Nevada family-law case summaries

This case is about who should have legal custody of a young girl, N.M., and whether a Nevada court had the power to decide that question. N.M. was born in California in 2007 to appellant, a Mexican citizen. Mother and child moved to Mexico, and in 2008 the mother left N.M. with the maternal grandparents. A Mexican family-services agency (DIF) and the grandmother signed a document indicating the grandparents had custody. By 2009 or 2010, the child's aunt and the aunt's then-partner (the respondent, a U.S. citizen) were raising N.M. In 2011, the mother signed a document appearing to give custody to the aunt and respondent. In 2012, after the aunt's relationship with respondent ended, respondent moved with N.M. to Nevada. Soon after, the mother's half-sister came to respondent's home at night and tried to take N.M. Respondent then asked a Nevada district court to appoint him temporary guardian on an emergency basis. The court did so, and several months later, after a two-day hearing, made him N.M.'s general (permanent) guardian, finding that the mother had abandoned the child. The mother appealed, arguing chiefly that the Nevada court had no authority to decide custody because N.M. had not yet lived in Nevada for six months when respondent first filed his emergency petition. She also argued that there was not enough evidence to overcome the legal preference that biological parents - not third parties - should generally be appointed guardians of their own children. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected both arguments. On jurisdiction, the court explained that NRS 125A.335 lets a Nevada court step in on an emergency basis to protect a child physically present in the state who has been abandoned or who faces mistreatment. Because N.M. was in Nevada and someone had tried to take her from respondent's home at night, the emergency power applied. The court then held that an emergency order can ripen into a final custody decision once Nevada has become the child's "home state" - meaning the child has lived here for six months - so long as no other state or country has an existing custody case or order. By the time the general-guardianship proceeding began, N.M. had lived in Nevada more than six months and there was no competing custody order or case elsewhere. So the Nevada court had power to make a final ruling. On the merits, the court explained that Nevada law presumes parents are preferred as guardians, but that presumption can be overcome by showing the parent is unfit or that other "extraordinary circumstances" exist - including abandonment. Nevada law presumes a parent intended to abandon a child if the parent leaves the child with someone else for six months without supporting or communicating with the child. The district court had evidence that the mother left N.M. with relatives, signed a document apparently giving custody away, and did not provide support or communicate with the child during long stretches. The Supreme Court concluded that this was enough evidence to support the abandonment finding, and so affirmed the appointment of respondent as N.M.'s guardian.

Edwin Griffith, a Reno resident, married Gabriela Gonzales-Alpizar, a citizen of Costa Rica, in Costa Rica in 1999. Before the wedding, the couple signed a premarital agreement that, among other things, waived any claim for alimony (spousal support) unless a divorce would leave one spouse eligible for public assistance. The couple lived in Reno with Gonzales-Alpizar's daughter Nicolle and their son Anthony, but the marriage deteriorated. In 2003, during a family trip to Costa Rica, Gonzales-Alpizar refused to return to Reno, and Griffith came home alone. In 2005, while Griffith was in Costa Rica to discuss a divorce settlement, he was allegedly served with a "Demand for Alimony," which under Costa Rican law covers both spousal and child support. The parties tell very different stories about what happened - Gonzales-Alpizar says Griffith understood he was being served and angrily threw the papers to the floor; Griffith says a stranger read something aloud in Spanish that he could not understand and he left with no paperwork. When Griffith did not respond, a Costa Rican court entered a default judgment ordering him to pay $180 per month in spousal support and $235 per month in child support for each of the two children. Gonzales-Alpizar never told the Costa Rican court about the premarital agreement. In 2007, a Costa Rican court granted Gonzales-Alpizar a divorce, with service made only by publication in Costa Rica even though she knew Griffith lived in Nevada. Griffith also filed for divorce in Nevada. The Nevada district court decided the parties had already been effectively divorced in Costa Rica, refused to enforce the spousal support and child custody provisions of the 2007 Costa Rican decree because service in that proceeding was invalid, but found that Griffith had been served in the 2005 support proceeding. The district court said the 2005 support order could be enforced if it was valid under Costa Rican law, and directed the parties to litigate Griffith's defenses in Costa Rica. Both sides appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court addressed two questions of first impression. First, it examined the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), a law codified in NRS Chapter 130 that lets Nevada courts enforce support orders from other "states," including foreign countries in certain circumstances. The court held that Costa Rica does not qualify as a "state" under any of the three methods in the statute: it has not been declared a foreign reciprocating country under federal law; Nevada's Attorney General has not declared it a "state"; and Gonzales-Alpizar failed to show that Costa Rica has procedures for enforcing foreign support orders that are "substantially similar" to UIFSA. Comparing how Nevada and Costa Rica calculate child support, the court explained, is not the relevant inquiry - what matters is whether Costa Rica has laws allowing foreign judgments to be recognized (that is, reciprocity). Second, the court considered "comity" - a principle of courtesy under which one jurisdiction's courts may give effect to another jurisdiction's judgments out of deference and respect. The court adopted Section 482 of the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States, which lists reasons a foreign judgment may or must be refused recognition, such as lack of due process, lack of jurisdiction, or fraud. Applying that framework, the court held that substantial evidence supported the finding that Griffith was properly served with the Demand for Alimony, so due process did not bar enforcement. But because Gonzales-Alpizar purposefully failed to tell the Costa Rican court about the premarital agreement - which the court concluded was enforceable and which governed spousal support - the court declined to recognize the spousal support award as a matter of comity. The child support award, however, was a different matter, because the premarital agreement said nothing about child support. Griffith claimed the child support award was procured through fraud - that Gonzales-Alpizar misrepresented his parental relationship with Nicolle (who is not his biological child, with a dispute over whether he adopted her under Costa Rican law) and misrepresented his income and properties. The district court had made no findings on those claims, instead saying Costa Rica was the only forum for resolving them. The Supreme Court remanded for the district court to make findings under the Restatement approach and decide whether the child support portion of the order should be enforced as a matter of comity.