Nevada family-law case summaries

This case involves a custody dispute between two parents, Jennifer Crosier and Garrett Crosier, who married in Utah and had three children. After separating in 2017, Jennifer moved to Nevada with the children and Garrett moved to Colorado. Although they divorced in Utah in 2019, the parties agree that no Utah court ever issued a final custody decree. In April 2022, Jennifer filed a complaint in Nevada asking for sole legal and sole physical custody of all three children. In her complaint, Jennifer raised concerns about Garrett's alleged domestic violence, stating that he had a prior child abuse/neglect conviction from Utah and that the children were afraid of him. The two older children were interviewed by the Family Mediation Center (FMC) and described instances of alleged physical abuse by Garrett - one child said he slapped her and caused her to hit her head, and that he kicked the other child with a steel-toed boot; the other child said he picked her up and pulled her by her hair. Both older children said they preferred to stay with Jennifer in Nevada. At a single-day hearing in May 2023, both parents represented themselves without lawyers. The judge told the parties he would "take control of the questioning" to avoid wasting time, and the court itself questioned the parties and witnesses. The court admitted the FMC child interview report into evidence, but it never asked any questions about the abuse allegations in that report or the domestic violence claims from Jennifer's complaint. When Jennifer tried to raise the abuse issue in her closing argument, the court did not allow her to continue, stating she had offered "zero evidence" that Garrett abused the children. At the end of the hearing, the judge said he had to consider "certain factors in evaluating what is in a child's best interest," but he addressed only two of the twelve factors that Nevada law requires. The court decided the parents would share joint legal custody, that Jennifer would have primary physical custody of the two older children, and that Garrett would have primary physical custody of the youngest child in Colorado. The written custody decree that followed did not mention any of the twelve best interest factors and contained no factual findings about the children's best interest. A later post-decree order also failed to address those factors. The Court of Appeals reversed. It explained that when deciding custody, a court's only consideration is the best interest of the child, and the court must consider all twelve factors listed in the statute and put its findings in a written order that ties those findings to the custody decision. Because the decree here contained no such findings, the court found this was an abuse of discretion and reversible error. The court also held that the trial court should have addressed the domestic violence allegations - the FMC report containing those allegations was in evidence, yet the court never determined whether domestic violence occurred. Finally, the court held the trial judge should have analyzed whether moving the youngest child to Colorado was in that child's best interest, using a five-factor test from prior Nevada case law. The case was sent back for a new evidentiary hearing.