substantial change in circumstances." The court concluded the existing custody arrangement remained in the children's best interest. On appeal, the Court of Appeals explained that trial courts have broad discretion over custody, and appellate courts do not reweigh the evidence or reassess who was more believable. Because the district court considered all the evidence, judged the witnesses' credibility, and supported its findings with adequate evidence, the appellate court held there was no abuse of discretion and affirmed.

Michelle and Elvis Rivero divorced, and their divorce decree said they would share "joint physical custody" of their young child — but the actual schedule gave the child to Ms. Rivero five days a week and Mr. Rivero two days a week. Neither parent was ordered to pay child support. About a year later, Ms. Rivero went back to court asking for primary custody and child support, claiming Mr. Rivero rarely spent time with the child himself and lacked suitable living arrangements. The trial judge, Judge Miley, kept the joint-custody label in place, denied child support, sent the parents to mediation to work out a schedule, and eventually changed the schedule to an even 50/50 split, saying she was "just trying to find a middle ground." Along the way, Ms. Rivero asked Judge Miley to step off the case (a request called recusal), and when the judge refused, formally moved to disqualify her, claiming the judge was biased based on the parties' physical appearance. The chief judge rejected that motion as meritless, and Judge Miley then ordered Ms. Rivero to pay Mr. Rivero's attorney fees for having to fight a frivolous motion. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court used the case to answer a question Nevada law had never resolved: what exactly is "joint physical custody"? The court adopted Missouri's definition — an arrangement giving each parent "significant, but not necessarily equal" time with the child, structured so the child has "frequent, continuing and meaningful contact with both parents." In other words, joint custody does not require an exact 50/50 split, but each parent's time must be significant and meaningful. Applying that framework, the supreme court held the trial court went wrong in two ways. First, it labeled the arrangement joint physical custody without making specific factual findings to back that up. Second, it changed the custody schedule to an equal split without making specific findings that the change was in the child's best interest — the touchstone for all custody decisions. Both rulings were sent back for a do-over under the new definition. On child support, the court held that a parent may be entitled to support under Nevada's child-support statutes regardless of what the divorce decree says, and that a court departing from the statutory amounts must explain why in specific factual findings. Because the trial court did neither, that ruling was also reversed. The supreme court also announced a new math formula — a modified version of its earlier Wright v. Osburn approach — for calculating support when parents share joint custody but split time unequally, accounting for both differences in income and differences in time spent caring for the child. Finally, the court sided with the trial judges on the bias claims. A judge is presumed unbiased, and unhappiness with a judge's rulings is not a legally recognized ground for disqualification; the record contained no evidence of bias. The attorney-fee award stood as well: the court rejected Ms. Rivero's argument that a statute shielding parties from contempt punishment for seeking a change of judge also shields them from paying attorney fees for filing a frivolous disqualification motion.