Nevada family-law case summaries

Douglas Brofman and Gina Fiore were never married but have one child, N.B., born in 2015. In 2021, the district court entered the original custody order giving both parents joint physical and joint legal custody. Even then, the court observed the parents had a high level of conflict and poor communication that hurt their ability to raise their child together. Between 2021 and 2024, the parents repeatedly could not agree on issues like medical care, schooling, and extracurricular activities, so the court had to step in many times to break ties. In these earlier orders, the court generally found that Brofman was engaging in passive-aggressive behavior, objecting to Fiore's suggestions without a reasonable basis, or acting to frustrate or control Fiore. In 2024, Fiore asked the court to give her sole legal authority over the child's medical care, education, and extracurricular activities, and also asked for primary physical custody. She said Brofman kept refusing to cooperate, which delayed the child's medical care or kept him from playing sports, and that she was the one primarily making sure the child got to appointments and to school on time. Brofman did not file written opposition but hired a lawyer and opposed the request out loud at a hearing. The court held a three-day evidentiary hearing. Both parents blamed the other for the conflict. The child's current therapist testified that Brofman said he would not "coparent" (cooperate jointly) but preferred to "parallel parent," and that in the therapist's opinion the parents could not coparent without extraordinary intervention. Evidence showed the parents' inability to cooperate delayed the child's medical care, including therapy, and caused him to miss out on activities with friends. In July 2025, the court found circumstances had changed enough to justify modifying custody. It gave Fiore limited sole legal custody over the child's medical care and extracurricular activities, but let Brofman keep an equal say over the child's schooling and denied Fiore's request for sole authority over education. The court kept the "joint physical custody" label but changed the schedule so Fiore had more time - a schedule that gave Brofman about 36 percent of the parenting time. On appeal, the Court of Appeals first explained that most of the older orders Brofman tried to challenge had already been decided in earlier appeals (so they were settled under a rule called "law of the case") or were filed too late for the court to have power to review them. The court therefore only reviewed the July 2025 modification order. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion. It found there was enough evidence that Brofman's ongoing refusal to cooperate was a substantial change in circumstances and that giving Fiore limited sole legal custody served the child's best interest, in part because repeated court intervention delayed the child's care and cost Fiore money she could have spent on the child. The court explained it does not re-weigh evidence or re-decide who was more credible on appeal, and that a trial court is allowed to rely on its own prior findings. Finally, the court concluded that labeling the arrangement "joint physical custody" was permissible even at roughly a one-third timeshare, because the percentage was not so low as to require a "primary physical custody" label and both parents agreed the child was close to and enjoyed time with each of them. The court affirmed.

Douglas Brofman and Gina Fiore were never married but share a child born in 2015. In 2019, Fiore asked the family court to award joint legal and physical custody with no child support owed by either parent. Brofman countered by seeking joint legal custody, primary physical custody, child support, permission to move with the child to Cleveland, Ohio, and repayment of loans he said he had made to Fiore. After a one-and-a-half-day trial, the district court denied Brofman's request to relocate, awarded the parties joint legal and physical custody, decided the child would attend the school Fiore was zoned for, and ordered Fiore to pay child support to Brofman. The parties then litigated a series of additional disputes, which the court resolved in orders entered in September, October, and November 2021. Brofman appealed the decree and all of these orders. A large part of the Court of Appeals' decision turns on a technical but important concept: appellate jurisdiction, meaning the court's legal authority to hear an appeal at all. In Nevada, an appeal is allowed only when a statute or court rule authorizes it. One of the most common bases is an appeal from a "final judgment" - a decision that resolves everything in the case. Here, the district court had never entered a written order resolving Brofman's counterclaim seeking repayment of loans, so there was no final judgment. Because of that, the Court of Appeals held it had no jurisdiction to review the child support portion of the decree, the make-up parenting time portion of the September 20 order, the denial of Brofman's request for attorney fees and a pre-judgment writ of attachment (an order securing property before judgment) in the October 20 order, or any of the November 1 orders. Those parts of the appeals were dismissed. The court noted in a footnote that once a final judgment is entered, Brofman may appeal from it and challenge these interim decisions at that time. The custody portion of the decree, however, was appealable under a specific rule allowing appeals from orders finally establishing custody of minor children, so the court reached the merits of Brofman's custody-related arguments. First, Brofman argued the district court should not have admitted reports from the parties' independent medical examinations. But his own trial lawyer had agreed (stipulated) to their admission, and the court held that this agreement waived any challenge on appeal. The court also noted that stipulating to evidence for strategic reasons - here, because there was not enough time for the expert to testify at the short trial - is a strategic decision that does not entitle a party to relief. And because Brofman did not give the appellate court the trial transcript where the reports were apparently discussed, the court applied its usual rule of presuming that missing materials support the lower court's decision. Second, Brofman argued that the school-choice issue should not have been decided based on written memoranda without a live evidentiary hearing. The court explained the unusual posture: Fiore had not given Brofman notice before trial that she would seek to change the parties' prior home-schooling arrangement, so the district court could not fairly have decided school choice at trial itself. Instead, the district court let Brofman file a memorandum on the issue and Fiore a response, which gave him notice and a chance to be heard. The Court of Appeals held that Brofman waived his complaint about the lack of an evidentiary hearing because he never asked for one below. It also noted that the parties' memoranda were supported by unsworn declarations, which Nevada law allows in place of sworn affidavits, and that the district court also relied on trial evidence - which, again, Brofman had not provided in transcript form. The custody and support decree was affirmed in its entirety. Third, the court affirmed the denial of Brofman's motion for a new trial. Brofman claimed Fiore introduced misleading or fraudulent text messages at trial, but the court held that even assuming his arguments were correct, he had not shown prejudice materially affecting his substantial rights: the district court denied relocation because Brofman failed all three parts of the threshold relocation test, and only one finding involved a text message. The court also rejected Brofman's claim that he was denied oral argument on the motion (the transcript showed he was allowed to argue) and his argument that the school-choice decision required a full relocation analysis, since the relocation statute applies to moves out of state or far enough away to impair the other parent's relationship with the child - not to choosing a school within Las Vegas.