Nevada family-law case summaries

Bruce and Andrea Patterson were getting divorced. During the divorce, their lawyers exchanged letters and emails working out how to divide the couple's shared property and debts. Bruce's lawyer eventually emailed Andrea's lawyer saying Bruce agreed to all the settlement terms except one about the couple's IRS tax debt, and suggested that the tax issue be handled at a trial while the rest of the terms were locked in by agreement. The trial never happened. Instead, the parties filed paperwork canceling the trial because they were "finalizing the terms of their divorce," and the court accepted it. Later, Bruce said he changed his mind about one of the already-agreed terms. Andrea then asked the court to enforce the settlement. The court held a hearing and found that, except for the IRS tax debt issue, the parties had agreed to a set of terms. The court enforced those agreed terms and set a separate evidentiary hearing to deal with the tax debt. The parties then filed more paperwork agreeing to split their personal IRS tax debt for 2016 and 2017 equally, canceling that hearing too. When Andrea prepared the final divorce decree, Bruce got a new lawyer and refused to sign it, saying he had not known about the settlement and had concerns about its terms and about assets and debts he believed were left out. Andrea submitted the decree without his signature, and the court entered it. Bruce then asked the court to undo essentially the entire divorce decree. He made three main arguments: (1) his earlier lawyer had agreed to the settlement without his permission; (2) the decree left out some assets and about $188,000 in debts; and (3) the decree required him to make what he called an "absurd" $150,000 "equalization payment" (a payment one spouse makes the other to even out the split of property) even though, he claimed, there was no marital property and the money did not exist. The district court denied his motion, and Bruce appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed. On the claim that his old lawyer acted without his consent, the court explained that under Nevada Supreme Court precedent, a lawyer who fraudulently settles a case without authority commits a "fraud upon the court" that can justify setting aside a judgment. But the court found Bruce knew about the settlement as early as May 27, 2021, when he signed a sworn declaration, and never complained at that time or at the enforcement hearing that his lawyer acted without permission. He raised the objection only after the decree was entered and offered no supporting evidence. Because proving fraud upon the court requires "clear and convincing evidence," and Bruce offered none, the court found no abuse of discretion. The court also explained that a hearing is required before granting such relief, but not before denying it. On the $150,000 equalization payment, the court noted that the emails showed Bruce's own lawyer had offered to raise the payment to $150,000 in exchange for Andrea giving up an indemnification demand, and that both Bruce and his lawyer already knew about the hot air balloon business accident and related lawsuits when they negotiated. Because Bruce knew about these circumstances at the time, they could not amount to the "mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect" required to reopen a judgment under NRCP 60(b)(1). He provided only a self-serving declaration and no documentation. On the roughly $188,000 in allegedly omitted debts, the court found Bruce's claims vague and unsupported. The district court had told Bruce it could handle omitted assets and debts through a separate motion under NRS 125.150(3) and invited him to file one if he had a valid claim. The Court of Appeals found no abuse of discretion in that approach.

Kassim Carney and Susan Moruri divorced through a stipulated decree of divorce—a divorce judgment the two sides agreed to. That decree divided their shared property and debts, and both parties represented that they had made a "full and fair disclosure" of their assets. Less than six months after the divorce, Moruri asked the court to set aside the decree under a court rule (NRCP 60(b)). She argued, among other things, that Carney had formed a real estate business and had not disclosed it before the divorce was finalized. Carney did not initially file a response, and the court first granted Moruri's request. Carney then filed a combined motion asking the court to reconsider and opposing Moruri's motion, arguing that the business had no value when the decree was entered. The court granted his request to reconsider and scheduled an evidentiary hearing—a hearing where evidence is presented. After that hearing, the district court sided with Moruri on the real estate business. It found that the business was an "omitted asset" because Carney had not disclosed it, that bank statements Moruri submitted showed the business was worth $69,877.12 when the decree was entered, that Carney had not shown he owned less than 100 percent of the business, and that Moruri was therefore entitled to $34,938.56—half the business's value. Carney appealed. On appeal, Carney raised two arguments about the court's power (jurisdiction) to decide the issue and two arguments about the merits. First, he argued the court lost the power to grant relief because it did not resolve Moruri's motion within six months of the decree. The appellate court explained that the deadline depends on when a motion is filed, not when the court rules on it, and that Moruri had also relied on a Nevada statute (NRS 125.150(3)) that gives a party up to three years after discovering fraud or mistake to ask the court to divide an omitted asset. Because Moruri filed within six months, this argument failed. Second, Carney argued the court had no jurisdiction because the parties had moved to Texas after the divorce. The appellate court noted Carney did not dispute that the district court had personal jurisdiction over the parties from the start of the case, and explained that this jurisdiction continued and allowed the court to decide the parties' interest in the business, even though the business was formed in Texas. On the merits, Carney argued the business was his separate property because it had not made a profit or distributions before the divorce. The appellate court explained that under Nevada law, property acquired during marriage is presumed to be community (shared) property unless an exception applies, and Carney did not argue any exception applied or point to clear and convincing evidence that the business was separate property. Finally, Carney argued the court should have relied on a professional appraisal rather than the bank statements Moruri submitted to value the business. The appellate court found that Carney had not raised the valuation or appraisal issue before the district court, and that he had not provided a transcript of the evidentiary hearing showing he raised it there or offered contrary evidence. Because of this, the court presumed the missing record supported the district court's decision. The appellate court affirmed.

Tarik Hacham and Dounia Sebai married in 2011 and had two children. In 2020, during a period of marital strain, the family took an extended trip that ended in Morocco. There, after a heated argument, Tarik took Dounia's and the children's passports and refused to return them. Tarik filed for divorce in a Moroccan court, which denied his requests to bar the children from leaving Morocco and ordered him to return the passports or face a daily fine. He did neither. Dounia, meanwhile, filed for divorce in Nevada and obtained an emergency order allowing her to get temporary replacement passports; she returned to Las Vegas with the children. The Moroccan court later issued a divorce decree awarding Dounia primary custody. Back in the United States, Tarik at first lived in Arizona and, according to the opinion, exercised less than his agreed parenting time or none at all before moving to Las Vegas in September 2022. During the Nevada divorce case, a discovery commissioner found that most of Tarik's responses to Dounia's requests for financial information were inadequate and that he had not acted in good faith. The commissioner ordered him to fully comply by a deadline or face a "negative inference" penalty - meaning that any information he withheld would be treated as supporting Dounia's side of the case. The district court adopted that order without objection from either party. After a trial, the district court awarded the parties joint legal custody but gave Dounia primary physical custody, finding that the statutory "best interest of the child" factors were either neutral or favored her. The court also ordered the Moroccan apartment sold with the proceeds split equally, and ordered Tarik to pay Dounia an equalization payment of roughly $51,000 because about $102,000 of the $160,000 he had withdrawn from his 401(k) retirement account - money both sides agreed belonged to the marital community - could not be traced to legitimate community expenses. Throughout the case, the court repeatedly questioned Tarik's credibility, noting contradictory statements and testimony belied by documents in evidence. On appeal, the Court of Appeals rejected all three of Tarik's challenges. First, it refused to consider his argument that the Moroccan decree - which he claimed favored Dounia solely because she is the children's mother - violated his equal protection rights, because he never raised that argument in the district court and did not cogently argue it on appeal. In any event, the court concluded the custody decision rested on a comprehensive best-interest analysis in which the Moroccan decree was only one factor. Second, the court held the negative inference did not violate Tarik's due process rights, because he had specific notice at the discovery hearing that withheld information would be construed against him and had time to comply before the penalty took effect; and it held the district court properly treated the Moroccan apartment as community property, since Tarik's only support for his separate-property claim was a bare statement that he "bought a condo in 2008 prior to the marriage," with no documentation. Third, the court upheld the 401(k) ruling, because Tarik's evidence traced only about $57,000 of the $160,000 to community obligations, leaving roughly $102,000 unaccounted for. The court also held that Tarik waived his argument about the tax consequences of the 401(k) withdrawal by not raising it at trial.

Robert Draskovich is a criminal defense lawyer who has been practicing since 1997. When he married Laurinda in 2012, he was already a 65% partner in a law firm called Turco & Draskovich (T&D), where he had his own clients, staff, and pay separate from his only partner. Laurinda did not bring significant assets to the marriage and was a homemaker. In December 2018, T&D dissolved. The next month, Robert formed a new corporation called the Draskovich Law Group (DLG), which he wholly owned. According to uncontested testimony, DLG was "the very same practice" as Robert's share of T&D - same office, same clients, same staff, same assets. Only the letterhead and the name on the firm vehicles changed. By the time the divorce began in 2022, DLG was worth roughly $1,210,000. The trial judge ruled that because DLG was incorporated during the marriage, it was presumed to be community property (property owned jointly by both spouses) under Nevada law, and that Robert had not produced clear and convincing evidence of a separate property value. So the judge treated the entire firm as community property. The judge also denied Laurinda's request for alimony, partly because she would receive enough community assets to generate over $3,000 per month in passive income. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the community property ruling. It held that simply incorporating a business during a marriage does not automatically make the business community property. Courts must look at the "totality of the circumstances" to decide whether a business is genuinely a new acquisition or just a continuation of a pre-marriage enterprise under a new corporate name. Here, every meaningful aspect of Robert's law practice continued unchanged from T&D into DLG, so DLG is the continuation of his pre-marriage practice and is his separate property. That does not end the analysis. A separate-property business can still grow during a marriage because of the working spouse's labor or because of community resources, and the community is entitled to a fair share of that kind of growth. On remand, Laurinda will have the chance to prove by clear and convincing evidence what portion (if any) of DLG's increase in value during the marriage is attributable to community sources, such as Robert's "toil or talent" during the marriage. If she makes that showing, the district court must apportion DLG's value between separate and community interests. Because the alimony decision rested partly on how community property was distributed, and because that distribution will change once DLG is reanalyzed, the Supreme Court also vacated the alimony ruling and sent it back for fresh consideration.

Richard and Margarita Rosiak married in 2000 and divorced after Margarita filed for divorce in Nevada in 2018. Richard, an attorney, ran his own law firm; Margarita worked for him as his only employee, and, according to the district court's findings, went unpaid for roughly 20 years. Throughout the marriage, everything - law firm income, rent from properties, and all personal and business expenses - flowed through one account: the law firm's operating fund. Richard never paid himself a salary, stopped filing tax returns in 2015, and kept essentially no financial records. The couple also owned multiple properties in California and Las Vegas, plus a house at 9917 Wiley Burke that had a complicated ownership history involving Margarita's family. After trial, the district court found Richard was not credible and had made multiple material misrepresentations. Because he provided no documents to support the income figure on his financial disclosure form, the court calculated his gross monthly income at $57,438 based on deposits into the law firm operating fund, and ordered him to pay $3,178 in monthly child support. It also awarded Margarita $202,500 in lump sum alimony, gave her a $224,011 share of the law firm's value, divided the couple's property unequally (Margarita received $3,040,889 in assets and $218,228 in debt; Richard received $8,764,891 in assets and $1,491,647.09 in debt), made Richard solely responsible for at least $204,805 in tax liability, found Richard owed $63,955 in child support arrears, and awarded Margarita attorney fees. On appeal, the Nevada Court of Appeals affirmed almost all of these rulings. A recurring theme was the "invited error" doctrine - the principle that a party cannot complain on appeal about a problem he himself created. Because Richard commingled all money in one account, kept no adequate records, paid no salaries, stopped filing tax returns, and hired no accountant or expert, the court held he could not now fault the district court for working with the only evidence available: the gross deposits into his firm's account. The appellate court did, however, send three related issues back to the district court. First, Richard receives Social Security benefits, and his minor child K.R. receives a dependent benefit that Margarita now collects directly. Margarita conceded on appeal that Richard should get a credit against his child support for that benefit. The court therefore vacated the monthly child support order only as to the Social Security dependent payment and sent the issue back for the district court to consider an offset (and to explain its decision if it declines one). Second, because that offset could change the arrears calculation, the court also vacated the $63,955 arrears order. Third, because parts of the judgment supporting the attorney fee award were vacated, the fee award was vacated too. Separately, the court vacated a portion of the order that made both spouses each 100 percent responsible for the same debt on 9917 Wiley Burke - which the court described as what "appears to be a clerical error" - and remanded for correction.

Jeremy and Kelly Herrmann were married in 2007 and have two minor children. In April 2022, the district court entered a default divorce decree - a divorce judgment issued after Jeremy failed to participate in the proceedings. Later in 2022, Jeremy filed many motions asking the court to enforce the divorce decree or to hold Kelly in contempt, mostly over how property was divided and over property he said had been left out of the decree, including a Cummins engine and Kelly's pensions. At a November 2022 hearing, Kelly said Jeremy had a federal pension he had not disclosed before the divorce decree was entered, which Jeremy denied. In November 2022, the court resolved 31 of Jeremy's motions, ordering that several mistakenly omitted items be divided equally. The written order mentioned the Cummins engine but did not decide that issue. The court told both parties to file proof of their retirement accounts within 30 days, warning that any claims would be treated as given up if they did not. Jeremy did not file proof of his pension. In January 2023, the court entered an order awarding each party their own pension as separate property. Jeremy then filed a "motion to set aside default judgment," asking the court to undo the pension order, along with seven more motions about withheld, damaged, or omitted property, again including the Cummins engine. The court denied all but one of the motions, found Jeremy was filing piecemeal motions to harass Kelly, and ordered each party to keep any remaining community property in their possession except items specifically awarded to the other in the decree or a prior order. The court also, on its own, set a hearing to consider whether Jeremy should be declared a vexatious litigant. Jeremy appealed. The Court of Appeals ruled on three of Jeremy's challenges and declined to reach others. First, it upheld the denial of his request to undo the pension order, noting he had been given ample time to obtain his pension information but did not do so, did not ask for more time, and did not, on appeal, challenge that finding. Second, on the Cummins engine, the court explained that a party can ask a court to divide an asset mistakenly left out of a divorce decree within three years of discovering the mistake, but Jeremy did not point to evidence showing the engine was an omitted asset rather than part of a vehicle already awarded to Kelly. Third, the court rejected Jeremy's claim of judicial bias, finding he had not shown the bias came from outside the case or reflected the kind of deep-seated antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible. The court also dismissed the appeal to the extent Jeremy tried to appeal from the order merely setting a future vexatious litigant hearing, because no statute or court rule allows an appeal from such an order. Claims about child custody and other matters were not addressed because they related to earlier orders not timely appealed or were not raised below.

Sharon and Kenneth Wilson were married in 2004 and had five children together. Sharon filed for divorce and asked the court for various custody arrangements and for an order requiring Kenneth to pay her attorney fees and costs. Kenneth opposed her requests and asked for primary physical custody of the children. According to the financial disclosure forms, Kenneth's average gross monthly income was $7,810 and Sharon's was $1,560. At trial, Sharon testified her income was about $1,200 per month and Kenneth's about $8,100 per month. The couple settled most of their disputes, including how to divide their property, but they could not agree on child custody or on who should pay attorney fees. After a trial, the district court denied Sharon's request that Kenneth pay her attorney fees. When Sharon asked for fees, she specifically pointed to the large gap between the two spouses' incomes. But when the court denied her request, it did not mention that income gap. In its written divorce decree, the court explained that each party should pay their own attorney fees because neither side won (neither was a "prevailing party") and both acted in good faith. Sharon appealed, arguing that the court was required to consider the difference in the spouses' incomes before deciding the attorney-fee question, and that it failed to do so. The Court of Appeals agreed with Sharon. Under Nevada law, when a court decides whether to award attorney fees in a divorce case, it must consider the disparity (the difference) between the parties' incomes. The appellate court found that the district court did not do this - it did not make any findings about the income difference and appeared to rely only on the fact that neither party had "prevailed." The court also rejected Kenneth's argument that the income difference did not matter because the court gave fees to neither side; the appellate court explained that the income disparity must be considered even when a court declines to award fees. Because the district court did not apply the required legal standard, the Court of Appeals reversed the denial of attorney fees and sent the case back for further proceedings.

Saad Halim Habashi and Sally Kamel-Kirollos married in 2002 and had three children. After their marriage ran into difficulties, Kamel-Kirollos filed for divorce in 2020, representing herself. Habashi, also representing himself, filed an answer and asked for joint legal and physical custody. Early in the case, the district court ordered Habashi to pay temporary child support. When the couple's oldest child turned 18 (reached "the age of majority"), Habashi asked the court to reduce his monthly payments, but the court did not rule on some of those requests. The court held a trial and entered a divorce decree in December 2021. Habashi then filed a motion the court treated as a request to reconsider, which the court granted, leading to a second trial. At the second trial, both parties testified about their income, their appliance repair business, their marital home, an apartment building they owned in Egypt, and their children. The court found that Habashi did not testify credibly about his income and business, and that he had moved to Egypt for a period and mismanaged his business to make it look like he earned little. The court decided several issues. It valued the business using the couple's 2019 and 2020 tax returns (because neither side provided an appraisal and Habashi had withheld business information during discovery), setting its value at $73,333. It valued the community interest in the marital home at $217,716.02 and the Egyptian apartment building at $62,666.12. Because Habashi had failed to pay ordered mortgage and utility bills totaling $41,410, and had withdrawn $10,000 from a joint bank account, the court credited those amounts (including $5,000 to Kamel-Kirollos for her share of the withdrawn funds) toward her share of the property. The court awarded the marital home to Kamel-Kirollos and the Egyptian apartment to Habashi, then equalized each party's share. On custody, the court gave Habashi primary physical custody of the minor son and Kamel-Kirollos primary physical custody of the minor daughter. It found the parties' incomes were substantially similar and that neither would pay child support until the middle child turned 18. It found Habashi owed $10,420.33 in past-due (arrears) child support. It also ordered Habashi to pay a symbolic amount of alimony - $1 per year for ten years - which could be adjusted if it turned out Habashi had hidden income. On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed with the district court on most points. It upheld the custody decision, the property division, and the alimony award, explaining that an appeals court does not re-weigh evidence or second-guess a trial judge's decisions about who is telling the truth. However, the court found a problem with how the child support arrears were calculated: the district court never made a finding about exactly when the oldest child reached age 18, even though the child had reached adulthood before the second decree, and Habashi's support obligation for that child should have ended at that point. Because it was unclear whether the district court accounted for this, the appeals court reversed the arrears calculation and sent the case back for the district court to make additional findings on that narrow issue.

Irina and Donovan Hansen married in 2007 and have one child. During the marriage Donovan worked as a firefighter (later a battalion chief) for the city of North Las Vegas, while Irina initially worked as a real-estate agent, became a stay-at-home mother, and later obtained a cosmetology license and opened a salon using a home-equity loan. When the marriage broke down, Donovan filed for divorce in 2019. The case went to trial in 2021, where Donovan had a lawyer and Irina represented herself. The trial court divided the couple's property, set child support and alimony, and awarded joint legal custody with Irina having primary physical custody. Irina appealed, arguing the trial court got several financial issues wrong and was biased against her. The Court of Appeals of Nevada rejected each argument and affirmed (upheld) the trial court's decision. On child support, Irina argued the court used inaccurate figures for Donovan's income. The appeals court explained that trial judges decide disputed facts and weigh witness credibility, and appellate courts do not second-guess those calls when they are supported by adequate evidence. Donovan's pay stubs, tax documents, and testimony supported the court's finding that his gross monthly income was $15,376.19, which produced a child support order of $1,445 per month. On alimony, Irina wanted at least $6,000 per month rather than the $3,000 per month for 60 months she received. The appeals court noted trial courts have broad discretion to award alimony that is "just and equitable." The trial court found Irina could earn about $3,000 per month from her cosmetology work and salon, that her reasonable post-divorce expenses were about $5,500, and considered her child support - and concluded $3,000 per month for five years was appropriate. The appeals court found this supported by the evidence. On property division, Irina argued Donovan got an unequal share without proper findings, that she should have kept the marital home, and that Donovan wasted community assets. The appeals court explained that community property is generally split equally, that the trial court found much of Irina's testimony about asset values not credible, that selling the marital home made sense given the mortgage and home-equity loan on it, and that Irina had not proven waste. It also upheld the finding that money in Donovan's deferred compensation account before the marriage ($87,992.62) was his separate property. On the pension issue, Irina wanted to be named the survivor beneficiary on Donovan's PERS (Public Employees' Retirement System) benefits. The appeals court explained that under Nevada law a divorce decree does not have to give a former spouse a survivor beneficiary interest, and the trial court permissibly let Donovan choose his survivor beneficiary at retirement while still splitting the community interest in the pension equally. On attorney fees, Irina argued she should have received an amount matching what Donovan spent. The trial court noted both sides spent substantial sums, that some of Irina's spending reflected her "stated intent to drag this case out for her financial advantage," but that there was a significant income disparity, and awarded her $10,000. The appeals court found no abuse of discretion in declining to award more. Finally, on the bias claim, the appeals court held Irina had not shown the judge relied on information from outside the case or displayed the kind of "deep-seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible" required to establish bias.

Troy and Monika Askew married in December 2006 and had one child, I.A., born in June 2009. Troy worked as a firefighter and had retirement and deferred compensation accounts; Monika ran a photography business but agreed to stay home with the child after I.A.'s birth. After a March 2020 incident in which Monika slapped Troy and Troy hit her back — with the child present — Monika was arrested and Troy obtained a temporary protective order. The parties later agreed to dissolve that order and shared temporary custody. Monika filed for divorce in March 2020. Several events shaped the case. In September 2020, Troy closed his deferred compensation account, withdrew its $98,672 balance, moved it to a separate account, and wired $65,000 to his mother — he later said $35,000 repaid a loan and $30,000 was for his mother "to hold for him." That same month, the child was hospitalized after expressing suicidal thoughts and told providers her mother had hit her. Monika admitted in the divorce proceedings that she once used a hanger to "swat" the child. Troy then sought another protective order on the child's behalf, but the court did not extend it because the application cited no new violence, only the earlier hanger incident. After a five-day trial, the district court entered a divorce decree in February 2022. On custody, the court found that both parents had committed domestic violence against each other in the March 2020 incident, but that Monika was the "primary physical aggressor," which triggered a legal presumption against giving her joint custody. A "presumption" here is a starting assumption the law makes that a party can overcome with enough evidence. The court examined the statutory "best interest of the child" factors, concluded the presumption had been overcome, and ordered joint physical custody with the child rotating three days at a time between each parent. On money, the court found that Troy's withdrawal from his deferred compensation account was a misappropriation of community funds meant to deprive Monika, which gave a "compelling reason" to divide property unequally. In the end, though, the court divided the community property equally: Monika received about $100,000 more in assets but was ordered to pay Troy roughly $50,010 as an offset to balance things out. The court also awarded Monika alimony of $800 per month for 72 months. The Court of Appeals affirmed on all three issues. On custody, it noted the district court did not separately label the hanger incident as an act of domestic violence against the child (which "was potentially an error"), but concluded any error was harmless because the court still applied the presumption against Monika, considered the hanger incident within its best-interest analysis, found it isolated and remote in time, and found the joint custody arrangement would protect the child. The appellate court also stressed that it does not reweigh evidence on appeal. On the property division, it explained that the court actually divided property equally after the offset, so Troy suffered no unequal treatment; and that although Troy was not formally served with the Joint Preliminary Injunction, he acknowledged and asked to be bound by it, so any lack of service was harmless. On alimony, the court found no abuse of discretion, holding that even if the district court compared Troy's gross income to Monika's net income, any such error was harmless and the required statutory factors were properly considered.

Ashley and John Franklin married in 2012 and have two children. Ashley filed for divorce in 2019. At trial, the central dispute was whether John had committed domestic violence against Ashley. If so, Nevada law would presume that joint physical custody is not in the children's best interest. Ashley described several incidents, including a 2013 episode that led to a protective order and a 2019 bear-hug she said ruptured a breast implant. John denied domestic violence but admitted he had pleaded down to disturbing the peace as to the 2013 incident. The district court found that Ashley's testimony was not credible enough to meet the "clear and convincing evidence" standard required to trigger the presumption against joint physical custody. The court instead awarded joint physical custody, ordered John to pay $300 per month in alimony for 36 months, divided the parties' assets and debts, and assigned a loan from Ashley's friend Karen Brady (used for living expenses) to the community while assigning a separate loan for Ashley's attorney fees solely to Ashley. After Ashley moved for reconsideration, the court denied it and awarded John $2,500 in attorney fees without explaining why. The Nevada Supreme Court mostly affirmed. It agreed that the district court could permissibly find Ashley's domestic violence allegations did not meet the clear-and-convincing standard, given inconsistencies in her account and missing corroborating evidence (such as medical records of the alleged ruptured implant surgery). The Court agreed the district court should not have excluded a photograph of Ashley's face that she said showed an injury caused by John - her testimony alone was enough to authenticate it - but because the photo was not in the appellate record, the Court could not say its exclusion harmed Ashley, so the error was harmless. The Court agreed that police computer-aided dispatch (CAD) reports were properly excluded as hearsay because no records custodian or qualified person authenticated them. On finances, the Court upheld the trial judge's decisions: prepaid bank accounts John said were empty and unused were properly assigned to him; the attorney-fees loan was properly assigned solely to Ashley because it was incurred after separation and not for the community's benefit; the living-expenses loan was properly assigned to the community (and John waived his contrary argument by not raising it at trial); and the $3,400 equalization payment to Ashley was supported by the record. The Court also upheld the alimony award. The one place the Court reversed was the attorney-fee award against Ashley for filing her motion for reconsideration. The trial court had given no explanation, and losing a motion - by itself - does not show that the motion was frivolous or filed to harass. Justice Bell concurred in most of the order but dissented on the domestic violence question, writing that the district court's own findings of fact - including findings that John forced Ashley into non-consensual sex, punched a hole in the wall, and coerced her into dropping charges - already amounted to clear and convincing evidence of domestic violence, and that the district court applied too high a standard when it declined to trigger the statutory presumption against joint physical custody.

Tony and Randa Isaac were going through a divorce. In 2019, they sat down with their adult son Jon and their respective lawyers for a two-day settlement conference. At the end, six people - Tony, Randa, Jon, and three lawyers - signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) that divided the couple's property and dealt with money owed to Jon. A few hours later, Randa emailed one of the lawyers saying she did not want to go through with the deal. Tony asked the district court to enforce the MOU anyway. After a bench trial in which all six signers testified (along with Randa's therapist), the district court ruled that the MOU was a valid, binding agreement. It later entered a divorce decree incorporating the MOU's terms. Both sides were unhappy with parts of what happened, and both appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed everything the district court did. On Randa's main argument - that the MOU was unfair and missed some marital assets - the Court found the trial judge's findings were supported by enough evidence, and noted that the supposedly missing assets had actually been disclosed on tax returns Tony produced during discovery. On Tony's request for over $217,000 in attorney fees as the "prevailing party," the Court agreed with the trial judge that fees were not warranted. The trial judge found Randa's positions were not frivolous or made to harass, and the income gap between the spouses pointed against making Randa pay Tony's lawyers. Randa also argued the divorce decree was flawed because the spousal support amount was left blank in the MOU and would be worked out later. The Court said the trial judge fixed any problem by stating in the decree that spousal support could be modified later under Nevada law. Randa's argument that the trial court should have accounted for how community assets appreciated in value also failed, because the parties had already divided the assets themselves in the MOU - so there was no community property left to track. One change the trial court made to the MOU was telling Tony to pay Randa $120,000 in cash, instead of as a down payment on a California house, because Randa had a right to live where she chose. The Supreme Court let that change stand, treating it as a fix to prevent unfairness, and noted Tony had not objected at the time. Randa's argument that her son Jon and his businesses should have been added to the divorce case was rejected under the "invited error" doctrine - the trial judge had given her the choice of joining them or filing a separate lawsuit, and she chose to file a separate lawsuit. Her claim about damaged couture clothing was deemed waived because the MOU released earlier claims. Tony's claim for about $18,000 in reimbursements was likewise waived. Finally, Tony asked to lower his alimony obligation soon after the divorce because Randa was living in Las Vegas with a new partner instead of moving to California. The Court agreed with the trial judge that Tony already knew these facts before the decree was entered, so he could not show "changed circumstances" justifying modification. The temporary stay on the $120,000 payment was lifted.

Sam and David Orgad married in Israel in 1983, moved to the United States in 1990, and in 2003 started a heating and air conditioning business called Temperature Control Services (TCS). During the marriage, David mostly ran the business while Sam raised the children and occasionally helped with management. Their relationship broke down, and Sam filed for divorce in Las Vegas in August 2019. The couple was granted a divorce in August 2021, but the court held off on deciding how to split their property, whether alimony (financial support paid from one spouse to the other) should be paid, and attorney fees until a trial. At trial, the two sides disagreed about how much the business was worth. David's expert valued TCS at $260,000 but did not testify at trial. Sam's expert testified that it was worth $663,000. The court found Sam's expert's report more accurate—partly because it accounted for potential unreported income that David's expert did not—and valued the business at $629,967. The court also addressed "marital waste," which refers to one spouse spending or destroying shared money for selfish reasons while a divorce is underway. David admitted he had wasted money, including trading in vehicles for new ones despite a court order (a joint preliminary injunction) barring such activity. He suggested $150,000 as the waste figure. After reviewing bank statements, tax returns, and the business's income statement, the court found David had wasted $167,354.56 over 27 months. Using the business value, other assets, and the waste figure, the court calculated that David owed Sam an "equalization payment" of $407,660.78 for her share of the community property, to be paid in $1,500 monthly installments. The court gave Sam the option (not a requirement) to secure that payment with a life insurance policy on David's life, at her own expense. The court also awarded Sam $8,000 per month in alimony for 11 years. The Court of Appeals reached two main conclusions. First, it decided the district court did not properly explain its alimony award and reversed that part, sending it back for the lower court to redo. The appeals court noted that David's take-home income was about $7,500 per month, yet the court ordered him to pay $8,000 per month in alimony while also finding he needed $5,000 per month to live on—figures that did not add up. The appeals court also found the lower court had relied on expense figures from Sam's Financial Disclosure Form that reflected her costs in Poland (where she had been living), even though she testified she intended to live in Las Vegas with different expenses, and then estimated her expenses at $8,000 per month without explaining how. The court also faulted the lack of findings explaining why 11 years was the right duration for a 38-year marriage in which Sam was primarily a homemaker. Second, the appeals court upheld the marital waste finding. Because David admitted he had committed waste, the burden shifted to him to justify his spending, and the court found the $167,354.56 figure was supported. Sam's argument that additional waste went unaccounted for was rejected as not sufficiently developed. The appeals court also rejected several other arguments as not cogently argued or not supported, including Sam's complaint about the life insurance option (the court noted she was given a choice, not an order) and David's arguments about the business valuation and about being required to operate TCS (the court noted the order did not actually require him to keep operating it).

Edgar and Maria married in 2014 and have two young children. In September 2020, the couple had an altercation during which, according to the opinion, an intoxicated Edgar accused Maria of infidelity, called her derogatory names, and hit her arm while she held both children. Maria called the police, Edgar was arrested for battery related to domestic violence (though no formal charges were filed), and Maria obtained a temporary protection order (a TPO, which is a court order intended to protect a person from further harm) that was extended several times. Edgar then filed for divorce and asked for joint physical custody (an arrangement where both parents share significant time with the children). In January 2021, the district court entered a temporary order giving Edgar parenting time on weekends and requiring him to pay $415 per month in child support, based on the income he reported at the time. After a trial spread over four days between October 2021 and February 2022, the district court issued a 58-page divorce decree. The court gave Maria primary physical custody, subject to Edgar's weekend parenting time on three weekends per month. In doing so, the court applied a legal presumption in Nevada law that weighs against joint physical custody when a parent has committed domestic violence. The court found that Maria proved, by clear and convincing evidence (a high standard of proof), that Edgar committed multiple acts of domestic violence, including pushing, hitting, slapping, grabbing her by the neck, and sexual assault on at least one occasion. The court also gave Maria the child tax credit, found that Edgar had been dishonest about his income when the earlier $415 support figure was set, raised his ongoing child support to $1,118 per month, and declined to make Maria repay Edgar half of the COVID-19 stimulus money she had received. On appeal, Edgar argued the custody ruling lacked adequate evidentiary support, that joint custody was appropriate, that Maria failed to prove domestic violence, that the temporary support amount was wrong, that the income assigned to Maria was too low, that the tax credit should have been split, that he should have gotten half the stimulus money, and that the judge was biased. The Court of Appeals rejected all of these arguments. A recurring reason was that Edgar did not file the trial transcripts with the appellate court, even though he had requested them. Under Nevada law, when the person appealing fails to provide necessary parts of the record, the appellate court assumes the missing material supports the lower court's decision. The court also found that some of Edgar's arguments were either raised too late (never presented to the trial court) or not supported by developed reasoning. On the bias claim, the court explained that disagreeing with a judge's conclusions is not enough; a party must show bias rooted in something outside the case or a deep-seated hostility making a fair decision impossible, which Edgar did not do. The court affirmed the divorce decree in full.

Parviz and Fatemeh Eivazi were married in Las Vegas in 2001 (after an earlier marriage in Iran). Fatemeh filed for divorce in 2016. The case was hard-fought, with many motions and a multi-day trial. After trial, the judge asked both spouses to submit proposed final orders. The judge then signed Fatemeh's 61-page proposed decree word-for-word, without changing anything. That decree required Parviz to pay Fatemeh more than $400,000 - including ten years of alimony at $5,000 a month, attorney fees, expert fees, repayment for "wasted" community money, and the proceeds from selling the marital home. Parviz appealed. The Nevada Court of Appeals used this case to send a strong message about a common practice: judges sometimes ask the winning party's lawyer to write up the order. The court did not ban the practice. It said adopting a party's proposed order word-for-word is not, by itself, an abuse of discretion - but judges who do so take on the risk that any mistakes in the document will be their mistakes. The court urged judges to read proposed orders carefully and lawyers to make sure those drafts are accurate and legally sound. Turning to the decree itself, the court found a number of problems. On "marital waste" (the idea that one spouse improperly spent community money), the trial court had treated any spending Fatemeh did not know about as waste, and required Parviz to disprove waste by clear and convincing evidence. The Court of Appeals said this flipped the burden the wrong way and used too broad a definition of waste. Under Nevada Supreme Court precedent (Kogod), waste generally means using marital money for a selfish purpose unrelated to the marriage, typically when the marriage is already breaking down. The trial court grouped together years of unexplained checks and cash and called it all waste - that was an abuse of discretion. On alimony, the court found the trial judge had gone through the statutory list of factors only superficially. Among other problems, the judge calculated Parviz's income from a website printout that was never actually admitted into evidence; failed to evaluate Fatemeh's earning capacity (not just her current lack of income); inconsistently described Parviz's ability to pay; and improperly leaned on Parviz's alleged misconduct in the divorce when deciding alimony, which Nevada law forbids. On attorney fees, the trial court had reconsidered an earlier order and awarded Fatemeh all her fees from the very beginning of the case - even fees that had already been ruled on in earlier orders, and costs that Fatemeh had not even asked for in her motion. The Court of Appeals reversed and told the trial court to limit any reconsideration to the fees actually at issue. A separate $59,000 award to "reimburse" Fatemeh for money she borrowed to fund the litigation was reversed because the decree contained no findings explaining it and it appeared to overlap with the attorney fee award. A $7,450 award for translation services as an expert fee was reversed because the trial court did not justify exceeding the statutory cap. The court affirmed two parts of the decree: an award for interim spousal support arrears and the division of insurance proceeds from Fatemeh's car accident. It also affirmed the order to sell the marital home, because Parviz himself had asked the trial court to order the sale - he could not complain on appeal about an outcome he invited. The unequal split of community debt, by contrast, was reversed because the decree gave no reason for the inequality. The case goes back to the trial court to redo the parts that were reversed.

This case is a divorce that turned into a custody fight between a child's mother and his paternal grandparents. Rebecca and Christopher Frane married in November 2016 and had a son, P.F., born in September 2013 (before the marriage). According to the opinion, from the time P.F. was about three weeks old, he lived primarily with his grandparents, Paula and William Wall. Rebecca filed for divorce in December 2020. While the case was ongoing, the court entered a temporary order that kept things as they were, letting P.F. remain with the Walls. In May 2022, the Walls asked to join the case (a "motion to intervene") and sought permanent custody, saying they had been caring for P.F. full-time. The court allowed them to intervene and held a one-day trial. By trial, Rebecca was asking for sole legal and sole physical custody of P.F. Christopher asked for primary physical and joint legal custody, and he nominated the Walls to continue caring for the child in his place. After trial, in October 2022, the court awarded primary physical custody to the Walls, with all three adults sharing joint legal custody. Both parents were ordered to pay monthly child support to the Walls. The court also divided the couple's shared property and ordered Christopher to pay Rebecca $3,250 to even things out. On appeal, the Court of Appeals of Nevada affirmed, meaning it left the district court's decision in place. Nevada law starts with a presumption - called the "parental preference doctrine" - that a child is better off with a biological parent than with a non-parent. That presumption can be overcome by showing a parent is unfit or that "extraordinary circumstances" exist. The appeals court concluded that the district court made enough findings to justify overcoming that presumption in favor of the grandparents, pointing to findings that Rebecca had neglected the child since birth, had shown little interest in him, chose to live apart from him since he was three weeks old, and that the child was stable and cared for by the Walls. The appeals court also addressed whether joint physical custody should have been ordered instead. It explained that Nevada law presumes joint physical custody is not in a child's best interest when a court finds, based on substantial evidence, that a parent cannot adequately care for the child for at least 146 days a year. The district court made that finding about Rebecca, and the appeals court held the finding was supported. The court also noted that the district court separately found it was in the child's best interest to award custody to the Walls based on statutory "best interest" factors, and that Rebecca did not challenge those particular findings. Finally, on the property division, Rebecca argued there was an unequal split. The appeals court walked through the numbers and concluded the property was in fact divided equally after the $3,250 offset, so there was no abuse of discretion.

Milan Rupel and Theresa Galten married in 2001. In July 2017, Galten filed for divorce, raising only issues about how to divide the couple's debts and assets. The case went to a five-day bench trial (a trial decided by a judge rather than a jury) in 2019. After the original judge retired, a new judge entered a divorce decree in February 2021 that largely repeated the earlier findings. Both sides appealed. Several disputes were at the center of the case. First, Rupel had transferred $90,550 he inherited from his mother into a shared "community" bank account. At trial, both spouses agreed (stipulated) that this money had become community property - meaning property owned jointly by the marriage. But the district court instead labeled the transfer "marital waste" (spending or destroying marital money for a selfish purpose unrelated to the marriage) and awarded Galten half of that amount ($45,275) as a separate award. The Court of Appeals found this was a mistake: because the money was community property to be split evenly, giving Galten a separate $45,275 award and then also splitting the account meant she effectively received an extra $45,275. The court reversed that award and directed the district court to simply divide the account equally. Second, the couple disputed the value of an investment called the Kai-Zen Plan, a premium-financed retirement plan whose future value could only be estimated. Each side's financial expert gave a value - Galten's expert said about $405,531, Rupel's expert said about $143,714 (or $148,714, as also stated in the opinion). The district court instead used $554,902, a figure that came from a years-old projection on a trial exhibit that itself said the value was not guaranteed. The Court of Appeals held that relying on that outdated estimate was an error and sent the valuation back to the district court for more fact-finding. Third, there was a bank account in Galten's name that held $63,789.67 before the marriage. Community funds were later added to it. The district court found the pre-marriage amount was Galten's separate property, but it wrote $67,789.67 in the decree - $4,000 more than the record supported. The Court of Appeals agreed this was a clerical error and sent it back to be corrected, but otherwise upheld the finding that the original amount was Galten's separate property. The court rejected the parties' other arguments. It held that money Rupel spent maintaining his separate vehicles, and cash he withdrew after the divorce filing for meals, haircuts, massages, and similar expenses, was not marital waste, because there was enough evidence supporting the district court's findings. It held that the district court was correct not to enforce a supposed agreement to end the community on December 31, 2019, because the emails and testimony showed the spouses never actually agreed on the essential terms. It held that Galten did not prove Rupel earned an extra $100,246 in 2016, since Rupel and his accountant testified that figure resulted from a reporting error later corrected. And it rejected Galten's argument that the court lacked jurisdiction, concluding the decree was a final judgment.

Matthew and Chelsea Carlson were divorced. After the divorce, they continued to fight in court over issues involving their two minor children, including custody, support, medical expenses, and which school the children would attend. Matthew filed a motion asking the court to address several of these issues. At a September 2018 hearing, Matthew told the court that the only issue he actually wanted to take to an evidentiary hearing (a hearing where evidence and testimony are presented) was his request to change the children's school. Even so, according to the opinion, he kept pursuing discovery — the formal process of gathering information and documents — on other issues he no longer intended to litigate. Chelsea eventually asked the court to rule in her favor without a trial (a motion for summary judgment) on all the claims. Matthew then tried to withdraw several of his requests, but the district court found he had not done so in time, which forced Chelsea to spend money filing her summary judgment motion to get those requests dismissed. The court ruled in Chelsea's favor on those requests but allowed the school-choice issue to go forward to the evidentiary hearing. On the second day of that hearing, the parties settled, and Matthew ultimately agreed to the school Chelsea had wanted. Chelsea then asked the court to make Matthew pay her attorney fees and costs. The court awarded her $45,503.17. Matthew appealed. The first time, the appellate court sent the case back because it could not tell exactly why the district court awarded the fees. On remand, the district court explained its reasoning more fully and again awarded the same amount. In this second appeal, Matthew argued the district court made several mistakes: that it wrongly treated Chelsea's summary judgment win as proof his claims were frivolous; that fees to a "prevailing party" are only allowed in cases involving money judgments; that filing his withdrawals late was not the same as frivolous litigation; and that Chelsea's original sworn statement supporting her fee request was defective. The Court of Appeals disagreed with each point and affirmed the fee award.

Ryan Ray Barrus and Heather Michelle McBride were married in Nevada but did not live in the state, and they have no minor children. When their marriage broke down, each of them asked the court either to annul the marriage (treat it as if it never legally existed) or, if that was not possible, to grant a divorce. Their court filings disagreed on one key point. Barrus said in his complaint that the couple had no community property (property owned jointly by the marriage) to divide. McBride said the opposite - that the couple's main home was community property and should be split evenly between them. Without holding a hearing, allowing written arguments, or letting the parties present evidence, the district court dismissed the entire case for lack of jurisdiction (the court's legal authority to decide a matter). The court agreed it had authority to grant an annulment because the couple married in Nevada, but it reasoned that the community-property issue could only be handled inside a divorce case - and it decided it could not grant a divorce because the couple did not meet Nevada's residency requirements. On appeal, Barrus argued that there was no evidence showing the home was actually community property, so the court should not have treated that as a settled fact and used it as a reason to throw out his whole case. The Court of Appeals agreed. It explained that the parties' filings created a genuine factual dispute about whether community property even existed, and the court had not let them address that dispute or submit evidence before deciding it. The court also concluded that resolving the issue this way - with no notice, briefing, or oral argument - conflicted with Barrus's right to due process (a fair process, including notice and a chance to be heard). For these reasons, the Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and sent the case back to the district court for further proceedings.

This is a family-law appeal arising from a divorce. In April 2017, Lingying He and Zuyu Su divorced under a decree that adopted the terms of their joint divorce petition. The decree gave each of them an equal share in their home (and its associated debt) and required Zuyu to pay Lingying $1,700 per month in alimony (spousal support) from May 2017 through April 2027. Zuyu stopped making alimony payments for several years. Lingying went to court to enforce the decree, and Zuyu asked the court to reduce his alimony. In April 2021, the court found Zuyu owed $98,600 in back alimony and lowered his ongoing payment to $300 per month. Zuyu then asked the court to adjust the amount he owed. During a later hearing, Lingying admitted that she had remarried in July 2017. Because of that, the court set aside its earlier April 2021 order, finding that Lingying had committed "fraud upon the court" in obtaining it. Under a Nevada statute, NRS 125.150(6), when a spouse who receives periodic alimony remarries, the required payments generally stop unless the court ordered otherwise. So the court decided Zuyu's alimony obligation actually ended in July 2017 when Lingying remarried, meaning he only owed $3,400 for payments he missed before she remarried - not $98,600. The court also addressed the house. It said the house should be listed for sale if Zuyu could not buy out Lingying's share within a set time, and it said Lingying's equity should be figured using the home's value back in April 2017, when the divorce decree was entered. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reached two results. First, it upheld the decision to cancel the April 2021 order and to recalculate the arrears. Lingying argued that because the parties had a valid agreement calling for alimony over a fixed term, the payments could not be cut off by the remarriage statute. The court agreed the agreement was valid but said that did not stop the statute from applying, because nothing in the agreement said the alimony was non-modifiable or would survive a remarriage, and because the agreement had "merged" into the divorce decree - meaning the parties' rights rested on the decree, which can be modified. Lingying also relied on an older Nevada case, Barbash, but the court noted that case applied California law and that Lingying had not raised her key arguments (that this was an "integrated agreement" or that an evidentiary hearing was needed) in the lower court, so those points were not preserved for appeal. Second, the court sided with Lingying on the house. She argued her share of equity should be based on the home's current value, not its 2017 value. Because Zuyu did not respond to this argument on appeal at all, the court treated the point as waived by him. The Court of Appeals reversed that part of the order and sent the case back so the district court could calculate each party's equal share based on the home's current fair market value, accounting for the outstanding mortgage and any post-divorce mortgage payments the parties made.

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.

Vanessa Pinto and Francis Guardado-Pinto married in February 2007 and had two minor children who were 8 and 5 years old at the time of trial. During the marriage they kept separate bank accounts and acquired three homes: a residence on Kensington Street (2010), a residence on Lodge Pole Court (2012), and a residence on Colour Magic Street (2015). When the marriage broke down, Francis filed for divorce and asked the court to divide the property and grant joint custody. Vanessa wanted sole custody and argued that certain property was hers alone. After a three-day trial, the family court divided the property and set up a custody arrangement. On appeal, Vanessa asked the Court of Appeals to overturn several of those decisions. The appeals court explained that it reviews these kinds of family-court rulings for "abuse of discretion" - meaning it will not overturn the trial judge unless the decision was clearly wrong or lacked adequate evidentiary support. The court also emphasized a rule that appears throughout the opinion: appellate courts do not re-weigh which witness was more believable, because that judgment belongs to the trial judge who heard the testimony. On the property questions, the court applied Nevada's rule that property acquired during a marriage is presumed to be "community property" (property belonging to both spouses) unless there is a written agreement saying otherwise. The Colour Magic home was a close call: Francis had signed a quitclaim deed (a document giving up his interest) to Vanessa, which normally creates a presumption that he gifted the property to her. But the trial judge believed Francis's testimony - including that he did not fully understand English and intended to keep his interest - and found he had overcome that presumption with strong evidence. The appeals court declined to second-guess that credibility call. Because Vanessa had transferred the Colour Magic home to her mother the day before Francis filed for divorce, and because she still lived there, the court assigned that property's value to her and awarded Francis the Kensington home to balance things out. The court also upheld the trial judge's findings that: the couple's earnings during the marriage were community property (Vanessa had no written agreement making her income separate); Vanessa did not prove Francis owned property in Honduras and that he sent $20,000 rather than $40,000 there; Vanessa's student loans were her own separate debt because she did not prove the loans existed or that her education benefited the marriage; and Vanessa did not prove Francis had possession of $20,000 in jewelry. Many of these conclusions rested on the trial judge's credibility findings and on the fact that Vanessa did not submit enough documents or legal authority to support her arguments. On custody, the court explained that Nevada law requires the family court to decide custody based on the "best interest of the child," weighing a list of statutory factors. The trial judge went through each factor and found joint physical custody with a "week on/week off" schedule was best. The judge found the children (both under nine) were too young to express an intelligent preference, that conflict between the parents was high, and that they could not communicate well about the children. The appeals court found these conclusions supported by the evidence. It also upheld the exclusion of one child's therapy records because the proper witness was not called to authenticate them, and it declined to consider several other arguments Vanessa raised without legal authority or that she had not raised in the trial court. Because none of Vanessa's arguments showed the trial court had abused its discretion, the Court of Appeals affirmed all of the rulings.

Sandra and Curtis Stewart married in 2010 and have three minor children. During the marriage, Curtis worked in mining and Sandra was a stay-at-home mother. In 2018, Curtis filed for divorce and asked for sole custody of the children, saying Sandra was unfit because of mental health issues, addiction, and erratic behavior. Sandra responded by asking for joint custody, child support, and alimony (financial support paid by one former spouse to the other). After years of contested custody litigation, the case went to trial in January 2021. The trial judge awarded Curtis sole legal and primary physical custody and gave Sandra supervised parenting time. The judge also decided Sandra had been deliberately earning less than she could ("willfully underemployed"), assigned her an assumed income for calculating child support, ordered her to pay a small amount in child support arrears (past-due support), awarded her a limited amount of alimony, and awarded Curtis a large sum in attorney fees. When dividing the couple's property, the judge gave Curtis the marital home and most of the vehicles, tools, and guns, while making Curtis responsible for the community debt, and gave Sandra a retirement account and one handgun. Sandra appealed, challenging almost everything. The Court of Appeals split its decision. On custody, the court sided with the trial judge. Sandra argued the judge did not make enough findings and that the judge was really punishing her rather than protecting the children. The Court of Appeals disagreed, explaining that the trial judge had gone through the statutory "best interest of the child" factors in detail, found that eight of twelve favored Curtis, and grounded the decision in concerns such as alleged domestic violence in Sandra's home and Sandra's arrest for driving under the influence with a crash during her parenting time. Because the decision was supported by the evidence and was not made to punish Sandra, the court affirmed it. The court also noted Sandra did not challenge the child support ruling on appeal, so that ruling was treated as waived and affirmed too. On the other three issues, the court found problems and sent them back to the trial court. First, on alimony, the trial judge did not explain how it applied the eleven factors the law requires, so the appeals court reversed the alimony award and ordered the trial court to do the required analysis. Second, on the division of property, the judge gave Curtis a much larger share without adequately explaining why an unequal split was justified, and never calculated what Sandra's share of the marital home would be. The court also said the judge improperly tried to balance things out by treating attorney fees and child support arrears as if they were part of the couple's shared property, which they were not. So the court reversed the property division and sent it back. Third, on attorney fees, the judge awarded Curtis fees without going through the required legal factors, including the difference in the parties' incomes, so the court reversed that too.

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.

Kristi Giudici and Martin Giudici were married. During and around the time of their divorce, Martin transferred his interests in four Nevada businesses to Paul Gianoli through a series of "transfer agreements." In exchange, Gianoli forgave debts that Martin allegedly owed him. Kristi believed those debts were inflated or fake and that the transfers were a scheme between Martin and Gianoli to strip her of her community-property share of the businesses. Kristi sued Gianoli, asserting two main claims: (1) that the transfers were fraudulent transfers that should be voided under Nevada's Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, and (2) that Gianoli and Martin engaged in a civil conspiracy to defraud her. The district court ruled the claims were filed too late and granted summary judgment for Gianoli. Kristi appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed, but for different reasons than the district court. On the fraudulent-transfer claim, the court ruled two ways. First, Kristi did not produce specific, admissible evidence creating a genuine factual dispute about either an "actual" intent to defraud or a "constructive" fraudulent transfer (one made for less than reasonably equivalent value). Second, and more significantly, the court held Kristi did not qualify as a "creditor" under the UFTA. Kristi had argued that even though she had personally released claims against Martin in their Marital Settlement Agreement, the "marital community" itself was a creditor and she could sue as its agent. The court rejected that theory, holding that the marital community is not an independent legal entity that can hold or assert claims through one spouse against another. On the conspiracy-to-defraud claim, the court held that even assuming Martin and Gianoli had some kind of agreement, Kristi did not present admissible evidence that any actual fraudulent act occurred or that she suffered resulting damages. Her main evidence was her own declaration repeating her allegations; the expert valuations she referenced were not actually provided to the district court, and she did not rebut a notarized assumption agreement documenting Martin's debt. A statement from Martin's lawyer that delaying the divorce filing "would be prudent" did not, the court said, support an inference of a fraudulent scheme. Because Kristi failed to raise a genuine factual dispute on either claim and because she was not a creditor under the UFTA, the Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of her case.

Erich and Raina Martin divorced in 2015 after Erich had served in the military. As part of their divorce, they signed a settlement agreement, which the district court incorporated into the divorce decree. The decree gave Raina half of Erich's military retirement benefits. Critically, it also said that if Erich later chose to take military disability pay instead of retirement pay, he would have to reimburse Raina for any reduction in her share. That contingency mattered because of how federal law treats military pay. A veteran who wants tax-free disability benefits must give up an equal amount of taxable retirement pay - he cannot collect both for the same dollars. When Erich retired in 2019, Raina began receiving her share of his retirement pay directly from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). The next year, Erich elected full disability pay, which wiped out all of his retirement pay - and with it, Raina's share. When Raina asked him to make up the difference as the decree required, he refused, arguing that federal law forbade it. Raina asked the district court to enforce the decree. The court agreed and ordered Erich to pay her the monthly amounts she would have received absent his waiver. The court also awarded Raina $5000 toward her attorney fees for the appeal, citing the large income disparity between the parties. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The court explained that under U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Mansell v. Mansell and Howell v. Howell, a state court cannot, on its own authority, treat military disability pay as community property or order a veteran to "indemnify" a former spouse for the dollar amount of retirement pay the veteran chose to waive in favor of disability pay. But the Nevada court drew a distinction: those federal cases addressed what a state court can order on its own; they did not bar enforcement of an indemnification term that the divorcing spouses themselves negotiated and put into their property settlement. Because Erich and Raina expressly agreed to the reimbursement provision, and because the divorce decree had become a final judgment, the doctrine of res judicata (which prevents parties from relitigating matters already resolved in a final judgment) required enforcement. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by awarding $5000 in pendente lite (during-litigation) attorney fees under NRS 125.040 without analyzing the Brunzell factors. Those factors evaluate the quality of work already performed, whereas NRS 125.040 fees are designed to fund work yet to be done. A two-justice concurrence by Justice Cadish, joined by Justice Pickering, agreed the decree should be enforced - but only because res judicata bars Erich's collateral attack on the final judgment. The concurrence would have held that the reimbursement provision itself is preempted by federal law, even though the parties had agreed to it, and would overrule Shelton v. Shelton to that extent.

Erich and Raina Martin married in 2002 while Erich served in the military. When they divorced in 2015, they negotiated a marital settlement agreement that the district court incorporated into the divorce decree. The decree gave Raina half of Erich's military retirement benefits. It also included a key promise: if Erich later chose to receive military disability pay instead of retirement pay (which would shrink Raina's share, because federal law requires veterans to waive retirement pay dollar-for-dollar to receive disability pay), Erich would reimburse Raina for the reduction. Erich retired in 2019, and Raina began receiving her share. In 2020, Erich elected full disability pay, waiving all retirement pay. The federal pay agency stopped sending Raina checks, and Erich refused to pay her himself, arguing federal law forbade it. Raina asked the district court to enforce the decree. The district court agreed with Raina and ordered Erich to pay her monthly installments equal to what she would have received absent the waiver. On appeal, Erich argued that federal law - specifically the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act and two U.S. Supreme Court cases, Mansell v. Mansell and Howell v. Howell - bars state courts from ordering a veteran to make up the difference when disability pay reduces a former spouse's share of retirement pay. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The majority drew a distinction: federal law does prevent state courts from dividing disability pay as community property or unilaterally ordering a veteran to indemnify a former spouse. But here, the parties themselves negotiated and agreed to the reimbursement provision, the district court entered that agreement as part of the divorce decree, and that decree became final. The court held that enforcing a final, agreed-upon decree under Nevada's res judicata (claim preclusion) doctrine and ordinary contract principles is different from a state court imposing such a division on its own. Under Nevada precedent, particularly Shelton v. Shelton, courts may enforce such agreements, and Erich may satisfy the obligation from any source of money he chooses, including his disability pay. The court also affirmed the $5000 attorney-fee award. Under NRS 125.040, a court in a divorce suit may require one party to pay money to enable the other to carry on or defend the suit, after considering each party's financial situation. The district court found Erich's income was about three times Raina's and tailored the award accordingly. The Nevada Supreme Court held that the four-factor Brunzell test for the reasonableness of attorney fees does not apply to such pendente lite awards because Brunzell evaluates work already performed, while NRS 125.040 fees cover prospective work - here, defending the appeal. Two justices concurred in the result. They would have held that the decree's indemnification provision is in fact preempted by federal law under Mansell and Howell, but agreed that under Nevada law, the decree had become a final judgment that Erich could not collaterally attack, so res judicata required affirmance.

This case arose from a contentious divorce between Raymond Snyder and Lauara Snyder. Raymond filed for divorce first, claiming he had lived in Nevada for six weeks before filing. Lauara answered and filed her own counterclaim for divorce, denying that Raymond met the residency requirement but stating that she herself had lived in Nevada for more than six weeks before filing her answer and counterclaim. After a trial, the district court granted the divorce, divided the couple's property, and awarded Lauara attorney fees. Raymond then appealed the divorce decree and several later orders. The Court of Appeals split its analysis across three appeals. In the first appeal (the divorce decree), Raymond argued the trial court had no authority to grant the divorce at all, because neither spouse met Nevada's requirement that someone live in the state for at least six weeks before starting a divorce case. The evidence showed Raymond did not meet that six-week requirement when he filed, and Lauara had lived in Nevada only about three weeks when Raymond filed. But Lauara did meet the six-week requirement by the time she filed her counterclaim. The trial court treated Lauara's counterclaim as essentially its own independent divorce action, and the appeals court agreed this was proper. The court reasoned that if Lauara had simply filed her own separate divorce complaint, there would be no question the court had authority to hear it, so the same result should follow when she raised the claim as a counterclaim. The court also rejected Raymond's argument that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over him because Lauara did not personally serve him with her counterclaim, holding that Raymond gave up (waived) that objection by not raising it at the proper time. On the property disputes, the court reviewed the trial court's decisions for "abuse of discretion" - meaning the appeals court would not disturb findings supported by reasonable evidence. The court upheld several rulings but sent others back for more work. It affirmed the trial court's conclusion that four businesses were Lauara's separate property, largely because the trial court found Raymond was not a credible witness and because Lauara presented consistent evidence that she owned the businesses before the marriage and never transferred an interest to Raymond. However, the court found the trial court had left several narrower questions unresolved - such as how to handle loans the couple made to the businesses from shared funds, and whether the marital community should be reimbursed for community money used on a business's legal expenses. Those issues were sent back. The court also reversed and remanded several other property rulings. On improvements to the marital residence, the trial court had ordered Raymond to reimburse Lauara $130,000, but the appeals court found there was no evidence showing that the money spent actually increased the home's value, which is required. On funds Raymond received as workers' compensation disability benefits, the court adopted a new framework (explained below) for classifying such benefits in a divorce and sent the issue back. Because that classification could change how money in Raymond's personal bank account is traced, related rulings - including the split of the couple's 401K and IRA retirement accounts and a $75,000 reimbursement Raymond was ordered to pay - also had to be reconsidered. Finally, on attorney fees, the court found the trial court did not identify a clear legal basis for the award and did not make the findings Nevada law requires before awarding fees, including weighing certain factors and separating out fees related to different parts of the litigation. That award was reversed and remanded too. In the second and third appeals (the March 31 order and the May 5 judgment and QDRO), the court did not reach the merits at all. It held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear those appeals because no statute or court rule allows an appeal from those particular kinds of orders. Those two appeals were dismissed.

Bradley and Emily Bellisario were married for seven years and have three children. During their divorce proceedings, Bradley - a lawyer who had stopped practicing and whose law license was temporarily suspended - was found by the district court to be a "vexatious litigant," meaning the court restricted his ability to file new documents because of repeated meritless filings and harassing lawsuits. The court also limited the evidence he could present at trial because he did not follow discovery rules. Bradley was incarcerated and not present when the divorce trial took place. The district court heard Emily's evidence and entered a divorce decree, which Bradley appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected most of Bradley's challenges. It held that his due process rights were not violated by the trial proceeding without him, because he had notice of the trial date and never asked the court to postpone it. The court also upheld the vexatious litigant designation, finding that the district court followed the required four-step analysis, that Bradley had filed many meritless motions and harassing lawsuits against Emily, her attorneys, and two therapists treating one of the children, and that the restrictions imposed were narrow. The Supreme Court agreed with Bradley on two issues, however. First, when the district court calculated his child support, it "imputed" income to him - that is, treated him as if he were earning a certain amount even though his law license was suspended - without first finding that he was unemployed or underemployed without good cause and without making the findings required by Nevada Administrative Code 425.125. Second, the district court awarded spousal support to Emily without addressing the factors that NRS 125.150(9) requires it to weigh. The Supreme Court reversed those two portions of the decree and sent the case back to the district court to make the required findings. The rest of the decree, including the custody schedule and the extension of the temporary protective order, was affirmed.

Herman and Nadine Williams married in 2004 and have four children - three boys (currently 9, 12, and almost 14) and a daughter, A.W., who is the oldest and turns 18 in October 2022. During the marriage, Nadine took out student loans and earned a master's degree in nursing and now works as a nurse. Herman works as a tow truck driver for a company called Copart, earning a fee for each completed tow. Tensions began in 2018. Nadine hit A.W. with a piece of PVC pipe, leaving a scar on the child's head, which led to a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation that closed on the understanding that the children would be in Herman's care. Nadine also committed an act of domestic violence against her own mother, Phyllis Gayle. In March 2019, Herman took the children and left the marital home; Gayle then moved in with Herman, paying him $700 per month in rent. Nadine soon filed for divorce. Before trial, the district court gave Herman temporary physical custody, with Nadine getting weekend time that gradually increased. Over time, A.W. came to prefer living with Nadine, even running away from Herman to be with her, and she stayed with Nadine by her own choice; Herman last spent parenting time with A.W. in January 2020. Interviews conducted by the Family Mediation Center (FMC) showed the children's ratings of Nadine improved over time, reportedly after Nadine stopped using physical punishment when the court told her to do so. The case went to trial in February 2021. The district court decided several issues. On custody, it applied a legal presumption against Nadine because of her acts of domestic violence (a "rebuttable presumption" is a starting assumption that can be overcome by evidence), but concluded she overcame that presumption because she stopped using corporal punishment and the children reported improved relationships with her. The court ordered joint physical custody of all four children. On alimony (financial support paid by one spouse to the other), the court found neither party credible about their income and calculated their incomes from bank records and pay information. It found Herman's income was actually higher on a monthly basis and refused to award him alimony, describing the income gap as "negligible." On debts, the court treated Herman's roughly $75,000 in medical bills and Nadine's roughly $76,000 in student loans as community debt and offset them against each other, assigning each spouse their own debt. It did not divide Nadine's master's degree. Herman appealed. He narrowed his custody challenge to just the three boys, conceding he was not seeking custody of A.W. The appellate court reached four conclusions. First, it upheld the joint physical custody order for the boys, finding no abuse of discretion. Second, it declined to decide whether Nadine's master's degree should have been divided, because Herman never raised that issue at trial - only later in a post-judgment motion - so the point was not preserved for appeal. Third, it found the district court appears to have made an error in calculating Herman's income by counting some money twice: Herman moved money between his checking and savings accounts, and those internal transfers were mistakenly counted as additional income. Because that error may have affected the alimony decision, the court vacated (canceled) the alimony determination and sent it back for a recalculation. Fourth, it declined Herman's invitation to reexamine the district court's credibility findings, explaining that appellate courts generally defer to the trial court, which actually sees and hears the witnesses.

Bart and Bonnie Mahoney married in 2000 and had two children. When Bart filed for divorce in 2016, the couple reached an agreement that was merged into the divorce decree. Under the decree, Bonnie received primary physical custody of the children, and Bart agreed to pay child support, cover the children on his medical insurance, pay monthly alimony for five years, pay Bonnie 25% of his annual bonuses (rising to 35% if he failed to give her his annual W-2 tax forms), and pay her attorney fees and costs from the divorce. According to the opinion, Bart did not pay the child support, alimony, or attorney fees, did not pay Bonnie a share of his bonuses, and did not provide his W-2 forms. In May 2019, Bonnie asked the district court to reduce the arrearages (the unpaid amounts) to a judgment—that is, to convert what Bart owed into an enforceable court judgment—with interest and penalties, and to review child support and award her attorney fees. The case wound its way through several hearings. Bart's attorney withdrew in 2020 because Bart had never formally retained him and had stopped communicating. After that, Bart represented himself. The evidentiary hearing was rescheduled several times and ultimately set for December 3, 2020. Notice of that hearing was mailed to Bart's last-known address on file with the court, and Bonnie's attorney also emailed Bart pretrial filings—containing the hearing's date and time—at the same email address Bart had previously used to correspond with that attorney. Bart did not show up at the December 3, 2020, hearing. The district court proceeded with only Bonnie and her attorney present, took evidence including Bart's income and bonus records obtained by subpoena, and granted Bonnie's motion. It found Bart owed child support, alimony, and attorney fees and costs from the divorce, and—because Bart never provided his W-2 forms—awarded Bonnie 35% of his bonuses. It also awarded Bonnie the attorney fees and costs of bringing the motion, setting the amount in January 2021 after Bonnie filed a detailed memorandum of her fees and costs. Bart then moved to set aside the orders under NRCP 60(b), claiming he was never notified of the hearing, but filed his notice of appeal before the district court ruled on that motion. The appeal was still properly before the Court of Appeals under NRAP 4(a)(6), which treats the premature notice as filed on the date the district court denied the set-aside motion. However, because Bart's briefs did not address the denial of that motion, any challenge to it was waived. On appeal, the Court of Appeals rejected all three of Bart's arguments. First, it held that substantial evidence supported the finding that Bart was properly notified of the hearing: notice was mailed to his last-known address (which under the court rules completes service upon mailing), and he also had actual notice via emails from Bonnie's attorney. Bart pointed to nothing in the record—such as a sworn affidavit—showing he did not actually receive notice, and the onus was on him to keep the court updated with his address. Second, the court held that Bart's challenges to the arrearage findings were waived because he never raised those specific arguments in the district court, despite multiple opportunities to do so. Third, the court held that the fee award was not an abuse of discretion: the award was authorized by statute, and the district court made detailed findings under the four-factor test from Brunzell v. Golden Gate Nat'l Bank for evaluating the reasonableness of attorney fees.

David and Christie Stucke entered a domestic partnership in May 2015, married in May 2016, and have two children together. After about two and a half years of marriage, David filed for divorce. The case was, in the district court's words, "hotly contested and litigated," with a five-day trial that included testimony from both spouses and a jointly retained custody expert, psychologist Dr. John Paglini. Both sides asked the appeals court to review parts of the final divorce decree. The disputes fell into two groups: how property was split, and how the children's custody and support were handled. On property, David argued that a house on West Maule Avenue should not have been divided equally. He said he had used his own money — poker winnings earned before the domestic partnership — for the down payment and for repairs, and that the house was meant to stay his. Because the parties acquired the house after entering their domestic partnership, the law presumed it was community property (property both partners own together). David wanted the court to use a formula from an older Nevada case, called Malmquist, to give him credit for his separate contributions. The appeals court explained that this formula only applies when separate property increased in value through community effort, or community property increased in value because of separate contributions. David never argued that his contributions increased the home's value, and he did not provide the supporting evidence needed to run that calculation. So the court upheld the equal division. Christie, in turn, challenged the district court's decision to give David all the sale proceeds from two other houses — one on Birkland Court and one on Grandview Place — as his separate property. For the Birkland property, David had bought it with separate funds and set up a rental business through an LLC; Christie had signed paperwork acknowledging the house was David's separate property. The law says that once property is separate, turning it into community property ("transmutation") must be proven by clear and convincing evidence — a high standard. Christie did not point to anything in the record meeting that standard, so the appeals court upheld that award. For the Grandview property, Christie had signed a quitclaim deed giving up any interest, David had used pre-marriage retirement funds, and there was no evidence community funds paid the mortgage. Nevada law treats a spouse-to-spouse transfer of real estate as a presumed gift that also requires clear and convincing evidence to undo. The appeals court upheld that award too. David also asked that Christie repay the community for "marital waste" — money he claimed she wasted, mostly through gambling and by allegedly devaluing her businesses. The district court found Christie's credibility about her finances "questionable" but also found it "impossible" to figure out how much money, if any, was actually wasted, partly because David's financial summaries were incomplete and he had no accounting background. Because the court could not determine an actual amount of waste, it declined to order reimbursement (though it did make Christie responsible for the businesses' expenses and taxes). The appeals court found this supported by the evidence and upheld it. On custody, David argued that he should not have to share joint physical custody, pointing out that several of the district court's findings were unfavorable to Christie. The expert, Dr. Paglini, had spent extensive time with the family, produced an 88-page report, found both parents fit, and recommended joint physical custody with roughly a 60/40 split in David's favor. Dr. Paglini noted Christie's unsubstantiated allegations that David had raped her and molested their daughter, and said that if the court found she fabricated those claims for advantage in the divorce, David should get primary custody — but Dr. Paglini himself did not reach a conclusion that she had fabricated them. The district court found the allegations unsubstantiated but also could not conclude Christie had fabricated them. It went through each statutory "best interest" factor and adopted Dr. Paglini's recommendation. The appeals court noted that "a different court may have reached a different conclusion," but concluded this was not an abuse of discretion, and it upheld the joint-custody award. It also upheld the label "joint physical custody" for the roughly 60/40 schedule, because Christie had the children at least 40 percent of the time and more than 146 days per year. Finally, David argued the district court should have imputed more income to Christie and ordered her to pay child support. The court found Christie had not accurately reported her income and that her actual income was "almost impossible to discern." It concluded she could earn at least as much as David, set both incomes at David's monthly figure of $8,333, and ordered equal child support, netting to zero. The appeals court pointed out that the district court had actually imputed income to Christie — the opposite of what David claimed — and that David never provided figures showing what the correct amount should have been. Finding the decision supported by the evidence, the court affirmed the entire judgment.

Burke Hall and Vanessa Marie Loftis were married and had three minor children. Their youngest child died in a tragic accident, drowning in a swimming pool while Loftis failed to provide adequate supervision. Loftis was convicted of a felony count of child abuse, neglect, or endangerment in connection with that accident and placed on probation. (After she was discharged from probation, her conviction was reportedly reduced to a gross misdemeanor, but the amended judgment of conviction was not in the record before the appeals court.) Loftis then started this court case, asking for "separate maintenance" (financial support while remaining married) and for joint legal and physical custody of the two remaining children. Hall responded by asking for a divorce and for sole legal and physical custody of the children. The district court granted the divorce early on but waited to decide the heavily contested custody dispute. Both sides made serious accusations against each other, including claims of abuse, domestic violence, mental health problems, and withholding the children. After a multi-day evidentiary hearing, the district court awarded Loftis sole legal custody and primary physical custody, with discretion to let Hall have supervised parenting time. The court explained that this arrangement was in the children's best interest. It found that although Loftis committed an act of child abuse or neglect connected to the child's death, she afterward took every step possible to redeem herself and become a proper parent. By contrast, it found that Hall bore extreme animosity toward Loftis that harmed the children, refused to cooperate, interfered with the children's relationship with their half-siblings, showed potential mental health issues while refusing to obtain a psychological examination, and committed an act of abduction without just cause. On appeal, Hall first argued the district court had no power (jurisdiction) to grant a divorce because Loftis had only asked for separate maintenance, not divorce. The appeals court rejected this because Hall himself filed a counterclaim for divorce, and Nevada law allows a court to grant a divorce to either party when grounds exist. Hall also argued that a separate divorce case he had previously filed blocked the court's jurisdiction, but he had agreed to dismiss that separate case, and the court found no legal authority creating such a barrier. Hall next challenged the custody decision on three main points. He said the court ignored Loftis's role in the child's death; the appeals court disagreed, noting the court did find Loftis committed abuse or neglect but treated the factor as "neutral" because she had worked to redeem herself, a conclusion supported by evidence including her testimony and the guardian ad litem's testimony. Hall argued the court should have applied a legal presumption against giving custody to a person who commits domestic violence; the appeals court held the drowning did not amount to "domestic violence" under the statute's definition, so the presumption never applied. Hall also argued the court had no jurisdiction to make findings about child abduction because that is a criminal matter; the appeals court held that the family court does have jurisdiction over custody proceedings and that the best-interest statute specifically requires it to consider whether a parent committed an act of abduction. Finally, Hall raised complaints about the district court striking materials he had submitted. The appeals court agreed the district court was correct that exhibits are not evidence until admitted, but said striking them on that basis was an abuse of discretion because the rules contemplate filing exhibits not yet admitted. Even so, the court held any error was harmless because there was a full evidentiary hearing where both sides could offer their materials. Because appellate courts do not reweigh evidence or credibility, and substantial evidence supported the district court's conclusions, the appeals court affirmed. It noted that Hall remains free to seek parenting time and is not barred from revisiting the parenting-time arrangement.

Tara filed for divorce in 2015. At a 2016 settlement conference, the couple agreed to terms for a legal separation while trying to reconcile. Reconciliation failed, and Tara asked the court to enter a divorce decree incorporating the settlement-conference terms. Over Alex's objection, the court entered a divorce decree in February 2017 largely incorporating those terms. Under the decree, Alex had to pay Tara "family support" (combined child support and spousal support) of $2,500 per month or 50 percent of his gross monthly income, whichever was greater, for 15 years. If Tara obtained full-time employment, the support would instead be calculated as 50 percent of the difference between the parties' gross monthly incomes, or $2,500, whichever was greater. In 2019, Alex asked the court to modify the spousal support. He argued he never agreed to those terms as part of a divorce (only a legal separation), that his due process rights were violated because no evidentiary hearing was held before the decree was entered, that the spousal support provision was void, that circumstances had changed, and that Tara should be barred from enforcing the provision because she never obtained full-time employment. Tara opposed and counter-moved to enforce the decree. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court granted each side partial relief: it found the decree was a final judgment that no one had appealed, found that the decree did not actually require Tara to work full-time but that she was willfully underemployed to maximize her spousal support claim (and imputed $2,000 per month in income to her), calculated Alex's arrears, and modified support going forward to a flat $2,500 per month for the remainder of the 15-year term. The Nevada Court of Appeals affirmed across the board. First, it explained that when a court adopts a settlement agreement into a divorce decree, the agreement generally "merges" into the decree - meaning the agreement stops existing as a separate contract, and the parties' rights come solely from the decree itself. That happened here, so neither side could treat the settlement terms as an independent contract. Second, because the divorce decree was a final judgment and Alex never appealed it within the deadline, he could not attack its validity years later - including his due process argument and his complaint that the court never explained the rationale for the support award. Third, the court saw no error in refusing to apply "equitable estoppel" (a doctrine preventing a party from enforcing terms they themselves violated) because the decree never actually required Tara to get a full-time job; it only said how support would be calculated if she did. Fourth, on Tara's cross-appeal, the court held that because the agreement merged into the decree, the support award was modifiable upon a change in circumstances - and Alex's income had roughly doubled (from $6,666 to about $12,000 per month), which under Nevada statute triggers review. Finally, the court declined to second-guess the district court's decision to impute income to Tara, noting that appellate courts do not reweigh evidence or witness credibility.

Jose Salazar and Agustina Cervantes Landa married in Las Vegas in March 2001. Before the marriage, in 1999, Jose bought a house on Ardmore Street (the "Ardmore property"). A few months into the marriage, Agustina was deported to Mexico, where she lived for about eleven years while Jose visited roughly once a year. The couple had three children during that time. In 2012, Agustina returned to Las Vegas and the couple lived together again in the Ardmore property. In 2014 they bought a second house on Panocha Street (the "Panocha property") and moved there, renting out the Ardmore house. In 2019, Jose filed for divorce. After a trial, the district court gave Jose primary physical custody of the children, ordered Agustina to pay him $144 per month in child support, and ordered Jose to pay Agustina $600 per month in alimony for ten years. It gave the Panocha property to Jose and the Ardmore property to Agustina, each as their own separate property, and ordered Jose to pay Agustina $60,000 to make the values of the two houses come out roughly even. Jose asked the court to reconsider. The district court kept the alimony award but corrected a math error, lowering the equity payment Jose owed Agustina from $60,000 to $38,999.50. It also required Agustina to take financial responsibility for the Ardmore property by refinancing the mortgage into her own name within 120 days or selling the house; if she did neither, Jose could sell it. Meanwhile, Jose had to keep making the Ardmore mortgage payments until the house was refinanced or sold, and in exchange he got monthly credits against both his alimony obligation and the equity payment he owed. On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed with Jose on some points and disagreed on others. First, it upheld the alimony award. The court explained that the district court had walked through the required legal factors and made detailed findings, and that arguments about Agustina living with another man amounted to arguments about marital fault, which courts are not allowed to consider when setting alimony. The court also rejected Jose's complaints about how income was calculated, noting that tax records in the file supported the figure for his income and that a spouse's testimony is an acceptable basis for determining income. Second, the court agreed with Jose that the district court made a mistake in calculating Agustina's child support. Under the applicable regulation, alimony a person receives counts as income when calculating that person's child support obligation. Because the district court used only Agustina's $800 monthly income and left out the $600 in alimony she receives, the calculation was wrong and must be redone on remand. Third, the court agreed with Jose about the Ardmore house. Because Jose owned that house before the marriage, it started out as his separate property. The court explained that when community funds (money earned during the marriage) are used to pay a mortgage on separate property, the marital community earns a proportional share of the property, and it may also be entitled to a share of any increase in the home's value attributable to community efforts. The district court gave the whole Ardmore house to Agustina as her separate property without accounting for Jose's separate interest, so that award was reversed. On remand, the district court must calculate the parties' separate interests and the community's interest and divide the property equitably.

Alan and Brianna Barber were married in 2013 and have two children. After one of the children told Brianna that Alan had been sexually assaulting her over an extended period, Brianna contacted law enforcement, Alan was arrested, and Brianna obtained a temporary restraining order. Alan was later released while the criminal case proceeded, but Brianna did not know where he was. Brianna filed an amended complaint for divorce seeking sole custody of the children with no parenting time for Alan, child support, and division of the couple's community property. Rather than serving Alan personally, her attorney delivered the summons and amended complaint to Ryan Helmick, the lawyer representing Alan in the pending criminal case. Helmick apparently signed the acceptance of service. Alan never responded, the court clerk entered a default (a finding that a party failed to answer), and after a "prove-up" hearing at which Brianna testified, the district court entered a divorce decree by default. The decree gave Brianna 100 percent of the marital home. When Brianna later asked the court clerk to sign a quitclaim deed transferring the home, Alan learned of the divorce proceedings, hired a lawyer, and asked the court to set aside the decree. He said he had never authorized Helmick to accept service for him, so he was never properly served. The district court denied his request. Although the court acknowledged at the hearing that it did not "have enough information" about the service issue, it did not find the service invalid, and it declined to consider Alan's other arguments because his motion did not invoke the specific grounds listed in NRCP 60(b)(1) (mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect). The Nevada Court of Appeals reversed. It explained that "[a] default judgment not supported by proper service of process is void and must be set aside," and that the mere fact that a Nevada-licensed attorney signed an acceptance of service does not by itself show the attorney was authorized to accept service for the client. Alan's sworn assertion that Helmick was not authorized to accept service was uncontradicted, which created a factual dispute the district court was required to resolve. The Court of Appeals sent the case back with instructions: the district court must decide whether Helmick actually had Alan's consent to accept service. If service was improper, the default decree must be voided and a new decree considered. If service was valid, the district court must then evaluate, under a proper NRCP 60(b) analysis, Alan's remaining arguments about custody, child support, and the property division.

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.

Matthew and Chelsea Carlson divorced under a stipulated (agreed-upon) divorce decree. Afterward, disputes arose. Matthew filed a motion asking for several things, including a request to change the school the couple's two minor children attended. Chelsea opposed that motion and made her own requests, including asking to be reimbursed for some of the children's medical expenses. Chelsea then asked the court for summary judgment - a ruling deciding claims without a full trial - on all the claims raised in the parties' motions. Matthew tried to withdraw several of his requests, but the district court granted summary judgment for Chelsea on those requests anyway, reasoning that Matthew did not withdraw them in time and that Chelsea should not have had to file for summary judgment. The court let the school-selection and medical-expenses issues, which Matthew still contested, go forward to an evidentiary hearing. On the second day of that hearing, the parties settled. They agreed the children would stay in their current school zone and that Matthew would pay Chelsea $700 to resolve the medical expenses. Turning that settlement into a written order proved difficult, with disagreements and delays, so Chelsea eventually asked the court to enter the stipulation and order without Matthew's signature, which the court did without objection from Matthew. Because that order left the question of attorney fees and costs for the court to decide later, Chelsea asked for $54,098.69 in fees and costs. The district court awarded her $45,503.17. On appeal, the Court of Appeals said it could not tell exactly why the district court awarded the fees. The trial court cited several legal provisions but made only one substantive finding - that Matthew's behavior, especially trying to withdraw requests only after Chelsea moved for summary judgment, multiplied the litigation. The appellate court noted that a fees award used as a sanction is supposed to be proportionate to the misconduct, and it was not clear how a $45,503.17 award (about 84 percent of what Chelsea sought) matched up with the specific conduct the court identified. The court also could not tell whether the trial judge was concerned only with the timing of Matthew's withdrawal or believed the requests were meritless from the start - a distinction that matters because some of the cited provisions require a finding that a claim lacked any reasonable basis when filed, and the district court made no such finding. Because the reasons for the award were unclear, the Court of Appeals reversed the order and sent the case back (remanded) for the district court to make additional findings. The court also noted that Chelsea had not yet supported her fee request with an affidavit from her counsel confirming the fees were actually and necessarily incurred and were reasonable.

Ahed Said Senjab and Mohamad Abulhakim Alhulaibi are Syrian citizens who married in Saudi Arabia and have one child. In 2018, Alhulaibi came to Las Vegas on an F-1 student visa to attend UNLV. In January 2020, Senjab and the child joined him on F-2 dependent visas. Two months later, Senjab filed for divorce in Clark County, also seeking spousal support, child custody, and child support. Alhulaibi moved to dismiss, arguing the Nevada court had no power to hear the case. Nevada's divorce-jurisdiction statute, NRS 125.020, requires that at least one spouse have been a "resident" of Nevada for at least six weeks before filing. Older Nevada Supreme Court decisions had said "residence" in this statute meant the same thing as "domicile" - a true, permanent home where a person intends to stay. Alhulaibi argued that because their student-related visas required them to maintain a foreign residence, they could not legally form the intent to remain in Nevada, so neither spouse could be domiciled here. The district court agreed and dismissed the case. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. Reading the statute's words plainly, the court held that "residence" means just that - residence - not domicile. The statute itself uses the two terms separately, treating them as different. A separate Nevada statute, NRS 10.155, defines legal residence as the place where a person has been physically present during the period for which residence is claimed. Because the district court had already found that Senjab and Alhulaibi were physically present in Nevada for at least six weeks before the complaint was filed, the residency requirement was met, and the district court had jurisdiction to hear the divorce. The court sent the case back to the district court to proceed with the divorce action. The court did not decide whether F-2 visa holders can or cannot establish domicile, because that question was no longer necessary to resolve the case. The court also did not address the custody and support issues, since the district court had not ruled on them.

Grady and Caterina Byrd divorced in 2014 after a long marriage during which Grady served in the military. Their marital settlement agreement, which was folded into the divorce decree, said neither spouse would pay the other alimony, but Grady would pay Caterina $1,500 per month to help with her mortgage, and Caterina would receive 50 percent of Grady's military retirement pay. For about four years, Grady paid Caterina $3,000 per month total. In 2018 he stopped paying without explanation, and Caterina went back to court to enforce the decree. During that litigation, it came out that before the divorce Grady had waived nearly $3,000 of his monthly military retirement pay in order to receive veteran's disability benefits instead. Because of that waiver, Caterina's 50 percent share of the pension was actually only about $64.20 per month, not the roughly $1,500 she believed she was getting. Caterina argued Grady had misrepresented his retirement income at the time of the divorce and asked the court to reopen the decree. The district court agreed, used NRCP 60(b)(6) - a catch-all rule that allows a court to set aside a judgment for "any other reason that justifies relief" - to set aside parts of the decree, and ordered Grady to pay Caterina lifetime alimony out of his disability benefits. The court also refused to let Grady, who lives in the Philippines and submitted notes from three healthcare providers saying he could not fly internationally, appear at the evidentiary hearing by video. He did not attend, and his side of the story was never heard at the hearing. The Court of Appeals reversed on three points. First, NRCP 60(b)(6) was the wrong tool. That subsection is reserved for "extraordinary circumstances" not already covered by the rule's other, more specific subsections. Caterina's complaint - that Grady misled her about the value of his pension - is exactly the kind of fraud-or-mistake claim that fits under NRCP 60(b)(1) or 60(b)(3). Those subsections come with a six-month deadline, which had long since passed. A party cannot use the catch-all subsection to escape that deadline. Second, federal law forbids what the district court did with the disability money. Under U.S. Supreme Court decisions Mansell v. Mansell and Howell v. Howell, when a veteran waives part of his retirement pay to receive disability benefits, state courts cannot order him to reimburse or indemnify his former spouse out of those disability benefits - no matter what label (alimony, community property, reimbursement) the state court uses. The district court's order requiring Grady to pay Caterina "from [his] military pension disability" is precisely what federal law prohibits. Third, on the video-appearance issue, Nevada Supreme Court Rules Part IX-B(B) generally favor letting parties appear by audiovisual transmission and require courts to evaluate "good cause" using a list of factors. The district court here did not analyze those factors on the record. However, because the evidentiary hearing was combined with a show-cause hearing on Grady's failure to pay - and the rules require personal appearance at a show-cause hearing - the appellate court could not say the district court abused its discretion in requiring Grady to appear in person on this particular occasion. The Court of Appeals noted that on remand, if Grady asks again, the district court must actually consider the good-cause factors, and it suggested trial courts can split a show-cause hearing from a separate evidentiary hearing so a party can still appear remotely for the latter. The case now goes back to the district court, which is told to reconsider Caterina's enforcement motion under proper authority - including possibly NRS 125.150, which permits modification of alimony in some circumstances - and to handle any future remote-appearance requests by working through the required factors.

Lynita and Eric Nelson, while married, signed an agreement that converted their community property into separate property and funded two self-settled spendthrift trusts (the Eric L. Nelson Nevada Trust and the Lynita S. Nelson Nevada Trust). After Eric filed for divorce in 2009, the court clerk automatically issued a standard family-court 'joint preliminary injunction' - an order that freezes the parties from selling, hiding, or giving away property that might be community property while the divorce is pending. In an earlier appeal (Klabacka v. Nelson), the Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court to trace which assets were truly separate versus community. On remand, Lynita asked the district court to reaffirm the joint preliminary injunction over the trust assets. The court issued a preliminary injunction covering only two assets and, in an October 2018 order, declined to extend it to the other assets in Eric's trust. Lynita appealed that refusal. The Supreme Court never reached whether the trial court was right or wrong. Instead, it dismissed the appeal because it lacked jurisdiction to hear it. Nevada appellate courts can only hear appeals that a statute or court rule actually authorizes. The rule Lynita relied on, NRAP 3A(b)(3), allows appeals only from injunctions governed by NRCP 65 - the general civil rule for injunctions. Joint preliminary injunctions in family cases are different animals: they come from a local court rule (EDCR 5.517), the clerk issues them automatically on request without any showing of likely success or irreparable harm, and no bond is required. NRCP 65 itself expressly says it does not apply to divorce, alimony, separate-maintenance, or custody cases. Because these family-court injunctions are not NRCP 65 injunctions, an order granting or denying one cannot be appealed under NRAP 3A(b)(3). The Court explained that Lynita was not left without a remedy: the correct way to challenge such an order is to file a writ petition (a request asking the higher court to order the lower court to act correctly), which can be used to review an arbitrary or capricious exercise of the trial court's discretion. The appeal was dismissed.

Richard and Eleni Kilgore married in 1992, both worked for Clark County (Richard as a marshal, Eleni as a teacher), and both earned retirement benefits through Nevada's PERS system. They divorced in 2013. The decree said how each spouse's PERS benefits would be split when the time came, but it did not address vacation pay or sick pay either spouse had built up during the marriage. In 2015, Eleni asked the district court to make Richard start paying her share of his PERS benefits, because Richard had reached the age and years-of-service combination that made him eligible to retire (he became eligible in 2011, when he turned 50, after more than 20 years as a marshal). She also asked for half of the vacation and sick pay Richard had accumulated during the marriage. Richard wanted to keep working to maximize his pension and argued he should not have to pay Eleni anything until he actually retires. The district court agreed that Eleni was entitled to her community-property share dating back to her March 2015 motion. It calculated that, had Richard retired, Eleni would have received $2,455 per month from PERS. Adding up the period from March 2015 to early 2017, the court found Richard owed Eleni $56,575.76 and reduced that to a judgment Eleni could collect by lawful means. But after looking closely at Richard's finances - his child-support obligation, basic living expenses, and what garnishment law would allow - the court ordered Richard to pay only $350 per month toward that judgment, rather than the full $2,455. The court also ordered Richard to pay Eleni half of the vacation and sick pay he had accrued during the marriage (after taxes). Both sides appealed. Richard argued the court should not have ordered any pre-retirement payment. Eleni argued she should have received the full $2,455 per month. Richard also argued vacation and sick pay are not community property and that it was too late to raise them. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed everything. On the pension question, the court explained that under its prior decision in Gemma v. Gemma, a non-employee spouse can ask for her share of pension benefits once the employee spouse is first eligible to retire, even if he keeps working. But the Legislature later passed NRS 125.155, which gives the district court discretion to deny - or, the Supreme Court reasoned, reduce - such pre-retirement payments. The district court here used that discretion fairly: it preserved Eleni's full community-property interest by entering a judgment for the full amount owed, while letting Richard pay it down at $350 per month given his finances. On the vacation and sick pay, the court explained that a 2015 statute, NRS 125.150(3), lets either spouse come back within three years of discovering a mistakenly omitted asset and ask the court to divide it. Eleni did so within that window. The court held that vacation and sick pay earned during the marriage are a form of deferred compensation and therefore community property, even though they may be cashed out later.

Dennis and Gabrielle Kogod married in New York in 1991 and eventually settled in Las Vegas. Dennis rose to become Chief Operating Officer of a Fortune 500 healthcare company, earning an average of nearly $14 million per year, while Gabrielle worked part-time as a nurse consultant earning about $55,000 per year. Unbeknownst to Gabrielle, Dennis had also formed a long-term second relationship in southern California, fathered twin daughters with another woman, and supported that household with marital funds. Gabrielle filed for divorce in 2013. By the time the district court entered its decree in 2016, the marital estate was worth roughly $47 million, with about $35 million in community property left to divide. The district court did several things in the decree. It found that Dennis had wasted (or "dissipated") community money on his extramarital relationships, on gifts to his family, and on personal spending that exceeded what he had reported on his financial disclosures. Because of that, it gave Gabrielle a larger share of the community property than Dennis. It also awarded Gabrielle alimony in a lump sum of $1,630,292, even while acknowledging Gabrielle did not actually need alimony to support herself. The court further sanctioned Dennis $19,500 for transactions over $10,000 it considered violations of an automatic order forbidding either spouse from spending money "except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life," and required Dennis to pay $75,650 of the cost of Gabrielle's forensic accountant. In the end, Gabrielle received nearly $21 million and Dennis received just under $14 million. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court took up the case en banc and reached several conclusions. On alimony, the court took the opportunity to clarify Nevada law: alimony does not have to be based on financial need; it can also be awarded to compensate a spouse for economic losses caused by the marriage and divorce, such as a lower earning capacity from sacrifices made for the marriage, or the inability to maintain the standard of living the couple shared. But on the facts here, the court reversed the alimony award. Gabrielle had received mostly cash assets in the property division, which she conceded would generate between $500,000 and $800,000 a year in passive income—far more than enough to cover her roughly $16,000 in monthly expenses and to maintain her marital standard of living. With no real economic need and no loss in earning capacity from the marriage (the district court had found her nursing career did not suffer from the moves), the majority held there was no proper basis for awarding alimony. On the unequal property division, the court agreed with the district court that the roughly $1.85 million Dennis spent on extramarital affairs was dissipation justifying an unequal split, and that approximately $72,200 in non-routine gifts to family during the divorce was also dissipation. But it reversed the portion of the unequal split based on $2,162,451 of Dennis's general overspending categorized by Gabrielle's accountant as "potential community waste not elsewhere classified." The court explained that ordinary overconsumption by a high-earning spouse, without evidence the spending was directed against the marriage, is not the same as dissipation. The court also held that the community estate did not end when the judge orally pronounced the parties divorced; under Nevada law, only the written decree (entered six months later) terminated it. The case was sent back so the district court could account for community property accumulated and any waste during that interval. The court reversed the $19,500 in sanctions, explaining that the preliminary injunction's "usual course of business" language was too vague to support contempt-style sanctions for these wealthy parties; if Dennis's spending was excessive, the right remedy was an unequal division of property, not a per-transaction fine. Finally, it reversed the $75,650 in costs awarded to Gabrielle, because the district court had not identified any statute, rule, or contract authorizing the award and had not justified expert fees above the $1,500 statutory cap. Two justices, Hardesty and Stiglich, dissented from the alimony reversal. They would have upheld the alimony award, arguing the district court carefully applied the statutory factors, considered the income-producing assets Gabrielle received, and properly relied on Shydler v. Shydler for the principle that a spouse should not be forced to deplete a community property share for support.

Sandra Nance and Christopher Ferraro have one child, born in 2008. Sandra lives in Las Vegas; Christopher lives in New York. Before their divorce, Sandra accused Christopher of domestic violence and child abuse, and Child Protective Services investigated. In 2011, the parties agreed that Sandra would be the primary residential parent. After ongoing co-parenting problems, the district court ordered a custody evaluation, required Christopher to exercise his parenting time in Nevada for a period, and required both parties to take parenting classes. In November 2012, the parties signed a stipulation that called their arrangement "joint legal and physical custody," and the child continued to live with Sandra in Nevada. In 2015, Christopher asked the court to give him primary physical custody and to let him move the child to New York. Sandra objected and wanted to bring up Christopher's earlier domestic violence and abuse - including the custody evaluation, CPS reports, and witness testimony - to argue that moving the child to live with him was not in the child's best interest. Christopher asked the court to block all evidence about events before the November 2012 order, citing two Nevada Supreme Court cases, McMonigle and Castle. The district court agreed and barred Sandra's older evidence. It then ruled that the parents had been sharing joint physical custody, granted Christopher primary physical custody, and let him move the child to New York. The Court of Appeals reversed. It explained that McMonigle and Castle limit when a parent who is trying to change custody can rely on old facts to show that "circumstances have changed" - the threshold a parent must meet before a court can modify primary physical custody. Those cases do not stop a court from looking back at the facts that supported its earlier orders when it decides what is best for the child now. And they do not stop a parent who is opposing a change in custody from pointing to old evidence - including past domestic violence - to argue that changing custody is not in the child's best interest. The court emphasized that Nevada law requires judges to consider domestic violence when deciding the best interest of a child, and that there is a rebuttable presumption against giving custody to a parent who has committed domestic violence. By blocking Sandra's evidence, the district court could not properly weigh those factors when it decided what kind of custody arrangement existed, whether to modify it, and whether to allow the child to move. The Court of Appeals sent the case back so the district court could consider the previously excluded evidence - though the parties cannot simply re-fight issues the court has already decided.

Leslie and Brett Miller divorced in 2015. They have two minor children. Through mediation they agreed on most issues, including custody: they share joint physical custody of one child, but Leslie has primary physical custody of the other child, who lives with her and stays with Brett every other weekend. They could not agree on child support. The trial judge ordered Brett to pay Leslie $345 per month. When Leslie asked the judge to explain how he reached that number, the judge said he had "run the numbers" using statutory percentages (18% for one child and 25% for two children) along with deviation factors permitted by Nevada law, but did not show the calculations. Leslie appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court took the case to answer a question it had never directly answered before: how do you calculate child support when parents share joint physical custody of one child but one parent has primary physical custody of another child? Several different formulas had been proposed by the parties and by the State Bar of Nevada's Family Law Section, producing wildly different numbers from $345 to $832.19 per month. The Court walked through Nevada's child support statutes. NRS 125B.070 sets baseline percentages of a parent's gross monthly income that the parent owes for child support, based on the number of children (18% for one child, 25% for two, etc.). The Court emphasized that this percentage depends on how many children the parents have, not on the custody arrangement. After that obligation is calculated, the custody arrangement determines who pays what to whom. The Court announced this step-by-step formula for the Millers' "split custody" situation: 1. Calculate each parent's support obligation under NRS 125B.070 based on the total number of children (here, 25% of each parent's gross monthly income because there are two children). For Leslie, that was $996.67; for Brett, $1,076.24. 2. Divide each parent's obligation by the number of children to get a per-child amount. Leslie: $498.34 per child; Brett: $538.12 per child. 3. For the child in joint physical custody, offset the per-child amounts (under the Court's prior decision in Wright v. Osburn): the higher earner pays the lower earner the difference. Brett owed Leslie $39.78 for the joint-custody child. 4. For the child in Leslie's primary physical custody, Brett owes the full per-child amount ($538.12) with no offset. 5. Add those two figures together: Brett owes $577.90 per month. 6. Make sure the result does not exceed the presumptive maximum amount per child in NRS 125B.070(2). 7. The district court may then deviate from that amount under NRS 125B.080, but if it does, it must make written findings of fact explaining the deviation and stating what the support amount would have been under the formula. Because the trial court used the wrong starting percentage (18% for one child rather than 25% for two), failed to state the pre-deviation amount, and failed to explain the deviation factors that produced $345, the Supreme Court reversed and sent the case back with instructions to follow the formula above. The Court also flagged an "anomaly": under its formula, Brett owes $577.90 for two children, but if there were only one child in Leslie's primary physical custody, he would owe $774.80. The Court noted that this is a matter for the legislatively created Committee to Review Child Support Guidelines to consider, since the Legislature in 2017 (through A.B. 278) directed that new guidelines be developed.

Brian Yu and Rourong Yu were divorced in 2015. Afterward, Brian filed several motions trying to reopen and change the divorce decree. The district court denied his requests, awarded Rourong an additional $88,000 from certain accounts, and declared both Brian and Rourong to be 'vexatious litigants' - a label courts use to place limits on people who file repetitive or abusive motions. Brian appealed the whole order. The Supreme Court raised a technical but important question. Under prior Nevada law (Peck v. Crouser), an order that just declares someone a vexatious litigant cannot be directly appealed on its own - the person has to challenge it through a separate 'writ petition.' But here, the vexatious-litigant ruling was only one part of a larger order that also decided money and post-judgment issues that ARE appealable. So the question was: does Brian have to file both an appeal (for the money parts) and a separate writ petition (for the vexatious-litigant part), or can the appeals court review the whole order in one appeal? The Court held he does not have to file two separate proceedings. A post-judgment vexatious-litigant determination, even though it is not independently appealable, may be reviewed within an appeal from an order that is otherwise appealable. The Court reasoned this promotes judicial economy, avoids piecemeal review, and reduces confusion for litigants and lawyers. It compared this to how the Court already handles non-appealable contempt findings that are bundled into otherwise appealable orders (citing its recent Vaile v. Vaile and Lewis v. Lewis decisions). Because the rest of the order was appealable (as a special order after final judgment or an order denying NRCP 60(b) relief), the Court allowed the appeal to proceed and said it could consider the vexatious-litigant determination as part of that appeal. This was a jurisdictional prescreening ruling; the Court gave Brian 30 days to file his opening brief and did not yet decide the merits.

Eric and Lynita Nelson married, and ten years into the marriage they signed a "separate property agreement" (SPA) that converted their shared marital property into separate property belonging to each spouse individually. They then placed each spouse's separate property into his or her own trust. In 2001, they converted those trusts into "self-settled spendthrift trusts" -- a type of trust that, under Nevada law, shields the assets from most creditors. Eric was the beneficiary of his trust; Lynita was the beneficiary of hers. In 2009, Eric filed for divorce. The family court eventually issued a divorce decree that, among other things, treated the two trusts as if their contents needed to be balanced out: it ordered roughly $8.7 million in trust assets to be equalized between the two trusts, ordered Eric's trust to pay Lynita $800,000 in lump-sum alimony, ordered Eric's trust to pay child-support arrears, and imposed "constructive trusts" (a court-created ownership interest) over two properties (the Russell Road and Lindell properties) held in the trusts. The court reasoned that Eric had effectively run both trusts, breached fiduciary duties, and unjustly enriched himself. The Nevada Supreme Court took the case and ruled mostly in favor of Eric's trust, while leaving the divorce itself and certain personal obligations of Eric in place. The court held: - The family court did have authority (subject-matter jurisdiction) to decide trust-related claims that came up in a divorce. Eric's trust had argued that only a probate court could hear them. - The SPA was a valid, clear written agreement that converted the couple's community property into separate property, and the court could not use outside testimony to contradict its plain terms. - Both spendthrift trusts were validly created under Nevada law. Even if Eric had broken trust formalities, the remedy was a lawsuit against the trustee -- not invalidating the trust. - The family court should have "traced" the assets in the trusts to figure out whether any community property had crept back in. Without that tracing, it could not rely on the parties' conflicting testimony about what was separate or community. - Nevada law strongly protects spendthrift-trust assets from court orders. The family court was wrong to "equalize" trust assets between the two trusts and wrong to make Eric's trust pay Eric's personal obligations like child support and alimony. Nevada -- unlike Florida, South Dakota, and Wyoming -- has no exception allowing spendthrift trusts to be tapped for child or spousal support that arose after the trust was created. - The lump-sum alimony award of $800,000 was within the trial court's discretion as to amount and form, but it should have been ordered against Eric personally, not against his trust. - The "unjust enrichment" claim had been dismissed earlier and never re-pled, so the family court could not base relief on it. Likewise, the constructive trusts on the Russell Road and Lindell properties had to be vacated because imposing a constructive trust on assets inside a valid spendthrift trust violates Nevada's statutory protections. - The June 8, 2015, follow-up order was vacated to the extent it tried to enforce parts of the decree being reversed, but kept in place for matters like health-care costs for the son, insurance costs, removal of a security gate, and attorney fees for contempt. The dissolution of the marriage itself stays in place. The case goes back to the family court to redo the property division and related rulings consistent with the opinion.

Eric and Lynita Nelson were married. Ten years into the marriage, in 1993, they signed a "separate property agreement" (the SPA) — a written contract dividing what had been shared marital property (community property) into each spouse's own separate property. That separate property was placed into two separate trusts. In 2001, they converted those trusts into "self-settled spendthrift trusts" (SSSTs) — a special kind of trust that, under Nevada law, is designed to shield the assets inside it from most creditors, even the person who created and benefits from the trust. Eric had his trust (the Eric L. Nelson Nevada Trust) and Lynita had hers (the Lynita S. Nelson Nevada Trust). In 2009, Eric filed for divorce. Because the couple's wealth was locked inside these trusts, the trusts were later added to the divorce case as necessary parties, and Lynita brought various claims against Eric's trust. The family court judge issued a detailed divorce decree. Among other things, the judge concluded that even though the SPA and the trusts were validly created, the real intent behind them was to protect assets from creditors — not to permanently split up the property in the event of divorce. Based largely on testimony from Eric and Lynita, the judge treated much of the trust property as if it were still shared, ordered the two trusts' assets "equalized" (roughly $8.7 million shifted around so each side ended up with a comparable amount), ordered Eric's trust to pay Lynita's spousal support, child support arrears, and legal and expert fees, and imposed "constructive trusts" (a court-created ownership arrangement used as a remedy) over two properties. The Nevada Supreme Court agreed with the family court on some points and disagreed on many others. It ruled that the family court did have the power (subject-matter jurisdiction) to hear the trust issues inside the divorce — the case was fundamentally a divorce, not a probate matter, so it did not have to be heard by a probate judge. It also ruled that both the SPA and both trusts were valid and clearly written. But the court held the family court made several errors. Because the SPA and the trusts were clear and unambiguous, the judge was not allowed to rely on the spouses' testimony about what they "really" intended (this is called "parol evidence" — outside evidence used to explain or contradict a written document). The court also held that Nevada's spendthrift-trust statutes do not let a court shuffle assets between two such trusts to equalize them, and do not let a court order one spouse's trust to pay that spouse's personal debts — including child support and spousal support — when those debts were not known at the time the trust was created. The court explained that Nevada, unlike states such as Florida, South Dakota, and Wyoming, has deliberately chosen not to allow child- and spousal-support claims to reach spendthrift trust assets, and that changing that policy is a job for the Legislature, not the courts. The court affirmed the actual dissolution of the marriage and affirmed the $800,000 lump-sum alimony award as an amount, but held it must be collected from Eric personally, not from his trust. It vacated the "unjust enrichment" findings because that claim had been dismissed and was never properly revived, and vacated the constructive trusts over the Russell Road and Lindell properties. It also directed that the family court must actually "trace" the trust assets — track where the money and property came from — to determine whether any true community property still exists inside the trusts, because only community property (not each spouse's separate property) can be divided by the court. Finally, the court noted one important qualifier: to the extent community property is found inside a trust, the non-beneficiary spouse's share of that community property is not shielded by the spendthrift protections, so the court can divide that community-property portion.