Nevada family-law case summaries

Samarn and Dorothy Reed were married for about 29 years. Before the divorce, Samarn was an executive-level employee at the United States Postal Service (USPS) earning over $200,000 per year. In 2021 he began a relationship with a coworker whom he had promoted and for whom he had advocated for management training and other benefits. When Dorothy learned of the relationship, she filed for divorce; around the same time, Samarn notified USPS's human relations department about the relationship, triggering an internal investigation. In April 2022, the parties entered a stipulated (agreed-upon) divorce decree requiring Samarn to pay alimony - $1,250 per month at first, rising to $2,500 per month for 10 years once his child support obligation for the parties' youngest child ended. The decree contained no provision making the alimony nonmodifiable. In January 2023, USPS concluded its investigation and terminated Samarn's employment, finding he had promoted an applicant with whom he was romantically or sexually involved and knew his conduct violated USPS's rules of employment and ethical guidelines. Samarn appealed to the United States Merit Systems Protection Board, then settled: instead of termination, he accepted a voluntary demotion to a non-executive position paying $110,000 per year and agreed not to seek a promotion at USPS until February 2025. About two weeks later, Samarn asked the district court to terminate his alimony, arguing his demotion cut his monthly income by 45 percent and he could not afford $2,500 per month. He later argued the court should at least reduce alimony to $557.87 per month to equalize the parties' incomes. Dorothy opposed any change, arguing the income reduction stemmed from Samarn's knowing violation of USPS's rules and that he could still afford the payments. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court declined to terminate or substantially modify alimony. Instead, it narrowly restructured the obligation: $2,000 per month from October 1, 2023, through January 31, 2025 (the period before Samarn could again seek a promotion), returning to $2,500 per month thereafter, with the alimony term extended by three months to roughly offset the temporary reduction. The court found that Samarn's income loss was not beyond his control but resulted from his deliberate, willful, and knowing violation of USPS's rules, that he could maintain a nominal budget surplus if he cut unnecessary expenses, and that there was no evidence Dorothy's finances had improved since the divorce. The Nevada Court of Appeals affirmed. It held the district court properly relied on the Nevada Supreme Court's decision in Rosenbaum v. Rosenbaum, which allows courts to consider whether a spouse's reduced earnings result from the spouse's own intentional or purposeful conduct rather than circumstances beyond the spouse's control. The court rejected Samarn's argument that his demotion was involuntary because USPS imposed it, reasoning that Samarn agreed to the settlement and that the changes were precipitated by his own deliberate conduct. It also rejected his argument that considering that conduct improperly penalized him for "bad behavior" during the marriage, distinguishing Rodriguez v. Rodriguez: the district court was concerned not with marital misconduct but with the violation of USPS's employment rules that caused the demotion. Finally, the court held the district court was not required to walk through the NRS 125.150(9) factors - which govern initial alimony awards - and that the court had in substance considered the parties' financial circumstances anyway, so no abuse of discretion occurred.

Paul and Jennifer Martinez divorced in California in 2015 and share a child, L.M. Jennifer received primary physical custody, and the parents shared joint legal custody. Jennifer later moved with the child to Nevada with court permission, and the case eventually transferred to Nevada courts. After further disputes, the Nevada district court increased Paul's visitation time and ordered Jennifer to pay all the costs of transporting L.M. to and from visits with Paul, reasoning that because Jennifer was the parent who moved away from California, she should bear those costs. Jennifer challenged two parts of that ruling: the order making her pay 100% of travel costs, and the decision to expand Paul's visitation beyond what the parties had specifically asked the court to address. On the travel-cost issue, the Nevada Supreme Court agreed with Jennifer. Nevada has a detailed administrative regulation, NAC 425.150, that lists factors a court must consider before adjusting child support away from the standard formula. One of those factors is the cost of transporting the child for visitation. The Court held that a district court cannot simply impose all travel costs on one parent as a stand-alone order; instead, those costs must be evaluated as part of the overall child support analysis, looking at the child's needs and both parents' financial circumstances. The district court's reliance on the fact that Jennifer had moved years earlier, by itself, was not a proper basis for assigning her all the costs. On the visitation issue, the Court sided with the district court. Although Jennifer argued she did not have fair notice that the court might broadly change the visitation schedule, the Court found she had put visitation squarely before the court (by asking that Paul's visits be supervised), testified at length on the topic, and had the chance to present evidence. The Court also found enough evidence in the record - including doctor notes and Paul's own testimony - to support letting Paul have a standard out-of-state unsupervised visitation schedule. The Court reversed the travel-cost portion of the order and sent the case back to the district court with instructions to apply the NAC 425.150 framework. It affirmed everything else and declined to sanction Jennifer for bringing the appeal.

This is a divorce case centered on how to divide property between a husband and wife when one spouse owns a business he started before the marriage. Shane Mamone founded a construction company, SCM, in 2000, years before he married Charisse in 2015. During the marriage, SCM grew and landed several large, multimillion-dollar contracts, largely through Shane's continued work, reputation, and business relationships. When the couple divorced, the central financial question was: how much of the increase in the business's value during the marriage belongs to the "community" (shared property both spouses can claim) versus Shane's "separate property" (what he brought into the marriage and keeps for himself)? Nevada courts use two competing methods to answer that question. One method, called Van Camp, tends to apply when a business grows mostly because of outside factors (like a booming economy). Under Van Camp, the community gets credited only with the fair value of the working spouse's labor, and the rest stays separate property. The other method, called Pereira, tends to apply when the growth comes mostly from the working spouse's own skill and effort. Under Pereira, the owner spouse keeps his original investment plus a fair rate of return, and any additional growth is shared as community property. The trial court used the Pereira method, finding that SCM's growth was due largely to Shane's own efforts. Shane even admitted at trial that the big contracts would not have come his way without the work he put in during the marriage. The Court of Appeals agreed there was enough evidence to support that choice, so it upheld the use of Pereira. Shane raised several other arguments. He said the community's share of the business should be reduced by all the household expenses paid during the marriage, some of which came from his separate money. The court rejected this because the couple's community money was never used up (Shane alone reported over $1.2 million in wages during the marriage that counted as community property). Under Nevada law, when a spouse voluntarily uses separate money to pay shared expenses while shared money is still available, that use is treated as a gift to the community, not something that must be paid back. The court did agree with Shane on one point. During the marriage, Shane took $37,500 out of SCM to repay his cousin for his half-interest in a separate rental property (200 Citrus LLC). The trial court handled this by increasing Charisse's share of the business by that amount. The Court of Appeals said the correct approach was instead to subtract the $37,500 from Shane's separate-property interest in the business before calculating the community share. Doing the math the correct way, the community interest in SCM should have been $547,500, not $510,000. Because this was a calculation error, the court reversed that part of the decree and sent it back to be corrected. On the retirement account (the SEP IRA), Shane argued the whole thing, or at least his early 2015 contributions, should be his separate property. But he began contributing the same year he married, and he gave no clear evidence about exactly when and how much he contributed. Because Nevada presumes property acquired after marriage is community property, and Shane didn't overcome that presumption, the court upheld splitting the account, with Charisse receiving half ($93,000). The court also upheld treating certain vehicles as community property (Shane didn't provide evidence they were separate) and dividing the couple's $206,625 tax overpayment equally as community property. Finally, Shane challenged having to pay 64 percent of Charisse's attorney fees. The court declined to consider this because Shane never filed a separate, timely appeal from the later order that actually awarded the fees, and he offered no supported legal argument that the award was an abuse of discretion. Charisse separately argued that the SEP IRA turned out to be worth far more than the roughly $186,000 Shane described at trial (a post-trial disclosure showed over $500,000). The court declined to address this because Charisse never filed a cross-appeal, which is required to change the judgment in her favor.

Adam and Chalese Solinger married in May 2012 and had two young children. Adam filed for divorce in January 2019, and the case took nearly three and a half years to resolve. Trial was held over five nonconsecutive days between May 2021 and March 2022, and eight witnesses testified, including a court-appointed custody evaluator, a rebuttal expert Chalese hired, a private investigator, family members, and both parents' romantic partners. After the trial ended but before the divorce decree was entered, Chalese's boyfriend became violent at the home they shared during her parenting time - he broke a television and threatened to keep her from leaving. Chalese took the children, left, and called the police; the boyfriend was arrested for domestic violence, and Chalese obtained a temporary protection order. Chalese asked to present testimony about this incident, which Adam did not oppose, and the district court considered it in deciding custody. The final decree gave the parents joint legal and joint physical custody on a week-on/week-off schedule, ordered Adam to pay child support, required Adam to pay all of the children's health insurance and 65 percent of their other medical, educational, and extracurricular costs, divided the couple's assets and debts, and awarded attorney fees to Chalese. On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed with Adam on several money-related points but not on custody. The court affirmed the joint physical custody arrangement. Even though it agreed that two of the district court's findings (about alleged domestic violence by Adam and his supposed lack of financial support for Chalese) were mistaken, it concluded those mistakes did not change the outcome because the district court had done a thorough analysis of the child's best-interest factors and a majority still favored Chalese - yet the court still gave Adam joint physical custody. The court also explained that the statute Adam relied on for considering a partner's violent behavior applies to parents or others seeking custody, and Chalese's boyfriend was neither; but the district court was still allowed to consider the boyfriend's behavior as part of the broader best-interest analysis, and it did. The court found several errors in the financial parts of the decree. On child support, the district court said it used Adam's financial disclosure form and his own statements to find his income, but the number it used ($9,799 per month) did not match the figures in the record (Adam reported about $7,839.86 per month, and both sides agreed he earns roughly $94,000 a year). So the court sent the child support calculation back to be redone, with credit for any overpayments. On the 65 percent share of the children's medical, educational, and extracurricular costs, the court found the district court had not adequately explained its reasoning, especially since Adam already pays 100 percent of the children's health insurance and both parents had asked to split unreimbursed medical costs equally. Without a real explanation, the appeals court could not review the decision, so it reversed and sent it back. On the pension, the district court had awarded Chalese a "survivorship interest" in Adam's future state pension (PERS) and required him to choose a payout option that keeps paying a beneficiary after his death. The Court of Appeals explained that a survivorship interest is not itself community property, and giving Chalese this benefit was an unequal division of property because Adam would keep paying into the account for years after the marriage ended while Chalese contributed nothing. The district court had not made the findings needed to justify that unequal division - including why Chalese should be preferred over a possible future spouse or child - so the court reversed that award. Because the attorney-fee award (about $200,875) rested partly on the district court calling Chalese the "prevailing party," and because parts of the decree were being reversed, the court vacated the fee award so it could be reconsidered on remand. The court did reject one of Adam's fee arguments now, holding that Chalese's fee requests complied with the rules because her firms filed memorandums of fees and costs before final judgment. The court declined to reach Adam's other fee-related arguments at this time. On expert witness fees, the court reversed the $4,750 award for Chalese's rebuttal expert because the district court did not properly address all the required factors, particularly given that a neutral expert had already been appointed by the court. Finally, the court refused to order that a different judge handle the case on remand, explaining that a judge's rulings and actions during official proceedings are not, by themselves, grounds for disqualification.

Jennifer and Paul Martinez divorced in California, where Jennifer received primary physical custody of their child, L.M., and permission to move with the child to Nevada. Once the Nevada courts took over the custody case, Paul asked for primary physical custody. Jennifer opposed that request and asked the court to require that Paul's time with the child be supervised until he underwent a neuropsychological evaluation confirming he could care for L.M. without supervision. Both parents also asked the court to change the parenting-time schedule. After a hearing where evidence was presented, the district court kept primary custody with Jennifer but gave Paul more parenting time than before, refused to require supervision, and declared Paul the "prevailing party" - the side that won - for purposes of attorney fees and costs. Jennifer appealed. The Nevada Court of Appeals rejected each of Jennifer's arguments. First, she argued the district court went beyond its power and violated her due-process rights by giving Paul more parenting time than he asked for. The court disagreed, explaining that the parenting-time schedule was squarely before the district court because both parties had asked to change it. Even where the parents' proposed schedules overlapped, the district court was not locked into those points of agreement - Nevada law requires courts deciding custody matters to evaluate what is in the child's best interest. Second, Jennifer argued the hearing should not have gone forward because Paul allegedly failed to turn over medical records as previously ordered. The court found she cited no relevant discovery or evidence rules and presented no cogent argument, and noted that district courts may revise their earlier, non-final orders at any time before final judgment. Third, on the merits of the new schedule, the appeals court reviews such decisions only for "abuse of discretion" - meaning it will not second-guess the trial judge unless the decision was outside the bounds of reason. The district court addressed all the statutory best-interest factors, and the appellate court does not reweigh conflicting evidence or revisit credibility calls. Even if the trial court misread some individual pieces of evidence, the appellate court could not say the overall result would reasonably have been different. Fourth, Jennifer argued the district court failed to make required findings before ordering her to pay all costs of transporting L.M. to and from California for Paul's parenting time. The court agreed with Paul that the travel-cost order was not an adjustment of child support - the court set child support at the standard base amount and separately ordered Jennifer to pay travel costs because she was the relocating parent - so the regulation requiring those findings did not apply. Finally, because the district court had only declared Paul a prevailing party and had not yet actually awarded any fees or costs, Jennifer's challenge to any award was premature; such an award can be appealed once it is actually entered. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's judgment.

Amr and Huriyeh Hosny married in 1989 in Macau and moved to the United States in 2004, where they ran businesses and held assets together. They separated in 2018, and Huriyeh filed for divorce. After a 2020 trial, the family court entered a divorce decree that, among other things, ordered Amr to pay Huriyeh $5,000 per month in lifetime alimony (ongoing financial support), reimburse her $6,000 for an expert witness, pay a $38,000 loan Huriyeh had taken from her sister (in part to cover her attorney and expert fees), and pay off a U.S. Bank credit card. Amr appealed. The Court of Appeals found several problems with how the trial court reached its decisions. On alimony, the appeals court concluded that the trial court's factual findings were "contradictory, unclear, and not supported by substantial evidence." The trial court noted that Amr's income was $120,000 in 2017 but had dropped to $72,000 by 2019, yet it never settled on which income figure it actually used to set the alimony amount. The appeals court said the trial court appeared to assume Amr could keep earning what he historically had, without accounting for the downturn in his business tied in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. The trial court also divided rental properties between the spouses, which means Amr will collect less rental income going forward — a fact the appeals court said the trial court did not properly factor in when deciding how much support Amr could afford to pay or how much Huriyeh actually needed. The appeals court also identified erroneous findings about how much Amr paid to support the couple's adult children and how much he was already paying Huriyeh during the case. On the demonstrative exhibits (exhibits 5 and 14, which were charts or summaries the trial court relied on), the appeals court held it was error to admit them because the expert who apparently prepared them never testified to establish the foundation for the financial information they contained. The exhibits also contained mathematical errors and information inconsistent with other admitted evidence. Because the trial court leaned on these flawed exhibits in setting alimony and dividing debts, the appeals court found the error prejudicial. On the $6,000 in expert witness fees, the appeals court explained that under Nevada law, an expert generally must testify in order to recover more than $1,500 in fees. Because this expert did not testify, the trial court abused its discretion in awarding fees above that threshold. The appeals court reversed the district court's judgment and sent the case back for further proceedings consistent with its order. On remand, the trial court will need to reassess the full division of community property and debt (including the promissory note, the Bank of America card, and the U.S. Bank card) when deciding alimony, and ensure Huriyeh does not receive a "double recovery" for fees and costs already covered through debts assigned to Amr.

Aaron and Tracy Romano divorced in 2019. They have seven minor children. Before the divorce decree was entered, they signed a stipulated order resolving custody. Under that arrangement, the three oldest children spend roughly 90 percent of their time with Aaron, and the four youngest spend roughly 95 percent of their time with Tracy. Even though those percentages would not normally count as "joint physical custody" under Nevada law (which generally requires each parent to have the children at least 40 percent of the time), the parties agreed to label the arrangement joint physical custody. They also signed a Marital Settlement Agreement (MSA) setting Aaron's child-support payments and Tracy's alimony, and providing that the prevailing party in any litigation over the MSA would get attorney fees. About eight months later, Aaron asked the court to officially relabel the arrangement: he wanted the order to say he had primary physical custody of the three older children and Tracy had primary physical custody of the four younger children. He also asked the court to recalculate child support, both because of the actual time-share and because, he said, Tracy's monthly income had jumped from $0 to about $6,018. Tracy responded that nothing had actually changed - the time-share was exactly what they had agreed to, and her income (alimony plus interest on a promissory note Aaron pays) was already known and built into the deal. The district court denied Aaron's motion. It said there was no change in circumstances justifying a custody change, suggested Aaron was really trying to manufacture a change so he could take advantage of new child-support guidelines, and found Tracy's income had not actually changed. It then awarded Tracy attorney fees and costs. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court used the case to clear up a recurring confusion in its own prior decisions. Earlier cases had suggested that courts use one test to modify "joint" physical custody and a different test to modify "primary" physical custody. The Supreme Court held that there is just one test, regardless of label: the parent asking to change the arrangement must show (1) a substantial change in circumstances affecting the children's welfare, and (2) that the change would serve the children's best interest. The Court overruled the part of its earlier Rivero decision that had implied a district court must first figure out which kind of custody actually exists before deciding whether to change it. Applying that single test, the Court agreed with the district court that nothing meaningful had changed in the short time since the parties signed their agreement. The actual time-share was the same one the parties had agreed to. On child support, the Court held that Nevada's new child-support guidelines (in NAC Chapter 425, effective February 2020) do not, by themselves, count as a "change in circumstances" that lets a parent reopen support. A specific regulation, NAC 425.170(3), says exactly that, and the Court ruled the regulation is a valid exercise of the agency's authority. Tracy's income also did not count as a change, because it was already factored into the original agreement. Because Aaron lost on the merits, Tracy was the prevailing party, and the attorney-fees award (based on the MSA's fee-shifting clause and NRS 18.010(2)(b)) was upheld.

Aaron and Tracy Romano divorced in 2019 and have seven minor children together. Before the divorce decree was entered, the couple signed a stipulated order spelling out a complicated custody timeshare: the three oldest children spend roughly 90 percent of their time with Aaron, and the four youngest spend about 95 percent of their time with Tracy. Even though those percentages would not normally qualify as "joint physical custody" under Nevada law (which generally requires each parent to have the child at least 40 percent of the time), the parents agreed to call it joint physical custody anyway. They also signed a Marital Settlement Agreement (MSA) that set Aaron's child-support payments and other financial terms. About eight months later, Aaron asked the district court to "confirm" that the actual living arrangement was really primary physical custody (not joint), and to recalculate child support accordingly. He argued two things had changed: the actual time-share with the children, and Tracy's monthly income, which he said had risen from $0 to about $6,018. He also argued that Nevada had adopted new child-support guidelines (NAC Chapter 425, effective February 1, 2020) and that the new guidelines were themselves a change of circumstances justifying a recalculation. The district court denied the motion, found Aaron had not shown any change in circumstances, awarded Tracy her attorney fees, and Aaron appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The Court used the case to clean up an inconsistency in Nevada custody law. For years, courts had applied two different tests depending on whether parents had "joint" or "primary" physical custody. The Court now holds there is just one test: to modify any physical custody arrangement, the parent asking for the change must show (1) a substantial change in circumstances affecting the welfare of the child, and (2) that the modification serves the child's best interest. The Court overruled portions of its earlier decision in Rivero v. Rivero to the extent that case suggested a district court must first figure out whether the existing arrangement is "really" joint or primary before ruling on a motion to modify. Applied to Aaron's case, the Court held the district court reasonably found nothing had substantially changed in the few months between the stipulated order and Aaron's motion. The custodial timeshare was the same one the parents had agreed to, and Tracy's income reflected payments (alimony and interest on a promissory note from Aaron) that were part of the same global settlement. On child support, the Court held that Tracy's income had not actually increased post-MSA - it was already what the parties used when they set support. As to the new state child-support guidelines, the Court pointed to NAC 425.170(3), a regulation stating that adoption of new guidelines, by itself, is not a change in circumstances sufficient to modify an existing child-support order. The Court held that regulation is a valid exercise of the agency's authority delegated by NRS 425.620 and NRS 425.450(1), and it carves out a narrow exception to the general rule that a change in the law can be a change in circumstances. Finally, because Tracy was the prevailing party and the MSA and NRS 18.010(2)(b) authorized fees, the Court upheld the attorney fees award.

Geanie and Kevin Bradford were married on December 27, 2008, in a ceremony performed by Bryce Duckworth, a newly elected district court judge. Judge Duckworth had taken his oath of office four days earlier, but under the Nevada Constitution he was not authorized to take the bench until January 5, 2009. In 2011, Geanie filed for divorce and sought custody of the couple's minor child. At the divorce hearing, the district court itself raised a question no one had briefed: did Judge Duckworth actually have authority to perform the wedding? The court concluded he did not - reasoning that being sworn in does not confer authority before the judge's term begins - and, finding no valid marriage, dismissed the divorce complaint as moot. The order stated that custody issues would be handled in a separate companion custody case. Geanie never appealed that dismissal. Instead, a year later, she asked the Nevada Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus or prohibition - an extraordinary court order directing a lower court to act or to stop acting - to undo the dismissal. The Supreme Court declined. It observed that the district court "may have been in error" about the marriage, noting that both a statute (NRS 122.090) and the "de facto officer doctrine" provide that a marriage performed by someone without actual authority is still valid if both parties believed in good faith that the person had authority. But being wrong does not make a judgment void. Because the district court had jurisdiction over the divorce complaint, its dismissal order was a valid, final judgment that Geanie could have appealed. And because an appeal would have allowed the Supreme Court to meaningfully review the validity of the marriage, an appeal was an adequate legal remedy - and a writ petition cannot substitute for an appeal that was never filed. The court acknowledged that Geanie's failure to timely appeal or move to set aside the order leaves her without legal recourse to challenge the district court's conclusion, but it declined to entertain the petition.