Nevada family-law case summaries

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.

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.