Nevada family-law case summaries

Richard Candelaria and Michael Kelly met in 1991 and began a long-term relationship. They moved in together that November, exchanged rings in July 1992, and lived together for years. But they could not legally marry in Nevada because, at the time, Nevada law and later the Nevada Constitution prohibited same-sex marriage. When California legalized same-sex marriage in 2008, the couple traveled there and formally married. In 2020, Michael filed for divorce. The fight in this case is about how to divide two assets: Michael's 401(k) retirement account (opened in 1984 with no contributions after 2008) and shares of stock he received through his job between 1996 and 2004. Under Nevada community property rules, assets acquired during marriage are generally split, but assets acquired before marriage stay with the spouse who owns them. So the question is: when did the marriage start? Michael said the marriage began in 2008, when they actually wed in California. Richard said the marriage should be treated as starting in November 1991 or July 1992, because they would have married then if Nevada had not unconstitutionally banned same-sex marriage. The district court sided with Michael and used 2008 as the marriage date, treating the 401(k) and stock as Michael's separate property. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The court explained two related but distinct points. First, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which established that same-sex couples have the right to marry and that states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, applies retroactively. So Nevada must recognize the couple's 2008 California marriage even though Nevada did not recognize such marriages in 2008. That part favored Richard, in the sense that the marriage is treated as valid from 2008 forward. Second, however, Obergefell does not require courts to pretend a marriage existed before a couple actually got married. Nevada does not recognize "common-law marriage" -- the idea that a couple who lives together long enough and acts married is legally married without a ceremony. A 1943 Nevada statute bans common-law marriage, and that ban applies to everyone regardless of sexual orientation. Richard asked the court to apply a multi-factor "but-for" test (borrowed from an Oregon case) to decide whether the couple would have married earlier had they been allowed to. The court concluded that doing so would amount to recognizing a common-law marriage, which Nevada law forbids. The court said it had no power to carve out a judicial exception to the statutory ban, especially since Richard did not argue that the ban itself was unconstitutional. The practical result: the marriage is dated from the 2008 California ceremony, and assets Michael acquired before then remain his separate property.

Jennifer Gordon and Matthew Geiger divorced in 2011. Their decree gave them joint legal custody of their two minor children, gave Gordon primary physical custody, and gave Geiger limited visitation. In early 2014, the district court increased Geiger's visitation to every other weekend. Later that year, after Geiger was arrested and jailed for 23 days on a parole-violation warrant, Gordon asked the court for sole legal and physical custody and to remove Geiger's visitation. The district court set an evidentiary hearing focused on Geiger's parole warrant and child support. Before that hearing, the judge interviewed the two children privately, off the record, with only a court clerk and marshal present. At the evidentiary hearing, the probation officer testified that Gordon was not responsible for the warrant, and the court denied Gordon's motion to change custody. The judge then described what the children had told her in the off-the-record interviews, including a statement from the older child that Gordon's boyfriend had punched him as a form of discipline. The judge also referenced an unsubstantiated Child Protective Services (CPS) report that had not been admitted into evidence and had not been provided to the parties. At the end of the hearing, Geiger's lawyer asked orally - for the first time - that Geiger's visitation be expanded. Although Geiger had never made any written request to modify custody, the district court on its own ordered a permanent change: Geiger would now have the first four weekends of every month, leaving Gordon at most eight weekends a year with the children. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It held that Gordon's due process rights - her constitutional right to fair notice and a chance to be heard before her parental custody is changed - were violated because she had no notice that visitation would be expanded at that hearing and no opportunity to rebut the evidence (the off-the-record child interviews and the unadmitted CPS report) the judge relied on. The court also held that the modification was not supported by substantial evidence because the materials the judge relied on were never properly part of the record. The court used the case to give broader guidance to family-court judges. When a judge wants to interview a child witness, the interview must be recorded and must follow Nevada's Uniform Child Witness Testimony by Alternative Methods Act, found at NRS 50.500 through NRS 50.620. The opinion walks through the steps the Act requires - notice, a recorded hearing, specific findings, a written order, and a full opportunity for both parents to examine or cross-examine the child. The case was sent back to the district court so the parties can properly litigate whether any modification of custody or visitation is warranted.

Wesley and Maria Lewis divorced in 2011 and shared joint physical custody of their child. Wesley was ordered to pay child support. In 2013, after Maria asked the court to enforce the support obligation, the district court found Wesley in contempt for not paying, entered a judgment for arrears, and required him to take the child to tutoring classes and pay half of the cost. In 2014, Maria asked the court to modify custody and again to enforce the prior orders. After a hearing where Wesley represented himself, the district court awarded Maria primary physical custody, kept the tutoring requirement in place, and held Wesley in contempt again - this time sentencing him to a total of 80 days in jail for missed support payments and missed tutoring trips. The court stayed (paused) the jail sentence on the condition that Wesley "follow the Orders of the Court." Wesley appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court addressed three main questions. First, was the contempt order "civil" or "criminal"? This matters because the Sixth Amendment right to a court-appointed lawyer applies only to criminal proceedings. Civil contempt is meant to coerce someone into complying (for example, "you sit in jail until you pay"). Criminal contempt is meant to punish someone for past disobedience. The court explained that for a contempt order with a fixed jail term to count as civil, it must contain a "purge clause" - language that lets the contemnor get out of the punishment by complying with the order (for example, paying what is owed). Wesley's order had no purge clause: if his stay were lifted, he had no described path to avoid or shorten jail by paying. The court therefore held the order was criminal in nature and that Wesley's Sixth Amendment rights were violated because he had no lawyer at the contempt proceedings. The contempt order was vacated, and counsel must be appointed on remand if Wesley is found indigent. Second, did the district court properly modify custody? The Supreme Court said no. Nevada law forbids using a custody change to punish a parent for disobeying court orders. The district court's written and oral explanations leaned heavily on Wesley's failure to pay support, pay medical insurance, and pay tutoring costs - in other words, his disobedience. The district court also failed to make specific findings on each of the best-interest-of-the-child factors required by NRS 125.480(4) (2009). For both reasons, the custody modification was reversed, and because the child support modification was based on the custody modification, it was also reversed. Third, did the district court err in continuing the tutoring obligation? The Supreme Court said no. The 2013 order required tutoring until the child tested at or above grade level "as tested by [the tutoring school]." She had not yet met that benchmark in math at the tutoring school, even though she did well on Clark County School District tests. The tutoring obligation was therefore affirmed. The court also rejected Wesley's claim of judicial bias, finding nothing in the record that would cause a reasonable person to doubt the judge's impartiality.