Nevada family-law case summaries

A wife sued her husband for money damages, claiming she was injured while riding in a car he was driving in a grossly negligent way, which collided with another vehicle. The husband asked the court to dismiss the suit, arguing that in Nevada one spouse cannot sue the other for a personal injury. The trial court dismissed the case. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It reaffirmed the common-law rule of interspousal immunity it had adopted in an earlier case (Kennedy v. Kennedy): absent a statute that specifically permits it, a wife has no legal claim against her husband for a personal tort. The court held that two Nevada statutes the wife pointed to did not authorize such a suit. Even though California had recently changed its rule to allow spouses to sue each other, the Nevada court declined to follow suit, saying any change to the interspousal-immunity rule in Nevada must be made by the Legislature, not the courts.

A 1949 divorce decree approved, adopted, and confirmed a written agreement that, among other things, provided support for the wife. The agreement itself said it would not be merged into any later divorce decree, but the decree did not say that - it did not state the agreement was separate or that it would survive. Years later, the former wife used a Nevada statute (NRS 125.180) to ask the court to enter a money judgment for unpaid support under the decree. The husband argued her only remedy was to sue on the agreement, and the trial court dismissed her request. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It cleared up a long-standing inconsistency in Nevada law by holding that when a court adopts an agreement, the agreement merges into the decree, so the parties' rights rest on the decree (overruling a contrary earlier case). It then added a clear rule: a promise in the agreement that it will survive the divorce means nothing unless the decree itself specifically says the agreement survives. Because this decree did not direct survival, the agreement merged into it, and the wife could enforce the decree's support provisions through NRS 125.180.

The parties divorced in 1953, and the decree ordered the husband to pay alimony of $130 a week; it also expressly reserved the court's power to reduce that amount if the husband later showed a substantial adverse change in his income. Years later, after the husband (then 55) lost his executive job paying $22,500 a year and saw his income drop to about $11,300 from investments, he asked the court to cut his alimony to $150 a month. The trial court refused, and it also ordered him to pay $3,000 toward his wife's attorney fees. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the refusal to reduce alimony, finding no abuse of discretion - the judge could reasonably view the husband's unemployment as temporary, and his overall net worth was about the same as at the time of the divorce. But the court held the $3,000 attorney fee was excessive for the limited work actually done in opposing the motion, and reduced it to $1,000. It also awarded the wife's counsel $500 for the appeal.

During the marriage, the wife used about $3,000 of her own separate money to pay for a swimming pool built at the husband's separate-property home. When the couple divorced, the wife asked to be reimbursed for the cost of the pool. The trial court declined, reasoning that the law presumes such a payment was a gift to the husband, and that the presumption had not been overcome. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Under earlier Nevada law, when one spouse spends separate funds to improve the other spouse's separate property, and there is no agreement to the contrary, the title to the improvement follows the land - here, the pool became part of the husband's property. The trial court was free to find a gift because the evidence fit that idea, and there was no proof of an agreement to treat the wife's money as a loan.

Gerald and Grace Farnham married in Michigan. Gerald started a Michigan divorce, abandoned it, moved to Nevada, and got a Nevada default divorce in 1958 that said nothing about alimony. In 1960 the Michigan court granted Grace a divorce plus alimony and money in lieu of dower. Grace then found Gerald in Arizona, sued him there on the Michigan judgment, and won an Arizona money judgment for $7,500; Gerald appeared with a lawyer and did not appeal. Grace next sued in Nevada to collect on the Arizona judgment. The Nevada trial court refused to enforce the Arizona judgment, but the Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It held this was simply a suit on a final out-of-state money judgment, which Nevada must give full faith and credit; the court could not look behind it because Gerald never challenged Arizona's jurisdiction, alleged fraud, or claimed it was paid. The court added that even looking deeper, the divisible-divorce doctrine meant the Nevada divorce (silent on alimony) did not end Grace's support rights, so the Michigan support judgment stood. The court ordered judgment for Grace for $7,550 with 7% interest and dismissed Gerald's cross-appeal, since a party who wins below cannot appeal and no appeal lies from a court's opinion.

The wife first sued the husband in Florida for separate maintenance, claiming he had been cruel to her. He was personally served but did not appear, and Florida entered a default decree finding him at fault and providing support. The husband later moved to Nevada and filed his own divorce case, this time claiming the wife had been cruel to him. The wife asked the Nevada court to dismiss, arguing the Florida decree already settled everything. The trial court agreed and granted her summary judgment. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It held that the husband's claim - that the wife was cruel to him - was never actually decided in Florida, where the only issue was his cruelty to her. So neither res judicata (which bars re-suing the same claim) nor collateral estoppel (which bars re-litigating the same issue) blocked his new case. Full faith and credit means Nevada must honor what the Florida court actually decided (the support order and the finding of his cruelty, if his conduct ever becomes relevant), but it does not turn that decree into a bar against a different claim. A spouse sued for separate maintenance is not required to file a counterclaim for divorce, and Florida's counterclaim rule does not reach into Nevada. The husband could go forward with his divorce action.

A 1961 default divorce decree gave the mother custody of the couple's three young children. In 1963, after a full hearing, the trial court modified the decree: it gave the father custody during the nine school months of the year (at his home in New Jersey) and the mother custody during the three summer months, and it required the father to pay support during the summers, cover the children's travel costs, and post a bond. Both parents appealed - the mother objecting to losing primary custody, the father wanting full custody. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the modified order in all respects. It found no abuse of discretion. The trial court had acted on undisputed evidence that the mother had carried on an illicit relationship for about a year, and it concluded that the children's best interests were served by placing them mainly with the father, where they would have better housing and circumstances, while preserving the mother's summer custody. The court emphasized that custody decisions turn on the best interests of the children and that trial courts are presumed to have exercised their discretion properly.

Marion Manville obtained a Reno divorce from Thomas F. Manville, Jr., in September 1955. Years later she filed an independent lawsuit asking the court to throw out that divorce decree, claiming it had been obtained by fraud. She said Thomas had coerced and threatened her into filing for divorce in Reno without really living there, and that when she refused to go through with the trial, he arranged for her twin sister to impersonate her on the witness stand so the divorce could be granted. The problem for her case was timing. She admitted she learned about the impersonation on the very same day the decree was granted in 1955, and she accepted the benefits of the divorce (alimony, a large lump-sum property payment, and monthly payments). She then remarried, and that marriage later ended. She did not file this suit to undo the divorce until June 1962, roughly six years and nine months after she knew the facts. The Nevada Supreme Court explained the difference between two kinds of fraud. "Intrinsic" fraud (like a false claim of residency, or lies told at a trial the party could have attended) must be attacked within six months under the court rule. "Extrinsic" fraud (fraud that keeps a party from getting a fair trial at all, such as the impersonation here) is not limited by that six-month rule, but it is still subject to the ordinary statute of limitations. Because Marion waited far too long after she knew of the impersonation, her claim was barred by the statute of limitations. Since the time bar was obvious from the face of her own complaint, the trial court was right to dismiss the case, and the Supreme Court affirmed.

Margaret Kraemer first obtained an interlocutory (not-yet-final) divorce in California, where the court ordered her husband, William, to pay alimony of $200 a month for two years. Within two months she filed a new divorce action in Nevada, again asking for alimony and also claiming William had conspired with a friend, Larrabee, to strip her of her interest in a Las Vegas motel. The Nevada court granted her a divorce and awarded a $10,000 lump-sum alimony, but found William had no interest in the motel and rejected the conspiracy claim. Both sides appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court made several rulings. On alimony, it held the California interlocutory decree, while not final as to the marriage itself, was final as to alimony; because alimony was not reserved and no one appealed the California decree, the $10,000 Nevada alimony award had to be reversed as barred by res judicata. On the divorce, the court held extreme cruelty was proven and the divorce could stand on that ground (so it did not need to address the separation ground or a continuance issue). On the motel, it upheld the trial court: there was no interest in William and no proof of a conspiracy - the trustee's foreclosure sale that cut off Margaret's redemption rights was conducted on the trustee's own initiative, and Margaret admitted she could not afford to redeem anyway. The court modified how the leftover foreclosure-sale money was split (directing $2,600 to Margaret for the unpaid California alimony) and affirmed the rest.

In this divorce, the trial court awarded the wife $11,000 toward her attorney fees, along with alimony and child support. The husband appealed only the attorney-fee award. The couple had no community property; each kept substantial separate property. The wife's assets were about $147,000 and the husband's about $192,000. The Nevada Supreme Court held the fee award was error because there was no showing that the wife was in necessitous circumstances - genuine need being a prerequisite to awarding attorney fees or suit money in a divorce. The wife argued that a 1961 amendment to the alimony-and-fees statute removed the need requirement, but the court disagreed. It held the amendment only allowed fees to be awarded even when no earlier request for suit money had been made and the legal services had already been performed; it did not eliminate the requirement that the wife show necessitous circumstances. The court struck the $11,000 fee and otherwise affirmed the judgment.

After a short marriage, the wife was granted a divorce on her counterclaim. She did not challenge the divorce itself, but appealed the parts of the judgment dividing the property and denying her alimony and support. She argued that because she was the spouse granted the divorce, the court was required to award her at least some alimony. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It held that permanent alimony is entirely a creature of statute and that a court is not compelled to award alimony to a wife just because she is granted the divorce; the decision rests in the trial court's sound discretion. On this record - a short marriage, an employable wife who intended to return to work, and a husband she described as generally good - the court found no abuse of discretion in denying alimony. The division of property was likewise within the trial court's discretion, and its resolution of conflicting evidence about which assets were separate and which items were gifts would not be disturbed on appeal.

The husband won a 1958 divorce based on a three-year separation. The decree gave the wife custody of the four children, child support, alimony, and included two unusual paragraphs requiring the husband to buy the wife a home (up to $15,000) somewhere outside Nevada, with title going to the four children and the eventual sale proceeds split between the spouses. A few months later the husband asked to modify the decree. The trial court gave him limited custody time in July, relieved him of support during that month, and deleted the entire home-purchase provision. The wife appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court dismissed her attempts to appeal from findings of fact (which are not separately appealable) and rejected several claims. It found no error in the judge conferring with the parties in chambers and putting their agreement (about custody, support, and the home) into the court minutes, since the agreement was entered without objection and the district court rule allowed agreements entered in the minutes. It upheld the limited modification of custody and child support as supported by the evidence, and rejected the wife's bias claim (raised for the first time on appeal). On the home-purchase provision, the court found the language hopelessly ambiguous - it was impossible to tell whether it was meant as child support, spousal support, a property settlement, or some combination, and it raised many unanswerable questions. A court has inherent power to remove ambiguity from its own decree, so deleting the confusing provision was proper. But if the trial court had originally intended the provision to provide alimony or settle property (things generally not modifiable), it must substitute clear, enforceable provisions to accomplish that purpose. The case was sent back for the trial court to decide and clarify. The court also struck the husband's brief and awarded the wife additional attorney fees because he had ignored an earlier order to pay her fees.

Vincent and Regina Napolitani married in Las Vegas in 1960 after a brief courtship; it was a stormy, brief marriage. Vincent sued for divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty. Regina cross-claimed, seeking separate maintenance (not a divorce) rather than dissolution, citing religious beliefs, though she acknowledged there had been fault on both sides. The evidence showed both spouses had committed acts of cruelty (she struck him with a flatiron; he beat her badly enough to require hospitalization). The trial court granted Vincent a divorce. Regina appealed, arguing among other things that the court wrongly applied the doctrine of "comparative rectitude." The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It explained that Nevada's statute (NRS 125.120) changed the old "recrimination" rule (under which a plaintiff who was also at fault could be denied a divorce). Under the statute, when both spouses have been guilty of conduct that could be grounds for divorce, the court does not have to deny a divorce for that reason; instead it may grant a divorce to the party least at fault if both seek one, or otherwise to the party seeking the divorce even if that party is the one most at fault. Because Regina refused to seek a divorce and Vincent was the only one seeking it, the statute allowed the court to grant him the divorce, and there was substantial evidence of cruelty by Regina. The trial court did not abuse its discretion.

Before their 1956 Nevada divorce, Robert and Mary Ballin signed a detailed written separation agreement, each with their own lawyer. It divided their property and required Robert to pay Mary $16,000 a year (in monthly installments) for support until she died or remarried. The agreement said it could only be changed by another written agreement signed by both of them, and that it would "survive" any divorce decree rather than be swallowed up by it. When Mary got her Nevada divorce, the decree "ratified, approved and confirmed" the agreement and expressly directed that it survive the decree. Years later, Robert asked the court to reduce or end the support payments. The trial court ruled it had no power to do so, and Robert appealed. The key question was whether the divorce decree turned the agreement into a court-ordered "installment judgment for alimony" that a court could later modify under Nevada law, or whether the support obligation remained purely a matter of contract. The Nevada Supreme Court held it remained a contract. It explained that a 1953 statute normally causes an agreement that a divorce court approves to merge into the decree, as if copied into it. But here the parties specifically said the agreement would NOT merge and would survive the decree, and the decree itself directed survival. Under those circumstances there was no merger, no modifiable alimony judgment, and the support level was controlled by the contract. Because the parties agreed the support could be changed only by mutual written agreement, the trial court had no power to modify it, and the Supreme Court affirmed.

After a 1948 divorce, a later-modified decree incorporated the parties' agreement giving the mother custody and requiring the father to pay child support. The agreement also said that if the mother incurred medical or dental bills for the children, she had to use doctors and dentists belonging to certain professional associations, and had to submit itemized, sworn (verified) bills before the father was required to pay. The agreement also linked the father's payment duty to his visitation rights: if he failed to pay he lost visitation, but if he paid and the mother refused him visitation, his support duty stopped during that refusal. The mother later sent the father medical and dental bills that were not itemized or verified as the agreement required. He refused to pay. She then refused him visitation, and he stopped paying support. She went to court to reduce the unpaid amounts to a money judgment, and the trial court gave her judgment for the arrears. The father appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. Because the verified-bill requirement was a condition that had to be met before the father owed the medical payments, and the mother admittedly never provided verified bills, that payment obligation never arose, so he was within his rights to refuse. Since he was not in default, the mother had no right to cut off his visitation; and because his ongoing support duty was tied to his visitation rights, her wrongful denial of visitation barred her from collecting the unpaid support installments. The court emphasized this was only a proceeding to collect arrears (the children's needs had already been met by the mother, who simply sought reimbursement) and did not involve any situation where the children's welfare required support despite denial of visitation. The court also held the father's earlier payment of some unverified bills was not a waiver of the verification requirement, especially given his written notice insisting on compliance.

Sarah Colby obtained a Nevada divorce from Benjamin Colby in 1955 by default (Benjamin did not appear, though he was served in Washington, D.C.). Two years later, Benjamin got a limited divorce (separation from bed and board) in Maryland, where both parties appeared, and the Maryland court declared the Nevada divorce "null, void and of no effect." After more litigation in Florida, Benjamin came back to Nevada and asked a Nevada court to vacate and set aside its own 1955 divorce decree, arguing the later Maryland ruling had to be honored under the U.S. Constitution's full faith and credit clause. The Nevada trial court agreed and set aside its 1955 decree. Sarah appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It held Benjamin had no valid claim. First, an independent action to undo a divorce for fraud requires "extrinsic" fraud (fraud that prevents a fair trial). The only "fraud" here was the Maryland court's later finding that Sarah had not truly intended to make Nevada her home, which is intrinsic, not extrinsic, fraud. Benjamin had simply chosen not to appear in the Nevada case. Second, the declaratory judgment statute did not help, because the parties' Nevada marital status had already been decided in 1955 and no live controversy remained. Third, full faith and credit did not require Nevada to treat the Maryland decree as overriding Nevada's own valid, final divorce decree within Nevada's borders. In effect, Benjamin was asking Nevada to give the Maryland ruling more respect than Nevada's own valid judgment, which the Constitution does not require.

A husband obtained a default divorce after his wife, served in San Francisco, failed to answer the complaint within the required 20 days. About a week after the divorce was entered, the wife moved to set aside the default, arguing mistake, inadvertence, surprise, and excusable neglect, and suggesting the husband's counsel had not clearly warned her lawyer that a default would be taken. The trial court granted her motion and set aside the default and divorce. The husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It reaffirmed a long-standing Nevada rule: a party asking to be relieved of a default must show not only a good excuse for the default but also the nature of the defense they would raise if allowed to answer, so the court can judge whether that defense has merit. Here the wife's papers said nothing about any defense to the divorce. The court rejected her argument that her attorney's signature on the motion (under the rule certifying good grounds) was enough to establish a meritorious defense. Because there was no showing of any defense, the trial court had no proper basis to set aside the default, and its order was reversed.

The wife sued for divorce alleging extreme cruelty and sought custody of the three young children (ages 9, 6, and 4). The husband counterclaimed for divorce based on the wife's adultery, which she admitted. By consent the case went to a special master, who recommended a divorce and custody for the wife; the trial court adopted that recommendation and awarded her the divorce and custody. The husband appealed. On the divorce, the Nevada Supreme Court first held it must review the record (which was all written, taken before the master) under the deferential "substantial evidence" standard, not by re-weighing the evidence itself. It found substantial evidence that the husband's conduct impaired the wife's health, and it upheld granting her the divorce as the party "least in fault" under the comparative-rectitude statute, reasoning that the wife's adultery occurred after the parties had already separated by written agreement, so it was not the cause of the marriage's breakdown. On custody, however, the court reversed. It detailed that after the separation the wife traveled cross-country and lived openly with her paramour (now her intended third husband), committing adultery repeatedly while the children (old enough to understand) lived in that environment for more than a year, holding the man out as her husband. The father, by contrast, was not found unfit and could provide the children more security, stability, and a more wholesome moral environment. The court held that although a person may be a bad spouse yet a good parent, and adultery is not always decisive as to the children, here the mother deliberately subjected the children to a shameful, immoral environment for over a year. It found no authority supporting a custody award to a mother under such circumstances and held the trial court abused its discretion. It affirmed the divorce but reversed the custody award, granting the father sole custody with reasonable visitation to the mother.

The husband sued for divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty; the wife counterclaimed for separate maintenance, also alleging cruelty. The trial court granted the husband a divorce. The wife appealed, arguing that the husband had not shown that her mental cruelty caused danger to his life, limb, or health, or a reasonable apprehension of such danger, which Nevada law requires for extreme cruelty. The evidence showed the wife engaged in a series of relationships with other men that would be intolerable to any husband. The husband, however, was an understated witness who initially downplayed the effect on him, though he eventually testified he was edgy, irritable, hard to get along with, and could not live under those conditions in good health. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It reaffirmed that extreme cruelty must result in danger to life, limb, or health (or reasonable apprehension of it), but stressed that the trial judge is in the best position to evaluate the witnesses. Just as a judge can discount overstatements and exaggerations, the judge can account for understatement, shyness, and timidity. Given the husband's testimony and the trial court's finding that his health was impaired by the wife's conduct, the finding of extreme cruelty was justified. The court also upheld the finding that there was no community property: a 5 percent interest in a family farm had been given to the husband individually, and even if received during marriage, a gift is separate property.

A husband obtained a default divorce after his wife, served in Rhode Island, failed to appear within the time allowed. Within a month, the wife moved to set aside the default and divorce, claiming mistake, inadvertence, surprise, and excusable neglect, and asked to file an answer and counterclaims for separate maintenance. She supported the motion with sworn statements: she said she had suffered a nervous breakdown from the husband's conduct, had hired a Massachusetts attorney to arrange a Nevada defense, was told a hearing would not happen for 60 to 90 days, and became bedridden until she learned a divorce had already been entered; her Massachusetts attorney confirmed he mistakenly believed there was more time to answer and that the delay was not her fault. The trial court set aside the default and divorce, and the husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It explained that granting relief from a default is largely within the trial court's sound discretion and will be reversed only for an abuse of that discretion, and that Nevada applies this relief especially liberally in divorce cases. The wife was not personally at fault, her illness was relevant, she acted immediately upon learning of the default, and she presented a defense on the merits (denying cruelty and alleging desertion). While an attorney's inexcusable neglect can be imputed to a client, the court is indulgent where the client is not personally at fault. Finding no abuse of discretion, the court upheld the order setting aside the default.

The husband sued for divorce on the ground that the parties had lived separate and apart for more than three consecutive years without cohabitation. The wife admitted the separation but said it was the husband's fault because he had deserted her, and she cross-claimed for separate maintenance (later adding an adultery charge). The trial court found the parties had been separated more than three years, but refused to grant the husband a divorce, reasoning that the wife never intended the separation to be permanent, so a reconciliation was possible. The court instead granted the wife separate maintenance, including a large judgment for past support she had expended. The husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the denial of the divorce. It explained that under the three-year-separation statute, the party seeking divorce need not be free of fault; fault is just one circumstance for the court's discretion, and the key question is the probability of the parties living together for their best interest and society's. The trial court's refusal rested only on its conclusion that reconciliation was possible because the wife believed it was. The Supreme Court held that was a false premise: there can be no reconciliation if one party is unwilling, and the evidence showed without contradiction that the husband would not reconcile. The separation need not be by mutual consent. Because the trial court misconceived the reconciliation evidence, it abused its discretion, and the case was sent back for the court to exercise its discretion knowing reconciliation was impossible (though it could still consider recriminatory evidence). The court also reversed the money judgment for past support. Under Nevada's separate-maintenance statute, a wife cannot recover sums she already spent on past support of herself or the children in a separate-maintenance action, whether or not she could sue for them independently.

A 1950 divorce decree ordered the husband, a serviceman, to pay child support and $75 a month in alimony to the wife, without expressly reserving the court's power to modify the alimony later. Years later the husband, still in the military, asked to terminate the alimony. The wife responded by seeking travel and attorney-fee allowances and asking the court to hold him in contempt and to enter a money judgment for over $3,600 in unpaid alimony. The trial court terminated the alimony going forward, denied the wife's requests, purged the husband of contempt, and refused to enter a money judgment for the arrears. The wife appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. On the arrears, it held that entering a money judgment for unpaid support under the statute is discretionary, and given that the husband had no property to satisfy such a judgment and it could harm his military standing without benefiting the wife, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to enter it; importantly, the wife could still enforce the accrued installments through an independent action because the divorce judgment is final as to accrued installments. On the power to modify alimony, the court traced legislative history. Earlier law said a court could not modify alimony unless it had reserved that power. But the Legislature responded to that gap by enacting what became NRS 125.170, providing that installment alimony judgments may be modified as to installments not yet accrued. The court held this gave trial courts discretionary power to modify or vacate unaccrued alimony at any time, even without an express reservation of jurisdiction, and the exercise of that power here was not arbitrary. Finally, because the court had power to modify alimony, it also had discretion over allowances and attorney fees, and its denial of them was not an abuse of discretion.

When the wife was granted a divorce, the decree dealt with a house the couple had bought in 1951 and held as joint tenants. The husband had contributed money that was his separate property (owned before marriage) toward buying and improving the home. The decree ordered the house sold for at least $12,500, directed that the husband first be repaid $8,656.59 as his separate funds, and split the remaining proceeds equally. The wife appealed that part of the decree, arguing the court exceeded its authority and that any separate funds the husband put into the jointly held home should be presumed a gift. The Nevada Supreme Court agreed with the general legal principle that separate funds placed into a joint tenancy are presumed to be a gift, and the husband bore the burden of overcoming that presumption with clear and convincing evidence. But it held the husband had rebutted the presumption: the wife had repeatedly told him she did not want any of his premarital property in the event of a divorce, and she never denied saying so. That uncontradicted evidence supported the court's decision to restore his separate funds to him and defeated the gift presumption. However, the court found the specific dollar amount unsupported. The clearly documented separate contributions (down payment and paying off a deed of trust) totaled about $4,556.59, plus an unspecified amount used in remodeling. Given the wife's own concession that at least $6,000 of the husband's separate property went into the home, the evidence supported a $6,000 credit, but evidence of any larger amount was too speculative to support the larger figure. The court therefore modified the judgment to award the husband $6,000 as his separate funds and, as modified, affirmed.

The wife was granted a divorce and the husband appealed. The wife's complaint alleged that on May 25, 1958 the husband struck her, causing a fractured rib and bruises, and also alleged adultery. The husband denied both and counterclaimed for cruelty. Trying the case without a jury, the court found for the wife on extreme cruelty and made no finding on adultery (which the court treated as a failure to prove that ground). The husband argued that the cruelty finding was not supported and that a single act of violence could not support a divorce. The Nevada Supreme Court disagreed. The evidence showed more than one act, even though all occurred on one occasion, and a single occasion of violence can amount to extreme cruelty if its character and circumstances could reasonably make the victim fear it would happen again. The trial judge, who saw both parties, was in the best position to evaluate this. Although the wife's complaint may not have perfectly pleaded cruelty, the issue was tried with both sides' consent, so it was treated as if it had been pleaded. On property, the couple had acquired a coffee shop and other community assets during the marriage. The wife also owned a house (her separate property) that had about $4,000 of debt when they married; during the marriage they borrowed $5,700 secured by the house, using about $4,000 to pay off the old debt and about $1,500 on the coffee shop. The decree ordered the husband to pay the wife $5,000 for her interest in the coffee shop and half of the roughly $4,000 remaining loan balance. The husband argued the court had no power to order these payments because they would come from his separate funds. The court rejected that. This was really a division of community property: the husband kept the community coffee shop (which was impractical to split, especially given the parties' relationship) and had to pay the wife for her share. The $5,700 loan was a community debt, so ordering the husband to pay his half was also part of dividing the community property under NRS 125.150. The case the husband relied on (Thorne v. Thorne) was different because there had been no community property and no support issue there. Affirmed.

A husband sued his wife to get back money and materials - totaling $43,065 - that he said he had loaned her to enlarge and improve a motel she owned before the marriage (her separate property). The trial court ruled for the husband, and the wife appealed. The wife admitted she received the money and materials and used them on her motel, but she said they were a gift, not a loan. She leaned on a legal rule from an earlier Nevada case: when a husband spends his own separate money to improve his wife's separate property, and there is no specific agreement to the contrary, the law presumes it was a gift and the improvement simply becomes part of her land. The husband testified that before the work started, the couple specifically agreed the advances were a loan. Two other witnesses testified they were present when the husband spoke of lending the money to the wife, and she did not disagree at the time. Nevada law allows spouses to make contracts like this with each other. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The gift presumption the wife relied on applies only when there is no specific agreement to the contrary - and here the trial court found there was such an agreement (a loan), which fit squarely within the exception to the rule. Because substantial evidence supported the trial court's finding, the judgment stood. The court also found the arrangement met the fairness required of contracts between spouses (the judge noted there were "no dirty hands" on either side), upheld the denial of interest (there was no proof the loan was to bear interest), and held that refusing the wife's late request (filed months after trial) to add a statute-of-frauds defense was within the trial court's discretion.

The husband was granted a divorce, and the only issue the wife raised on appeal was the award of custody of their two sons (ages 11 and 5) to the father. The trial court found the boys had been in the father's care during the case and should stay with him, with visitation for the mother, and expressly found the mother was "not a proper person" to have custody. The mother had admitted adultery, and there was other evidence she had neglected the children and the household. The mother argued that because the court never expressly found the father was a fit and proper person, awarding him custody was error - especially since he was 55 (she was 41) and there was evidence he used improper language in front of the children. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected this and affirmed. Court rules require a judge to make findings, but the finding that the children should remain with the father was itself an implied finding that he was fit. The court assumed the trial judge considered the children's present comfort and future well-being, as Nevada law requires. Trial courts have broad discretion in deciding what serves a child's welfare, and that decision will not be overturned unless the discretion was abused. Here the judge had seen the parties testify, had even interviewed the two boys privately in chambers, and had ample evidence supporting the decision - so there was no abuse of discretion.

The husband sued for divorce on the ground that the parties had lived separate and apart, without cohabitation, for more than three consecutive years. The wife answered and counterclaimed for separate maintenance. The trial court granted the husband a divorce, gave the wife custody of the three minor children, ordered $350 a month in child support, and ordered the husband to convey his interest in the jointly owned family home to the wife. The wife appealed, challenging the court's handling of the husband's Nevada residence, the granting of the divorce despite her willingness to reconcile, and the refusal to award her alimony or to set aside part of the husband's separate property for support. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. On residence (domicil), it explained that jurisdiction for divorce requires physical presence for the statutory period plus intent to make Nevada a permanent or indefinite home. Although the evidence about the husband's intent was conflicting, the court could not say the trial court's finding of valid Nevada residence was clearly wrong; it was supported by substantial evidence. On granting the divorce, the court reaffirmed that with a three-year separation the key issue is the probability of the parties living together for their best interest and society's, not comparative fault. Because the husband testified reconciliation was impossible, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting the divorce, even though the wife was willing to reconcile and was not shown to be at fault; the necessary finding would be presumed from the evidence. On alimony and separate property, the court held both an alimony award and setting aside part of the husband's separate property were matters within the trial court's discretion, and on this record (where the husband continued substantial support and conveyed his home interest to the wife) the refusals were not clearly erroneous.

When this couple divorced in 1955, the decree gave the wife custody of the two children, ordered the husband to pay $300 a month in child support, and divided their property. It also awarded the family home to the wife as her sole and separate property, with the condition that the husband pay off the remaining balance owed on the house. The court kept jurisdiction only over custody and child support. In 1958 the husband asked the court to modify the decree because his circumstances had changed. In 1959 the court reduced child support to $85 per month per child and relieved the husband of paying the roughly $4,800 balance still owed on the house. The evidence showed the wife had remarried and sold the house, the husband's earnings had dropped, he was helping support his aged mother, and he had fallen behind on the house payments. The wife appealed, and the Nevada Supreme Court reversed in part. Except for custody and child support, a divorce decree becomes final six months after it is entered, so by the time of the modification the court no longer had power to change the property parts of the decree. The requirement that the husband pay off the $4,800 was part of the property division (the house was awarded to the wife outright, with no condition that she live in it or not sell it), so it could not be treated as modifiable child support - even though the modifying judge speculated the original judge may have intended the home to house the wife and children. That part of the order was ordered stricken. However, the court affirmed the reduction in child support. Nevada law lets courts adjust child support during a child's minority whether or not the court kept jurisdiction, and this is a matter of discretion. Because there was no trial transcript and the husband had shown his income dropped from about $16,000 to $11,000 net, the court could not say the reduction was an abuse of discretion.

The husband asked the court to declare his support obligation satisfied and stop his monthly payments, and he appealed after the trial court refused. The couple married in 1930 and the wife was granted a divorce in 1946. The divorce decree incorporated their property settlement agreement, which required the husband to pay $750 a month "during the life of" the wife. The decree spelled out that these payments were part of the property settlement - the price the husband paid for the wife giving up her community property claims to his weather-service business and other property - and said the payments "may not be modified" and would continue for the wife's lifetime. One-third of each payment was earmarked for child support until the daughter grew up, but that did not reduce the full $750 owed during the wife's life. The wife remarried in 1956 and the daughter reached adulthood in 1957. The husband then moved to end the payments, arguing they were really alimony, and that under Nevada law (NRS 125.150) alimony stops when a wife remarries. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's refusal to stop the payments. The decree did not call these payments alimony; it called them part of the property settlement, paid in exchange for the wife giving up property rights, and payable for her life. The court gives great weight to a trial court's reading of its own decree. And even if the payments were treated as alimony, NRS 125.150 says alimony stops on remarriage "unless it shall have been otherwise ordered by the court" - and here the court had "otherwise ordered" by directing that the payments continue for the wife's life. The court also noted the husband had paid for nearly 12 years without objection and never took timely action to change the decree, which showed he understood and consented to the arrangement.

The wife was granted a divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty after a trial without a jury. The husband appealed, arguing only that there was not enough evidence to show that his conduct - even if cruel - had actually injured his wife's health or put her in fear for her health. The wife had testified in detail about her husband's conduct, including acts that humiliated and degraded her and his false accusations that she had been unfaithful. She said she was "under terrific pressure all the time," and that by the time they separated she was suffering almost constant migraine headaches caused by the conditions of living with her husband. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It explained that this kind of testimony from the injured spouse can, by itself, be enough to support a finding that her health was harmed. The court reaffirmed that extreme cruelty does not require physical violence, but the conduct must cause danger to life, limb, or health, or a reasonable fear of such danger. In deciding whether that line was crossed, a trial judge must consider the character and refinement of the particular people involved, and every case turns on its own facts. Because the trial judge had both parties in front of him and could judge their character and the wife's sensibilities firsthand, it was proper to infer that he found the required harm to her health. The judgment was affirmed.

The couple married in 1954, and the wife was granted a divorce in 1959 on the ground of extreme cruelty. She appealed only the part of the decree that gave the husband about 30 shares of Firestone stock. The trial court had found the stock was the husband's separate property - purchased during the marriage but with either money he had before the marriage or money he borrowed from his parents on his own credit. Because there was no child and no support ordered, if the stock was separate property, the court had no power to give any of it to the wife. The husband testified he borrowed $3,900 in 1956 and $1,000 in 1957 from his parents to buy the stock, gave them promissory notes, still owed the money, and had pledged some shares to them. But he produced no notes, his parents did not testify, and he could not say what the stock was worth. The legal starting point favored the wife: property bought during a marriage is presumed to be community property, money borrowed during a marriage is presumed community, stock bought with it is presumed community, and putting the stock only in the husband's name does not change that. To win, the husband had to overcome these presumptions with clear and convincing evidence. There was some conflicting evidence - notably a $3,525 cashier's check bought with the husband's separate funds and endorsed over to Firestone - suggesting he actually used separate money, not borrowed money, to buy the stock. Either way, the husband had separate funds available and there was evidence they were used. The Nevada Supreme Court held that whether the evidence was clear and convincing enough to rebut the community-property presumption was a question for the trial court, and there was substantial evidence supporting its finding that the stock was the husband's separate property. It affirmed, with costs to the husband.

This was the second time this divorce case reached the Nevada Supreme Court. In the first appeal (72 Nev. 268), the court had ruled that roughly $120,000 in securities the trial court had treated as the husband's separate property were actually owned by both spouses as joint tenants, which effectively shifted about $60,000 in value from the husband to the wife. The court sent the case back so the trial judge could decide, in light of that change, whether to redistribute the community property. On remand, the original trial judge (Judge Wines) assigned the case to a different judge (Judge Watson), who reviewed the trial transcript without hearing new testimony. Judge Watson kept the community property split equal despite the securities ruling, and also ordered the husband to pay the wife 6 percent interest on deferred payments owed under the original decree, which had said nothing about interest. The husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court held it was not error for one judge to disqualify himself and assign the case to another judge who decided the matter from the transcript, especially since the husband never asked for a new trial, never offered new evidence, and never showed any change in the parties' circumstances since trial. The court agreed that an equal division of the community property was proper. But it held the trial court should not have added a new interest obligation increasing the husband's burden based on the existing record alone. The court modified the judgment to delete that interest requirement, except that any delinquent payment would bear 7 percent interest from the date it became delinquent, and otherwise affirmed.

The husband was granted a divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, and the wife appealed on three points. First, before trial the wife had asked the court for preliminary attorney fees plus money to travel from Indiana to Reno for the trial. The trial court gave her attorney fees but denied the travel money. The Nevada Supreme Court agreed with the denial: to get such allowances a wife must show she is genuinely in need, and her affidavit only said she lacked "sufficient" funds - which is a bare conclusion, not the actual facts a court needs to decide the question. (The court noted the fee award she did receive, even if technically improper on such a thin showing, did not harm her.) Second, the wife challenged whether there was enough evidence of extreme cruelty. The trial court had found that she refused to let the husband see or speak to their daughter before he shipped out for foreign military duty, sold his valuable mechanic's tools without permission and refused to say where they went, ignored his letters from Germany asking about the children, and - most significantly - wrote a long letter to his commanding officer falsely accusing him of abandoning his family, fathering illegitimate children, consorting with prostitutes, squandering money, and having a venereal disease. Those accusations triggered an investigation, humiliated him, damaged his reputation, cost him a position of responsibility, and seriously harmed his health. This uncontradicted evidence fully supported a divorce for extreme cruelty. The court also upheld the trial judge's refusal to let the wife's lawyer cross-examine the husband about whether the accusations were true, because the accusations were plainly made to wound and harm him, and were unjustified whether true or false. Third, the wife complained the $50 per month per child support was less than their separation agreement provided. The court held a judge is not bound by a separation agreement about child support, the wife was actually better off financially than the husband, and there was no abuse of discretion. Affirmed.

James and the defendant wife married in England in 1944 and lived in Canada, New Jersey, and again in Canada. In April 1954 the wife took the couple's young son to visit relatives in England, with the husband's consent and financial help; the separation was voluntary at first and neither intended to end the marriage. In November 1954 the husband wrote saying he wanted to end the marriage, and the couple never lived together again. The husband eventually settled in Las Vegas after obtaining a visa that let him stay in the United States permanently. He filed for divorce too early in 1957 (before three full years of separation had passed) and that case was dismissed; he filed again in December 1957 on the ground of three years' separation, and the trial court granted him a divorce. The wife appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It held the husband had established a real Nevada domicile once he held a visa allowing him to remain in the country indefinitely, so it did not matter whether his earlier visitor's permit had allowed him to work. The three-year separation period ran from November 10, 1954 (when the husband first made clear he would not resume living together) and had fully elapsed by the time the second complaint was filed. The court rejected the wife's argument that a divorce could not be granted without a showing that it would serve the child's best interest, finding no indication the trial judge ignored the child's interest and no abuse of discretion. It also held that a divorce may, in the court's discretion, be granted on the three-year separation ground even to the spouse more at fault, that excluded evidence of a Canadian separate-maintenance decree had not been properly authenticated, and that dismissal of the premature first complaint did not bar the later, timely one.

The wife brought a lawsuit to set aside a divorce decree that the husband had obtained against her in Clark County in 1949. She argued the decree was void because the court that granted it never had power (jurisdiction) over her: the court had acted based on a sworn statement saying she had been personally served with court papers in New York, but she claimed that statement was false and that she was never actually served. The trial court ruled for the husband, and the wife appealed. The only question was whether the record clearly showed that the divorce court lacked jurisdiction because she was never served. The husband did not even file a brief on appeal. The only evidence on the point was two depositions - the wife's and the process server's - given in answer to written questions, with no cross-questions from the other side. Both depositions clearly stated that the process server, acting on wrong information, mistakenly served the wrong person, and that the wife herself was never served. The husband offered nothing to contradict or undermine this testimony, so the court had to accept it as true. Because the wife was never served, the divorce court had no jurisdiction and its 1949 decree was void. A void decree like this can properly be attacked in a separate lawsuit to set it aside. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed and sent the case back with instructions to enter judgment for the wife, vacating the 1949 divorce decree.

The husband appealed the part of a divorce judgment that ordered him to pay $2,150 in accumulated temporary alimony (support during the case), which had built up under an earlier order requiring $100 a month. (An earlier attempt to appeal had been dismissed as too early.) The evidence was largely undisputed. The wife had her own separate property: stock worth over $2,200 (with $120 a year in income), a small bank account, an interest in a garage plus a drawing credit she could not yet access, and an unencumbered $10,000 house that produced no income. The husband, meanwhile, controlled the family ranch, which was his only source of income and held salable hay. Nevada law (NRS 125.040) lets a court require the husband to pay what is necessary for the wife's support while the divorce case is pending. The husband argued that temporary alimony depends on the wife being in genuine need, and that this wife - with her separate property - was not needy. The Nevada Supreme Court disagreed. The statute is not limited to cases where the wife is destitute; it allows support when fairness calls for it. The court adopted the widely followed rule that temporary alimony will not be denied just because the wife owns a separate estate, if the income from that estate is not enough to support her - and she does not have to spend down (or borrow against) the property itself before turning to her husband. The court explained that its earlier decisions requiring proof of "necessitous circumstances" were about attorney fees and suit money, not temporary alimony. Because the wife had no income sufficient for her support while the husband controlled the income-producing community property, the award was a proper exercise of the trial court's discretion.

The husband appealed the part of a divorce decree that divided the couple's community property, arguing the court gave too much to the wife (about two-thirds to her, one-third to him) and abused its discretion. Under Nevada law, a court must divide community property in a way that is just and equitable, considering things like the merits of the parties, the situation they will be left in, who acquired the property, and the needs of the children. The husband's appeal ran into a basic problem: the record was inadequate. The trial had not been recorded, and the parties agreed to reconstruct the record using an agreed statement of facts supplemented by a court order settling any disputed facts. But the trial court refused to settle any facts because it could not clearly remember them. With only the agreed facts and minute entries to go on, there was nothing to show the court had failed to consider the proper factors, so the husband could not demonstrate an abuse of discretion. The court also rejected the husband's complaint that the case was set for trial in violation of a local court rule requiring five days' notice: the record did not show he ever objected, so by going to trial without protest he waived any notice problem. Finally, the husband pointed out that the written decree failed to dispose of a community-property car (a Pontiac). The court found this was just an oversight - the minute order showed the judge meant to give the car to the husband. Rather than send the case back, the Supreme Court simply modified the decree to award the 1956 Pontiac to the husband, and, as modified, affirmed the decree with costs to the wife.

The wife appealed from a judgment that gave the husband a divorce and refused to award her any alimony. The husband had sued for divorce on two grounds - that the couple had lived apart for three years, and extreme cruelty. The wife denied his claims and counterclaimed, seeking a divorce based on his cruelty and desertion and asking for $150 a month in alimony. The trial court granted the husband a divorce based only on the three-year separation, made no findings about who was cruel or who deserted whom, and denied the wife alimony - reasoning essentially that a man should not have to support a woman unless she was burdened with children or had become ill or disabled during the marriage. The wife raised two arguments. First, she said the court should have awarded the divorce to her (or found her less at fault). The Nevada Supreme Court rejected this. Nevada allows a divorce simply because the couple lived apart three years, and the doctrine of "comparative rectitude" (comparing who was more at fault) does not force the court to give the divorce to the least-at-fault spouse in a three-year-separation case. If it did, the three-year separation ground would be pointless. The court also held it was not error to skip findings on the other grounds. The trial judge was actually dissatisfied with the wife's testimony and felt her own conduct had driven the husband away. Second, the wife argued the court wrongly denied her alimony, and here the Supreme Court agreed. The wife was 56, in poor health with severe arthritis, had only an eighth-grade education, no job prospects, was in debt, and had no income except help from friends and relatives; the husband, 48, had earned a good living as a radio announcer and salesman and expected to return to that work, after a marriage of roughly 15 to 19 years. Her need and his ability to pay were clear, and it was wrong to condition alimony on her having children or having become ill during the marriage. Because an appellate court cannot set the amount itself, the court affirmed the divorce but reversed the denial of alimony and sent the case back with instructions to award the wife a reasonable amount of support.

Paul obtained a divorce from Mary in Washoe County in October 1955 and married Benda the very next day. In 1957, Mary's new lawyer pointed out to the court that Paul's residency testimony in the divorce looked questionable, and Paul and Mary jointly asked the court to undo the divorce - Paul even signing a statement that his earlier residency testimony was false. The court vacated (canceled) the divorce decree in June 1957 without giving any notice to Benda, even though Paul and Benda were still living together as husband and wife. Canceling the divorce had the effect of wiping out Benda's marriage to Paul. When Benda found out, she sued Paul and Mary, alleging fraud and asking the court to undo the order that had canceled the divorce. The trial court agreed with Benda, set aside that cancellation order, and restored the original divorce decree. Paul and Mary appealed, arguing that Paul had never really been a Nevada resident, so the original divorce decree was void from the start. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected that. Paul had claimed and testified to Nevada residency and intent to live there; his absences from the state raised factual questions for the trial court to resolve, but where the evidence at least tends to show jurisdiction, the decree is not void - it is only "voidable" (subject to being set aside in a proper proceeding). A voidable divorce decree can only be set aside with notice to everyone whose rights would be affected. A person's remarriage does not by itself prevent a court from canceling a divorce, but the new spouse is entitled to notice, and an order canceling the decree without that notice will itself be set aside. Because Benda got no notice - and was actually living with Paul while he and Mary maneuvered to restore their marriage and nullify his marriage to Benda - the order canceling the divorce was ineffective and was properly set aside. The court did strike one part of the judgment: the $7,000 in attorney fees awarded to Benda, because no Nevada statute or decision authorized it. With that change, the judgment was affirmed.

In a divorce granted to the wife, the trial court ordered the husband to pay the wife a lump sum of $20,000, to convey to her his interest in certain New York real estate, and to pay $2,500 in attorney's fees. The court found the husband had separate property worth more than $250,000 and the wife had separate property worth about $55,000, and that the couple had no community property. The husband appealed these provisions. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It held that Nevada's property statute (NRS 125.150) gives a court power to divide only community property, not the husband's separate property; the court's only power over the husband's separate property is to set aside a portion for the wife's support. Here the trial court had labeled the awards a 'settlement of property rights,' not support, and the wife's need for continuing support had never been pleaded, litigated, or decided. So the court had no authority to hand over the husband's separate property as a property settlement. The court also held the $2,500 attorney's fee judgment was improper: a court's power over counsel fees in a divorce lies only in awarding 'suit money' under NRS 125.040 on a proper motion and showing, and although a motion for suit money had been filed, no hearing was held and no order was ever made on it. The court reversed with instructions to strike the three challenged paragraphs from the decree.

A 1951 divorce decree incorporated a written property settlement agreement that set out a schedule of alimony payments the husband would make to the wife. In 1956 the husband asked the trial court to declare his alimony obligation ended and to enter satisfaction of judgment, arguing that under Nevada law his duty to pay alimony ceased when his former wife remarried. The trial court refused, and he appealed. The only question was whether the decree provided that alimony would continue despite the wife's remarriage. Nevada's statute says that on the wife's remarriage all alimony ceases 'unless it shall have been otherwise ordered by the court.' The agreement's payment terms ran in stages over the years; only the later-stage payments (in subparagraph (d)) expressly mentioned that they would end on the wife's remarriage, while the earlier ten-year payment provisions did not. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It found the wife's uncontradicted affidavits showed the parties intended alimony to be paid for the first ten years regardless of remarriage, which supported the trial court's ruling. And even treating the question as construction of the court's own decree, great weight is given to the trial court's construction, which was not unreasonable. The fact that remarriage was mentioned as ending only the later payments, but not the earlier ones, was itself an indication that the limitation applied only where it was expressly stated.

The wife had earlier been awarded certain community property and funds by a California court. The husband then filed for divorce in Nevada, where the wife counterclaimed and won a judgment that ordered the husband to pay her money, which he did not pay. The husband filed a notice of appeal and a cost bond in June 1957 but then failed to take the steps needed to actually perfect the appeal: he never filed a designation of the record, never filed a statement of the points he would rely on, never ordered a transcript, and did not get the record on appeal filed within the 40 days the rules required. The wife moved to dismiss the appeal. The husband's lawyers said the failures resulted from confusion among several attorneys about who was responsible for perfecting the appeal, and argued this was excusable neglect. The Nevada Supreme Court disagreed, holding that given how much time had lapsed, the showing was not enough to constitute excusable neglect, and it dismissed the appeal. The court denied the wife's separate request for $500 in damages for a frivolous appeal, because the statute that had once allowed such damages was no longer in effect.

In a divorce won by the wife, part of the decree awarded her attorney's fees for her lawyers' work done while the case was pending. The wife had first moved for allowances when she filed suit in September 1956, and the court awarded $600 in counsel fees in October 1956. Just before trial in April 1957 she asked for additional counsel fees; the court waited until after trial and then awarded $3,000 more. In setting the additional fees, the court considered legal services her lawyers had performed between the October 1956 order and the April 1957 motion. The husband appealed, arguing the court could not consider services performed in the past. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The court explained that while allowances for suit money must operate prospectively (a court cannot award fees for services performed before the motion), the key question was whether the original October 1956 order was a final determination of the wife's right to fees. The court held it was not: an order for allowances pendente lite is interlocutory and tentative, always subject to further order until final judgment. Because the request for additional fees was really a renewal of the original motion asking the court to review and adjust its earlier tentative order, the court could properly consider services rendered after that first order, since those services were performed in reliance on both the order and the right to seek its review.

In a divorce action, the wife asked the trial court for temporary allowances and alimony while the case was pending (called alimony 'pendente lite'). The trial court denied her request, and she tried to appeal that denial. The husband moved to dismiss her appeal, arguing that an order denying temporary allowances is not the kind of order Nevada law lets a party appeal. The Nevada Supreme Court agreed with the husband and dismissed the appeal. It explained that Nevada has long treated orders about temporary allowances as not final and therefore not appealable. The wife argued that the earlier cases all involved orders granting allowances, while hers was a denial, and that a destitute wife needs to be able to appeal a denial to be protected during the litigation. The court rejected the distinction: the rule against appealing these orders rests on the fact that they are not a final determination of the wife's right to allowances, and an order is no more final when it denies allowances than when it grants them. If appeals from such orders are to be allowed, the court said, the fix must come from amending the rule, not from the courts.

While a divorce case was pending, the trial court entered an 'Order for Preliminary Allowances' in January 1956 giving the plaintiff wife $300 in preliminary counsel fees and $100 per month for her support during the litigation. The order said it was without prejudice to the wife's right to apply for further allowances later. The husband filed a notice of appeal from that order, and the wife moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing that such an order is not appealable. The husband admitted that, for many years, orders like this have been treated as not appealable in Nevada. But he argued a 1949 statute changed things by making accrued installments of alimony and support non-modifiable, so that (he said) about 12 months of accrued payments could no longer be modified by the district court. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected the argument. It explained that the husband appealed not from any judgment for accrued alimony, but from the January 1956 order for preliminary allowances itself, which was interlocutory in all respects, made without prejudice to future applications, and entered before any proceedings on the merits or toward a final judgment. Such an order was not appealable, and the appeal was dismissed.

In a divorce case, the wife charged the husband with mental cruelty, and the husband charged the wife with adultery and asked that the divorce be denied. The trial court granted the divorce to the wife as the party less at fault, under Nevada's 'comparative rectitude' statute, which lets a court grant a divorce to the party least in fault when both spouses have grounds. The husband appealed. The wife admitted on cross-examination that, beginning about a year before suit, she had engaged in acts of adultery with a married man. Her testimony about the husband's cruelty was brief: essentially that he refused to discuss her concerns about the marriage, laughed off her worries, seemed more interested in his business, kept a large, frightening dog over her objection, belittled her interest in religion, and was absent (apparently out drinking) the night their daughter was born - all of which she said left her frustrated and affected her health. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It did not decide whether the wife's proof was even enough to establish grounds for divorce. Instead, it held that this 'casual and scanty' proof of the husband's conduct wholly failed to support the trial court's determination that the husband was the party greater in matrimonial fault, especially against the wife's admitted, apparently deliberate course of adultery. The court noted that adultery is not automatically a graver fault than cruelty; the degree of fault must be judged on the facts of each case. It reversed and remanded with instructions to enter judgment for the husband.

In this divorce, the wife obtained the decree, but the parties disputed how to classify several items of property. The main dispute was over securities (stock in about a dozen corporations, worth roughly $120,000) that the husband had inherited from his father but had then re-registered in both spouses' names as joint tenants with right of survivorship, held at a bank under an agency agreement signed by both. The trial court found these securities were the husband's separate property. There were also disputes over a herd of purebred cattle and over whether the wife should be given a particular ranch. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed on the securities. It explained that when a husband puts inherited (separate) property into joint tenancy with his wife, the law presumes a gift, and although that presumption can be rebutted, it takes clear and convincing proof. The husband's evidence - that he only meant to avoid probate, that the marriage was troubled, and that he was looking to the securities for his old age - fell far short, and there was adequate delivery through the joint agency account. So the securities were joint property, not separate. On the purebred cattle, however, the court affirmed the finding that they were the husband's separate property, because the money used to buy them was traced back to his separate inheritance funds, and the surrounding circumstances (he bought them over the wife's objection, insisted they were his, and registered them in his own name) rebutted any theory of a gift to the community. The court also affirmed the refusal to assign the wife the ranch she wanted, since substantial evidence supported the finding that the ranch had been integrated into a single ranching unit that would lose value if partitioned. Because reclassifying the securities as joint property could disturb the overall property disposition, the court remanded so the trial court could redetermine the final disposition of the parties' property.

A husband sued his wife for divorce in Nevada. The trial judge refused to grant the husband a divorce but granted one to the wife instead. Unhappy with even that result, the wife appealed, arguing that the Nevada court had no power to grant a divorce to anyone because neither spouse actually lived in Nevada when the suit was filed. To grant a divorce, a Nevada court needs at least one spouse to be a genuine Nevada resident - meaning physically present in the state and intending to make it home - for the time the law requires. The trial court had found the husband met that test, relying mainly on the couple's roughly eight-month stay in Clark County back in 1941 (which ended when the husband was inducted into military service) and on the husband's own testimony that he always intended to return to Nevada. The Nevada Supreme Court found that the surrounding facts completely destroyed the value of the husband's claimed intent. The couple were raised in Colorado, married in Colorado, and made their first home there. Their brief Nevada stay was just to finish a construction job. In a failed 1951-1952 Colorado divorce case, the husband had sworn under oath that he was a Colorado resident, and his wife's affidavit agreed. The couple bought a home in Denver, licensed their cars in Colorado, and never returned to Nevada or kept a home there. The husband showed no interest in Nevada until his Colorado divorce failed. Because the finding of Nevada residence had no support in the record, the court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to grant a divorce to either spouse. It reversed the decree and ordered the case dismissed.

This is an interim order in a divorce appeal, decided before the merits. The appealing wife asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order her husband to pay $250 in costs and expenses and a $500 attorney fee to help her pursue the appeal. She supported the request with her affidavit; the husband opposed it. The court denied the request for costs. All of the listed costs - filing fees, the appeal bond, and the fees for preparing the transcript and record - had already been incurred and paid, and this kind of allowance can be granted only going forward, not to reimburse expenses already met. On attorney fees, the court looked at what work remained. The record and opening brief were done, the reply to the husband's short answering brief would be brief, and preparation for argument would mainly be a review of work already done; the only substantial remaining task was presenting oral argument and traveling from Las Vegas to Carson City to do it. For those items the court ordered the husband to pay the wife's attorneys $200. Because the husband was stationed at an Air Force base on Guam, he could pay within thirty days of his counsel receiving the order. The order was without prejudice to further cost and fee orders when the appeal was decided, and the appeal would stand in abeyance until payment unless the wife chose to proceed anyway.

In 1939 a Nevada court granted the parties a divorce and, in doing so, approved and adopted a written agreement (dated August 4, 1939) under which the husband would make monthly support payments to the wife. Ten years later, in 1949, the husband asked the court to enter a 'nunc pro tunc' order - a correction that treats a change as if it had been made on the original date - to rewrite the 1939 decree so the agreement would be fully absorbed ('merged') into it. His goal was practical: after years of litigation between the parties in Oklahoma, merging the agreement into the Nevada decree (using the standard Oklahoma courts had laid down) would cut off his former wife's ability to sue on the contract in Oklahoma to collect support, leaving her only the remedies available under the Nevada decree. The trial court denied his motion without explanation, and he appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court declined to decide the merger question. It treated the request as one committed to the trial court's discretion. A court has inherent power to fix clerical errors so the record matches what it actually decided, and doing so is a matter of right when the error is obvious. But the husband was not asking to correct an obvious clerical mistake - he was asking the court to decide what it had intended years earlier and then reshape the decree to reach a particular legal result under Oklahoma law. That goes far beyond a clerical correction. After ten years and in these circumstances, the court held the denial was not an abuse of discretion and affirmed.