Nevada family-law case summaries

Michelle and Kerry Faughnan married in 2008. In 2021, Michelle filed for divorce, asking the court to divide the couple's shared property and to award her alimony (ongoing support payments from one spouse to another after divorce). Kerry responded and filed his own claims. The court set deadlines: discovery (the pretrial process of gathering evidence and information from the other side) would close on March 23, 2022, and trial would begin later in April 2022. On March 25, 2022 - after the discovery deadline had passed - Michelle asked the court to extend discovery and push back the trial. She said Kerry hadn't fully disclosed information about assets, his income, and his criminal charges, and that she and her attorney both had health problems that had slowed them down. The court denied her request. It found the request was filed too late under a local court rule, that she hadn't shown "excusable neglect" for the delay, that she hadn't included the required list of completed and remaining discovery, and that she hadn't shown good cause to delay the trial. Before trial, the parties settled their disagreements. The court entered a divorce decree that included their agreements on dividing property and on alimony. Under the agreement, Kerry would make Michelle's $1,319 monthly car payment until the car was paid off and also pay her $1,350 per month during that period; once the car was paid off, he would pay her $2,700 per month until April 2027, when the alimony obligation would end. The alimony would also end if Michelle remarried or if either party died. The parties agreed the alimony was otherwise non-modifiable - meaning it could not be changed later. Michelle then asked the court to set aside the decree under a rule (NRCP 60(b)(1)) that lets courts undo a judgment because of "mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect." She argued the alimony wasn't enough to support her, that the earlier denial of her discovery-extension request was a mistake, and that she had been effectively forced into settling. She also filed a motion claiming an asset had been left out of the decree. The district court denied both motions. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that the district court had acted within its discretion in denying the discovery extension and continuance, noting that Michelle filed late, did not explain her delay, and that her own attorney admitted he had not reviewed the discovery materials in time - showing a lack of diligence. Because the underlying discovery ruling was not erroneous and did not deny Michelle a fair chance to present her case, it was not a "mistake" that justified undoing the decree. On alimony, the court noted the parties had agreed the award was non-modifiable, and that even if it could be changed, Michelle had not shown the changed circumstances required to modify it. Finally, the court held Michelle waived any challenge to the omitted-asset ruling because she offered no argument about it on appeal. The court also declined Kerry's request to sanction Michelle for filing a supposedly frivolous appeal.