Nevada family-law case summaries

A wife who had been granted a divorce appealed only the way the trial court divided the couple's property. She argued the division was so lopsided that it was an abuse of the judge's discretion, and that the judge wrongly labeled certain property as her husband's separate property rather than community property (property belonging to both). The Nevada Supreme Court found no merit in the fairness argument. The wife received half of the community property plus half of the only income the couple's property produced - income from a lease on mineral land that the court found was the husband's separate property. The judge had separately considered seventeen items: six were found to be community and split equally, and most of the rest were found to be the husband's separate property. The main valuable item, a group of mining claims (the Salisbury Claims), was partly owned by the husband before marriage, and the remaining share was deeded to him during marriage as a gift - so the record supported treating it as separate. The wife's real complaint was that other items were bought with money from the mineral lease, which she assumed was community property. But the trial court never found the lease to be community property; it simply found the lease existed and split its income evenly. By statute, a divorce court can deal with a husband's separate property as well as community property, and the record did not compel a finding that the lease or its proceeds were community. Finding no legal error, the court held there was no abuse of discretion and affirmed.

A husband, himself a physician, obtained a divorce from his wife on the ground of her insanity; she had been confined for years at a state hospital in Illinois, which supported her without charge. The court rejected the wife's cross-complaint alleging desertion and gave the husband custody of the couple's three minor children. Through a guardian ad litem, the wife appealed, raising twenty claimed errors, most of which the court found repetitious or meritless. Ample testimony from seven doctors and psychiatrists supported the insanity finding. The wife's strongest points concerned money and property. The couple owned a car, about $20,000 in cash and bonds, $48,000 in life insurance naming the children as beneficiaries, and a rental house in Wisconsin. She argued the court had to give her part of the $20,000 because, after the divorce, she would not inherit from the husband and might someday need support if Illinois stopped paying. The court effectively let the husband keep the community personal property for the children's benefit, while leaving the Wisconsin rental property (and its rents) available to the wife. A statute gave the judge broad discretion over such matters, and the court found no abuse. The wife also argued the judge had to order the husband to support her and to post a bond, because the insanity-divorce statute says such a decree does not relieve the successful spouse of the duty to support the defendant. But since Illinois maintained her free of charge and the husband kept money on deposit there for her incidental needs, the court found no present amount to order, so no bond was needed. The court also held the judge did not have to keep the case open to modify the wife's support later, since the legislature provided for retained jurisdiction only as to the children. The decree was affirmed.

A husband sued for divorce, claiming his wife had subjected him to years of extreme cruelty. The couple separated in October 1948. The wife defended by arguing 'condonation' - that the husband had forgiven her cruelty and could no longer use it as a ground for divorce. The claimed forgiveness rested on a single episode. In July 1949 the wife came to Reno hoping to reconcile. The husband met with her, and they and their child drove to a lake resort, where the couple registered as husband and wife, shared a room, and had sexual intercourse one time overnight. Two days later the wife was served with the divorce complaint. The trial court found this single act of intercourse condoned the cruelty and denied the divorce, and it also found the husband was 'estopped' because part of his reason for the trip was to keep his wife in Nevada so she could be served with the papers. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. Condonation means forgiveness, and for cruelty it requires genuine reconciliation and restoration of the marriage - not merely preliminary steps toward reconciliation. This differs from adultery, where a single act of intercourse can show forgiveness of that specific offense. A lone act of intercourse during an overnight excursion fell far short of proving the husband had forgiven a years-long course of cruel conduct. The court also rejected the estoppel theory, finding that keeping the wife in the state for service was only a minor, incidental purpose and that the elements of estoppel were missing. The case was sent back for a new trial.

A husband won a divorce after a jury verdict; judgment was entered on June 23, 1950. His wife did not file her notice of appeal until August 20, 1951 - well beyond the six-month deadline. She argued the deadline never started running because, she said, the judgment was defective and not truly final (partly because it did not mention costs and the case was equitable). In effect she tried to argue that the judgment was final enough to appeal from but not final enough to start the appeal clock. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected that. If a judgment is final enough to support an appeal, it is final enough to start the time for taking that appeal. A written divorce judgment that says nothing about costs - where costs are discretionary - simply reflects a decision not to award costs and is final. Because the appeal from the judgment was late, it had to be dismissed. The wife had also appealed a later order refusing to set aside the verdict and judgment, and she relied on her own affidavit in the record. But her appeal required the court to reconsider the whole trial record, so the record had to be presented through a properly settled 'bill of exceptions.' Because her affidavit was not part of such a bill, the court struck it; and with the affidavit gone, the appeal from that order had no support and was also dismissed.

A wife obtained a New York court order in 1947 (with the husband personally present) requiring him to pay her $45 a week in separate maintenance and $40 a week in child support. Later the husband came to Nevada and got a default divorce in 1950 using substituted service - the wife was never personally served and never appeared, and the Nevada court was not told about the New York order. The wife then sued in Nevada to enforce the New York order. The Nevada trial court gave her judgment only for the payments that came due before the Nevada divorce ($2,976.85) and refused to award anything for payments due afterward. She appealed, seeking the full amount, including installments accruing after the divorce. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. Under the U.S. Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause and the Supreme Court's decision in Estin v. Estin, a divorce obtained on substituted service is 'divisible': it can end the marriage, but it cannot wipe out the wife's separate property right in the New York support order when she was never personally served and never appeared. Although Nevada's own rule is that a separate maintenance order does not survive a divorce, Nevada was required to honor New York's opposite rule that such an order does survive. The court held the trial court was wrong to cut off both the wife's support and the child support at the divorce date, and it ordered judgment for the full amount owed under the New York decree, minus credit for payments already made.

A husband sued his wife for divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, and the wife answered and asked for separate maintenance. The court granted the husband a divorce and denied the wife both her requested relief and any alimony. She appealed, but only on the 'judgment roll' - a limited record that does not include the trial testimony. She first argued that the court's written findings were invalid because the record did not show they were served on her five days before the judge signed them, as a statute required. The Nevada Supreme Court answered that while the record did not show service was made, it also did not show service was NOT made. Because a court will not presume that the trial court did something irregular, the missing proof did not help her. She next argued that the denial of alimony was not supported by any finding about 'the condition in which the parties would be left' by the divorce, as the alimony statute mentions. But the court noted she had not raised any factual issue about this in her pleadings. Under settled Nevada law, when a judgment is entered, the appellate court will imply the findings needed to support it. So the court presumed the trial judge properly considered the parties' condition - especially since it was a matter raised only by statute and not by the parties - and affirmed the denial of alimony.

This tangled case grew out of a Nevada divorce and a hidden remarriage. A Nevada court divorced William and Isabella Smith on March 26, 1946. The next day, William married Esther in California. Then, on July 9, 1946, the same Nevada court - at William and Isabella's request and on their stipulation - vacated (undid) the 1946 divorce decree, but neither of them told the court that William had already remarried. When Esther learned of the vacating order in late 1947, she sued in the Nevada court to set it aside, so the divorce would stand and her marriage to William would not be clouded. William and Isabella fought back, asking the court to annul William's marriage to Esther, claiming William was mentally incompetent and that Esther had seduced him and taken over $500,000 from him. The trial court ruled for Esther on her claim and refused to let William and Isabella pursue their annulment claims. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It held Esther's suit to undo the vacating order was a proceeding 'in rem' - directed at the court's own judgment as a thing located in Nevada - so the court could hear it even though the other parties lived out of state (and they had appeared anyway). It also held the court properly refused the annulment claims: Nevada's annulment statutes require the person seeking annulment to be a current Nevada resident, and William was not; equity's flexible doctrines cannot override those jurisdiction rules. Finally, the court held that even if Esther herself acted with 'unclean hands,' that did not stop the court from cleaning fraud out of its own records by setting aside the concealed-remarriage vacating order. William remained free to seek an annulment in a proper court.

After a husband was granted a divorce, his wife appealed. Before the appeal could be heard on the merits, the husband filed several motions attacking the wife's appeal papers: to strike the court reporter's transcript, to strike twenty-two documents she had put in the record, to dismiss her appeal from the order denying a new trial, and to dismiss her appeal from the judgment itself. The court granted most of the husband's motions. The twenty-two documents were not part of the official 'judgment roll' and had never been placed into a properly settled 'bill of exceptions,' so they were stricken; the transcript was stricken because it was served and filed too late. With the record gone, the appeal from the order denying a new trial had nothing to stand on and was dismissed. The important question was whether the wife's appeal from the judgment was too late. The judge had orally announced the decision on September 8, 1949, but the formal written judgment was not filed until March 8, 1950; the wife appealed on April 29, 1950. The husband said the six-month clock started with the oral ruling. The court disagreed. A divorce case is equitable in nature, costs are discretionary, and a judgment is not final until it 'determines the costs.' Because neither the oral ruling nor the written decree awarded costs, discretion over costs remained until the formal judgment, so the oral pronouncement was not the final judgment. The six-month period ran from the March 8, 1950 formal judgment, making the appeal from the judgment timely; that motion to dismiss was denied.

This appeal raised a single, narrow question about how a divorce complaint must describe the plaintiff's Nevada residence. Nevada law defines legal residence as being 'actually, physically and corporeally present' in the state for the required time. The plaintiff's complaint alleged she 'has been and now is an actual and bona fide resident' of Churchill County and that the county 'has been plaintiff's domicile during all of said time.' The appellant argued that the specific words 'physically and corporeally present' had to be pleaded as an essential fact. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected that argument. Reviewing its earlier decisions, it concluded that the words 'actual,' 'physical,' 'corporeal,' and 'bodily' all mean the same thing when describing residence for divorce jurisdiction. Alleging an 'actual and bona fide resident' therefore was enough - counsel for the other side even joked that the statute might as well have said a person must be 'bodily, bodily and bodily present.' Because earlier orders had struck most of the record, the appeal came up on the judgment roll alone, so the court could not reach the merits of the case. It also declined to consider a new claim of error that the appellant raised for the first time in the closing brief, since the rules require points to be stated in the opening brief. Finding no error in anything properly presented, the court affirmed.

The parties met in 1930 and, after the woman became pregnant, began living together openly in October 1930. They kept a common home together until July 1947 and had seven children. They registered the children as theirs, signed legal documents and filed tax returns as husband and wife, and were reputed to be married in their Fallon community. The husband nonetheless argued no marriage ever existed, pointing to occasions when the woman asked him to have a formal ceremony. The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the trial court's finding of a common-law marriage. Although the relationship began illicitly, Nevada does not presume it stayed that way; the person claiming a valid marriage bears the burden, and a presumption of valid marriage arises from long, continuous cohabitation and community reputation. The court also upheld the divorce granted to the wife for extreme cruelty, based on the husband's years of indifferent, harsh treatment that left her near breakdown, deferring to the trial judge who saw the witnesses. On the children, the court affirmed custody of the four youngest daughters to the wife, with the three older children (over fourteen) allowed to choose; the child born in 1943, during the marriage, was conclusively presumed legitimate despite the husband's doubts. On property, the couple's holdings had grown into a large ranching operation worth $150,000 to $170,000. The court treated much of it as community property because the husband's skill and both spouses' efforts during the marriage had become so intermingled with his separate property that the sources could no longer be separated - and it was his duty as manager to keep them segregated. The court affirmed awarding the wife the Kallenbach Ranch (or $30,000 if the husband chose to buy it), $10,000 immediately plus $70,000 over seventeen years secured by a lien on his property, and $35 per month per child, with the rest of the ranches and livestock going to the husband. The judgment was affirmed, subject to credit for payments already made.

After a district court granted her husband a divorce and denied her a new trial, a wife asked the Nevada Supreme Court for allowances - money to enable her to pursue her appeal. But while she had filed a notice of appeal, she had never filed the required undertaking (a bond) within five days, which Nevada law required to 'perfect' an appeal. The supreme court held that because no appeal had been perfected, it had no jurisdiction to order any allowances, and denied the motion. The court also used the occasion to condemn a procedural tangle the lawyers had created: the husband had filed a motion to strike the wife's motion, a practice the court had repeatedly called 'bad practice' because it makes it impossible to tell which of several matters is actually being argued. The court struck the unsupported papers from its record.

A wife sued for divorce and division of community property in Clark County. Her husband was served in Las Vegas but never responded, and his default was entered. He then moved to set aside the default, claiming excusable neglect; the district court denied the motion, and judgment was entered granting the wife a divorce and disposing of the community property. The husband appealed - but only from the order denying his motion to set aside the default. The Nevada Supreme Court dismissed the appeal without reaching the merits. Nevada's statute listed exactly which judgments and orders could be appealed, and an order refusing to set aside a default was not on the list. Because no statute authorized such an appeal, the court had no jurisdiction to review it.

A husband obtained a divorce in Washoe County on the ground that he and his wife had lived separate and apart for three years. The wife appealed and also asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the husband to pay $500 for her lawyer's work on the appeal. The wife had caused her own predicament at trial: after her original lawyers withdrew at her request, she waited until the day before trial to hire new counsel, then asked for a continuance, which the trial court denied. The supreme court held that was not an abuse of discretion, because the last-minute need for new counsel was entirely the product of her own negligence and lack of diligence. On the merits, the court held that the fact that divorce litigation had been pending between the parties in Connecticut during most of their five-plus years of separation did not prevent a Nevada divorce for three years' separation - just as an actual decree of separate maintenance does not - and that the husband's roughly six months of Navy service during the separation was no reason to deny the divorce. Because a motion for allowances operates only prospectively, and the only work remaining when the wife filed hers was preparing and arguing the appeal, the court allowed a reduced attorney fee of $150 rather than the $500 requested. The judgment was affirmed.

A trial court granted a husband a divorce for three years' separation, rejecting his wife's request for separate maintenance, after remarking from the bench that the husband's conduct toward his wife had been 'reprehensible' and that a separate-maintenance decree 'never settles anything.' The wife, who lived in New York, appealed and asked the Nevada Supreme Court to make the husband pay a $500 attorney fee plus the costs of her bond, transcript, and record on appeal. The supreme court refused any allowance for the bond, transcript, and record, because she had already obtained and filed them - allowances can only cover future expenses, not ones already incurred. It rejected the husband's argument that the appeal was taken merely in spite: the trial judge's own remarks about the husband's conduct, and the wife's contention that the separation was caused solely by his military service and so should not count under the three-year separation statute, showed the appeal was in good faith. Weighing her income (roughly $400 per month counting $60 weekly alimony plus her $40 weekly earnings) against his (about $298.75 per month), the court ordered the husband to pay a reduced $150 attorney fee and held the appeal in abeyance until he paid it. It declined to touch $690 of the husband's funds that the wife had attached in a separate lawsuit.

A wife won a divorce for extreme cruelty after a marriage of about seventeen years that produced seven children. The decree gave her custody of the four youngest, the Kallenbach Ranch in Churchill County (subject to the husband's option to buy it back for $30,000), $10,000, and another $70,000 payable over as long as seventeen years, secured by a lien - roughly $110,000 in all. The husband appealed and obtained a stay of the judgment by posting a $20,000 bond, which left the wife unable to collect while living with one child at a hotel in Fallon with an unpaid bill of $465.41. On her motion for support and fees while the appeal was pending, the Nevada Supreme Court found her necessity and the husband's ability to pay sufficiently shown - the parties' property was worth well over $100,000 - and ordered the husband to pay the accrued hotel bill directly to the hotel, $1,000 to her attorneys for the appeal, and $250 per month for the support of the wife and the children in her custody until the appeal was decided. Whether those monthly payments would be charged against the $10,000 award was left for the decision on the merits, and the stay bond otherwise remained in effect.

A Navy officer sued his wife for divorce; she counterclaimed and won the divorce on the ground of his extreme cruelty. The real fight was over a one-third partnership interest in the Navigation Instrument Company, which held valuable submarine-detection inventions. In 1941, believing Navy rules barred him from owning the interest while the company dealt with the government, the husband had assigned all of it to his wife, with an understanding (worked out in correspondence with the lawyer who drafted the assignment) that he would receive 25% of the income. In 1943, after what the wife described as a night of shouting, physical abuse, and spitting, she signed an agreement transferring half of all profits back to him. The trial court held the 1941 transfer had been a mere trust for the husband, so the wife had only done her duty in reassigning, and any coercion was beside the point. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the property rulings. A transfer from husband to wife is presumed to be an absolute gift, and that presumption can be overcome only by clear and convincing evidence, which the husband's conclusory testimony did not supply - and equity would not recognize a secret trust designed to evade naval regulations anyway. Because husband and wife stand in a confidential relationship, when a husband obtains his wife's property without adequate consideration the burden falls on him to prove the transaction was fair and free of undue influence. Rather than order a full new trial, the court directed the district court to adopt findings that the 1941 assignment was an absolute gift subject to the husband's 25% income interest, that the 1943 reassignment was invalid, and that the husband must repay everything he received beyond his 25% share, plus the taxes the wife had paid on his share.

A couple's marriage was annulled after it emerged that the husband, believing his first wife dead, was still married when he wed. In the annulment case the court awarded each party an undivided one-half interest in the house and lot they had acquired, but nobody asked the court to physically divide or sell the property, and it did not. Later the husband sued for partition - asking that the property be sold and the proceeds split - and the wife objected that the annulment judgment barred the new suit because he could have asked for partition the first time. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the partition. Res judicata bars only matters actually in issue or essentially connected with the issues actually decided; the right to partition was never presented, was not germane to the annulment action, and the parties might have simply agreed on how to manage the property after the annulment fixed their shares. Partition is one of the basic rights of a tenant in common and is available as a matter of right, without regard to the other owner's convenience. Because the property was a single city lot with a three-room house that could not be physically split without prejudice, ordering a sale was proper, and the wife - who appeared with counsel in both actions - suffered no due process or equal protection violation.

A wife obtained a Las Vegas divorce in February 1947; the decree ratified a property settlement under which she was to receive $22,000, based, she later said, on her husband's representation that he was worth $50,000 to $75,000. Less than two weeks after the divorce the husband died in New York - leaving an estate of roughly $400,000. Within the six-month window allowed by court rule, the wife moved to vacate the divorce decree, swearing that she had never wanted the divorce and had been coerced into obtaining it by threats from 'underworld characters' sent by her husband, and that the settlement had been procured by concealment of his true wealth. She also moved to make the New York executors of his estate parties. The district court denied both motions, reasoning that the husband's death had ended its jurisdiction and that the alleged fraud was merely 'intrinsic.' The Nevada Supreme Court reversed both orders. Substituting a deceased party's executors may be done ex parte, almost as a matter of course - what must be served afterward is the substitution order and the motion papers, not the motion to substitute - so the defective New York service (which the court held void, because Nevada's notice-service statutes do not authorize service outside the state) did not justify denying substitution. More fundamentally, the district court had decided the hardest merits questions - extrinsic fraud and the effect of the husband's death on its jurisdiction - ex parte, on a preliminary motion, before the estate was even a party and without any hearing on the vacatur motion; everyone materially affected by a court's action is entitled to their day in court. The case was remanded with directions to substitute the executors and proceed properly after valid service.

A husband won a divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, entirely mental in nature. His wife appealed, complaining chiefly that the trial court let him testify about how her conduct had damaged his health even though his bill of particulars - the document itemizing his claims - said nothing about health effects, and that the evidence was too thin to prove extreme cruelty. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. A divorce complaint may state the cause for divorce in the words of the statute, and the omission of health-effect allegations from a bill of particulars does not make the complaint insufficient or bar the proof; the wife could have requested further particulars and did not. Moreover, she had not raised the evidentiary ruling in her motion for a new trial - she argued only insufficiency of the evidence there - and a claimed error in admitting evidence must be presented to the trial court on a new-trial motion before it can be urged on appeal; grounds not relied on below are abandoned. On sufficiency, the testimony that the wife constantly complained about the husband's home, family and work, threatened to leave him, quarreled openly, and threatened to overdose on sleeping pills, with resulting impairment of his health, was substantial evidence, and under the settled rule a judgment resting on substantially conflicting evidence will not be disturbed.

A husband obtained a Clark County divorce on the ground that he and his wife had lived separate and apart for more than three years. The couple had separated in 1937, when the wife was adjudged insane in Illinois and committed to a state hospital; she was released to relatives around 1940-41, and an Illinois court later gave her a separate-maintenance award and, in 1947, restored her civil rights. She appealed the Nevada divorce, arguing the evidence was insufficient, that the Illinois separate-maintenance decree barred the divorce, and that Nevada's three-year separation statute was unconstitutional as impairing the marriage contract, denying full faith and credit to the Illinois decree, and violating due process. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed on every point. The wife herself denied incompetency and proved her competency at trial, waiving any insanity-based defense, and the evidence showed she had been sane and living near her husband for years without ever suggesting reconciliation. Under settled law, a separate-maintenance decree is no bar to a three-year separation divorce, and comparative fault matters less than whether the spouses could ever again live together to the benefit of themselves and society. The constitutional attacks failed under U.S. Supreme Court authority: marriage is a status subject to legislative regulation, not a contract protected from divorce legislation; the Nevada action presented different issues from the Illinois proceeding; and the wife, who appeared personally with counsel and fully participated, received due process.

After the Nevada Supreme Court reversed a divorce decree and ordered a new trial in an earlier appeal (Harris v. Harris, 62 Nev. 473), neither spouse did anything in the Nevada case for a year and eight months. The wife instead went to a Massachusetts court and obtained an injunction ordering her husband not to prosecute his Nevada divorce case at all. The husband then moved the Nevada court to dismiss the wife's cross-claim for separate maintenance, on the ground that she had failed to prosecute it diligently and had abandoned it. The trial court dismissed, and the wife appealed, arguing that a Nevada statute gave her a guaranteed minimum of two years (or three years after a reversal) before any dismissal was allowed. The supreme court affirmed. Courts of record possess inherent power - independent of any statute - to dismiss claims, including cross-complaints, for lack of diligent prosecution, and the 1943 statute (copied from California's section 583) did not restrict that inherent power to dismiss sooner; its time limits set outer mandatory deadlines, not minimum grace periods. The only limit on the inherent power is abuse of discretion, and given the wife's inaction and her attempt to enjoin the Nevada case from another state, no abuse appeared.

A wife obtained a divorce in Clark County on August 1, 1946. The original decree simply 'approved' the couple's property settlement agreement. Five months later, at the wife's request and with the husband's written consent, the court entered an 'amended decree' that wrote the agreement's terms - support of $1,350 per month, later becoming 36% of the husband's earnings with a $450 floor and $1,350 ceiling - directly into the decree, and ordered the amendment entered 'nunc pro tunc' (backdated) as of August 1, 1946. When the husband later moved to modify, the wife argued the court had lost jurisdiction: measured from the backdated August 1946 date, more than six months had passed. The Nevada Supreme Court held the backdating void. A nunc pro tunc order exists only to make the record speak the truth about what the court actually did earlier - it cannot be used to supply action the court never took, to enlarge a judgment, or to change it into something the court never rendered. Since the January 1947 amendment added real new rights (contempt enforcement and judgment-creditor status), it could not be backdated, and the parties' consent could not give the court jurisdiction to do what it otherwise lacked power to do. The six-month window therefore ran from January 6, 1947, making the husband's March 1947 motion timely, and the modified decree was affirmed. (The decision was later overruled on other grounds by Day v. Day, 80 Nev. 386, 395 P.2d 321 (1964).)

A wife dismissed her pending Texas case, moved to Nevada, and won a jury verdict divorcing her husband for extreme cruelty, with custody of their two young sons. Her main charge was that throughout the marriage the husband had ridiculed, belittled, and sarcastically criticized her in front of their whole circle of family and friends, often bringing her to tears. Because all those events happened in Texas, the husband's rebuttal witnesses - the friends, neighbors, and relatives who had been at those gatherings - could only testify by deposition. After he read thirteen depositions into evidence, the trial court cut him off, refusing the remaining ten as repetitive. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed and ordered a new trial. The excluded depositions were not merely 'negative' or cumulative: conduct as constant and public as the wife described could not have gone unnoticed, so testimony from the rest of the couple's social circle that it never happened was positive evidence on a - perhaps the - main issue, and the husband was entitled to show that the entire circle of associates refuted the charge. And because the jury returned only a general verdict, there was no way to know whether it rested on the public-cruelty charge (infected by the error) or on the other charges (threats, unreasonable sexual demands, financial conduct, baptizing the children without consulting her) - so the error could not be called harmless. The court rejected the contrary 'two-issue rule' under which error on one issue is ignored if another issue was tried cleanly.

In a 1943 divorce, the decree adopted the parties' stipulation: the husband would pay the wife $150 per month in support, but if he "revert[ed] to his regular army rank of Lieutenant Colonel," the payment would drop to $100. In 1946 the Army, in a single order, reduced the husband from brigadier general to lieutenant colonel for one day and, the very next day, promoted him to colonel. The wife asked the court to construe the decree as still requiring $150 per month. The trial court agreed, and the husband appealed, arguing the court had improperly modified the decree. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It held that the trial court merely construed (interpreted) its own decree, which a court may do at any time, so the six-month limit on modifying decrees did not apply. On the merits, a one-day reversion that cost the husband only about $1.30 was too trivial to trigger the reduction: agreements are read fairly and reasonably and to carry out what the parties intended, alimony was keyed to the husband's income and ability to pay, and under the maxim that "the law cares not for small things" (de minimis), the token reversion did not justify cutting the wife's support. The court also held that no motion for a new trial lies from an order made on a motion.

A wife obtained a divorce and, in that same divorce case, the court approved a property settlement under which she gave up her share of community property worth roughly $7,500. About a year and a half later she filed a new lawsuit to cancel that settlement, claiming her husband had forced her into the divorce and the settlement through cruelty, duress, and undue influence. The trial court dismissed her new suit (it sustained a demurrer), and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It explained that to reopen a divorce decree, or a settlement approved in it, for fraud, the fraud must be "extrinsic" - something that prevented a party from presenting her case - rather than "intrinsic," which goes to matters actually litigated. Because the wife had her own attorney of her own choosing and had the chance to raise the alleged coercion at the divorce trial, any fraud was intrinsic. Her argument that fear of her husband kept her from telling her lawyer the truth did not change the result. The court also held that the division of property was as much an issue in the divorce as the divorce itself. The judgment was affirmed, and the $6,000 the wife had deposited with the court was ordered paid to the husband, with interest.

After a wife died, her surviving husband petitioned the court to confirm that certain Reno real estate was community property that vested in him without probate. The wife's three sons from a prior marriage objected, claiming the property was her separate property, bought with her own funds, that they should inherit. The trial court found the property was community property acquired with the husband's earnings and that it vested in him on the wife's death. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. On a wife's death, the entire community property vests in the surviving husband without administration, and the 1939 statute allowing this streamlined procedure was not repealed by the 1941 probate act. Because the sons answered and went to trial on the merits (rather than specially objecting to the court's jurisdiction), they submitted the ownership question to the court, which could decide it much like a quiet-title case. Although the husband had earlier deeded the land to the wife - raising a presumption that it became her separate property - that presumption is rebuttable, and the evidence supported the finding that the property was paid for with community funds. The husband's testimony was not barred by the spousal-communication privilege or the dead-man's statute.

This is the decision on the merits of the same divorce appeal, taken on the judgment roll alone. The husband had won a divorce on the ground of three years' separation, but the only facts establishing the two jurisdictional requirements - his six-week Nevada residence and the three-year separation - had been contained in the jury's "special findings of fact," which the court had already stricken. The remaining "special verdict" did not itself find those jurisdictional facts. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. A special verdict must find all facts essential to the judgment, with nothing left to intendment or presumption. Because the stricken findings had supplied the missing jurisdictional facts, the judgment resting on them had no factual basis. The defect appeared on the face of the judgment roll and raised a jurisdictional question, so it could be reviewed even without a motion for a new trial. The court reversed the judgment and ordered a new trial, and declined to direct entry of a separate-maintenance decree for the wife, since on a proper verdict the trial court might still, in its discretion, grant the husband a divorce.

A husband obtained a divorce after the trial court struck the wife's answer and entered her default. The court struck the answer because the attorney who signed it, W. Coburn Cook, was not a Nevada resident, no resident attorney had been associated in the case, and the wife had not appeared for herself. She appealed. The husband then died, and a court-appointed lawyer (an amicus curiae) moved to dismiss the appeal as moot. The Nevada Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. An amicus curiae may properly move to dismiss an appeal that has become moot, just as one may move to dismiss a collusive or fictitious case, and may introduce evidence - here a death certificate and the widow's affidavit - to show that no real controversy remains. On the husband's death the divorce suit abated because the cause of action did not survive; there was no community property in Nevada, and the matter concerned a purely personal status. The appeal was therefore dismissed as moot.

A husband was granted a divorce on the ground of three years' separation. The wife appealed, complaining that the trial court wrongly refused to undo her accidental waiver of a jury trial (she demanded a jury two days late), refused a one-day continuance so her Chicago attorney could arrive, and granted the husband a divorce despite her proof that he had been cruel and adulterous and had deserted her. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Failing to demand a jury within five days after notice of the trial setting waived the jury, and whether to set aside that waiver rested in the trial court's discretion, which was not abused. In a three-years'-separation case, the court may grant a divorce to the spouse more at fault; comparative fault is not controlling. Refusing to adopt the wife's proposed findings on subordinate matters was not error because the findings the court did make supported the judgment. And no prejudice resulted from denying the one-day continuance, since able local counsel represented the wife and the Chicago attorney participated after the first day.

In a divorce appeal brought on the judgment roll alone, the wife asked the Supreme Court to strike from that record a paper the jury had filed labeled "Special Findings of Fact by the Jury." The jury had returned a separate "special verdict," and there was no general verdict. The Nevada Supreme Court granted the motion. It held that special findings of fact by a jury have no validity unless they accompany a general verdict, and that a special verdict is a different thing from special findings on particular questions. The jury's separate "findings of fact" were therefore unauthorized, formed no part of the judgment roll, and the trial court had no power to give them effect by adopting them in its decree. The court refused to treat the mislabeled findings as a second special verdict. The wife's separate motion to strike certain parts of the divorce decree was denied, so those provisions could be tested on the appeal itself.

A husband obtained a Nevada divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty. The wife had earlier won a Massachusetts separate-maintenance decree, which found that the husband had deserted her, and she argued that this decree was binding (res judicata) and barred his divorce, and that a Nevada court could not grant a divorce to the "guilty" spouse over the "innocent" one. The appeal reached the court on the judgment roll only, without a trial transcript. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. A trial transcript filed far too late could not be considered, so the court reviewed only the judgment roll. Without a bill of exceptions, the wife could not challenge the husband's Nevada residence for the first time on appeal, and the trial court's findings had to be accepted. Even assuming the Massachusetts decree was binding as to conduct before its date, it did not bar a divorce for extreme cruelty occurring after that decree, which the trial court found. Finally, a spouse can be guilty of extreme cruelty even while the parties are separated and living apart.

A husband was granted a divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, and the decree divided the couple's community property, including property in California. The wife appealed. She argued, first, that the Nevada court had no power over California land and could not divide property under a general prayer for relief, and second, that the complaint's allegation of extreme cruelty was too vague to support the divorce. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Because both parties were before the court and both had, in their pleadings, asked for a division of the community property, the court had authority to divide it. While a Nevada court cannot directly pass on title to out-of-state land, it may act on the parties personally (in personam) to affect California property indirectly. And a divorce complaint may allege a cause for divorce in the words of the statute; the allegation that the defendant "has treated the plaintiff with extreme cruelty" was sufficient, especially since a bill of particulars was available on demand.

A husband sued for divorce on the ground of three years' separation. The wife's answer included money cross-claims - for unpaid arrears under a Missouri separate-maintenance decree, and for repayment of bonds, stock, and money she said she had lent him - plus affirmative defenses. The trial court struck those cross-claims and defenses and granted the husband a divorce, saying nothing about property or alimony. The wife appealed. Then the husband died, and his former attorneys moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing the divorce action died with him and no property rights were involved. The Nevada Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. A divorce appeal abates on a party's death as to the marital status, but survives as to property rights. Here, however, no property rights were actually involved: money debts are not the "property" of the debtor husband, the right to alimony is personal rather than a property right, and the husband brought no property before the court. The wife's money cross-complaints were not proper in a Nevada divorce. Striking her affirmative defenses was error, but harmless. With the status question moot on the husband's death and no property rights at stake, the appeal was dismissed, with costs to the wife.

In a divorce case, the husband sued the wife for divorce but failed to get one; instead, the court granted the divorce to the wife on the ground of extreme cruelty. She appealed parts of the decree and the order denying her a new trial. She then asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the husband to pay her, while the appeal was pending, $150 per month for support, $50 to prepare the appeal record, and $300 for her attorney. Her sworn statement showed she had almost nothing - about $200 and a small, mortgaged home - had never been employed and was not trained for work, was in very poor health, and had just undergone a major operation. The husband, who filed no opposing affidavit, earned about $3,600 a year working for a railroad. Because he did not contest her sworn facts, the court accepted them as true and found allowances were necessary and that he could pay. The court granted reduced amounts: it kept the trial court's existing $25 per month support and $15 per month mortgage payments in place, added $50 per month, allowed the full $50 for the record, and cut the attorney's fee to $150.

A husband sued for divorce and lost, then appealed. His wife asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order him to pay $500 toward her attorney and other costs so she could defend the appeal. Her sworn statement said she had no means to pay a lawyer, her health was impaired, she could not work, and she sometimes depended on her daughter for food, while her husband was steadily employed earning $150 or more. The husband's own statement did not deny these facts. He said he had supported her since their 1915 marriage, was earning $175 per month, and owed $1,362. Considering his obligations, the court concluded he should not have to pay the full $500 she requested. Because she made no showing about any other costs, the court made no order on those. It ordered the husband to pay $150 for his wife's attorney and stayed the appeal proceedings until he complied.

A wife who had obtained a Nevada divorce in 1939 later sued to vacate that decree, claiming that her husband had coerced her - through years of cruelty, threats, and blackmail-like pressure - into going to Reno and getting the divorce against her will. The trial court dismissed her suit by sustaining a demurrer, and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. A divorce decree can be set aside for fraud only if the fraud is "extrinsic." Where the wife had the opportunity to consult counsel of her own choosing and to tell the court about the alleged coercion during the divorce case, the fraud is "intrinsic." Her claim that she was too dominated by her husband to disclose the truth to her lawyer - even though she was some 3,000 miles away from him and had counsel - did not change that. The cases she cited granting relief all involved wives who were denied counsel of their own choosing or whose counsel was controlled by the husband. The judgment of dismissal was affirmed. (The Nevada Supreme Court later relied on this decision in Mazour v. Mazour.)

This decision resolves the wife's motion, made while her divorce appeal was pending, for the husband to pay her alimony, attorneys' fees, and appeal costs. The husband objected on many grounds - that the appeal was untimely, that she had "won" below and so was not aggrieved, that she had accepted benefits of the judgment, that she waived notice, and that the appeal was frivolous. The Nevada Supreme Court granted the allowances. Because no written notice of the order denying a new trial was ever served, the time to appeal never began to run, so the appeal was timely. A wife who prayed for separate maintenance but was instead granted an absolute divorce is an "aggrieved" party who may appeal. Accepting small trial-level allowances that she would not have to refund did not waive her right to appeal, and collaborating on the findings did not waive her right to notice. The court declined to prejudge the appeal as frivolous. It ordered the husband to pay $50 per month alimony during the appeal, $150 in attorneys' fees, and the costs of the transcript and judgment roll, geared to his ability to pay.

A wife who had cross-complained in her husband's divorce case was granted the divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty. The trial court divided the couple's property and awarded her alimony of fifty dollars per month for ten months. She did not appeal the divorce itself. Instead, she appealed the alimony award and the real-estate award to her husband, arguing the judge had abused his discretion because the value of what the husband received was so much greater than what she received that it showed the division was unfair. The Nevada Supreme Court disagreed and affirmed. The wife did not claim there was no evidence supporting the trial court's findings - she could not have, because there was such evidence. Her only argument was that the split was so lopsided in the husband's favor that it was unfair on its face. The court held the property division and alimony were well within the wide discretion the divorce statute gives trial judges. It stressed that the trial judge, who saw and heard the witnesses, is far better positioned than an appellate court reading a cold record to weigh the equities. Because no abuse of discretion plainly appeared, the judgment and the order denying a new trial were affirmed.

This is an earlier ruling in the same divorce case as Cunningham v. Cunningham, 61 Nev. 93. The husband had sued for divorce, the wife cross-complained and was granted a divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, and she wanted to appeal the parts of the decree dealing with property. Two motions came before the Nevada Supreme Court at once: the wife's motion for money (allowances) to fund her appeal, and the husband's motion to dismiss the appeal. The court denied the wife's motion for allowances because she had not shown her appeal was properly perfected - there was no proof that she had filed and served a notice of appeal and deposited the required bond (or its equivalent) in time. Until an appeal is perfected, the court held, it has no power to order allowances. The denial was without prejudice, meaning she could file a proper motion again within a reasonable time. The court reserved (put off) ruling on the husband's motion to dismiss the appeal until that time passed.

A wife came to Reno and got a divorce by default after her husband, who was in Lebanon, was served with the papers there by personal delivery rather than by newspaper publication. Months later - but still within six months of the divorce - the husband asked the court to set aside the default and let him answer the case. The trial court set the default aside. The wife appealed. The key question was what the phrase "personally served" means in the Nevada statute (Section 8640) that lets a defendant who was not personally served reopen a default within six months. The wife argued that because her husband had been personally handed the papers abroad, he had been "personally served" and could not use the statute. The Nevada Supreme Court disagreed and affirmed. It held that "personal service" in the statute means personal service within Nevada. Serving someone outside the state is only the equivalent of service by publication - a substitute that cannot support a personal judgment - not true personal service. Whether the husband actually knew about the case did not matter. Because he was not personally served inside Nevada and acted within six months, he was entitled to reopen the default and answer on the merits.

A husband sued his wife for divorce in Reno, claiming extreme cruelty and insanity. The wife was an incompetent person confined to a sanitarium in Chicago and was served with the papers there. The Nevada court appointed a local attorney as her guardian ad litem (someone to defend her interests), but that attorney was closely associated with the husband's lawyer. The wife's brother, who had been appointed her conservator in Illinois, asked the Nevada court to remove that guardian and appoint him instead. The court refused to remove the guardian but let the brother appear and file a defense. The brother did most of the actual defending, lost, and then appealed for his sister. The decree of divorce went to the husband. The husband asked the Supreme Court to throw out the appeal, arguing the Illinois conservator had no standing in Nevada and was not a person harmed by the judgment. The court refused to dismiss. It agreed that a guardian appointed in another state is generally not recognized in Nevada, but it stressed that the real appellant was the wife herself - a person aggrieved with a clear right to appeal - not the brother. The guardianship statutes exist to protect incompetent people, and cannot be used as a weapon against them. As a matter of comity (courtesy between states) and to protect the wife, the court accepted the brother as the proper person to prosecute her appeal. It then addressed her request for money to fund the appeal, and ordered the husband to pay $195 total ($30 for reporter's notes, $65 for the transcript, and $100 attorney's fee).

A wife who was appealing her divorce case asked the Nevada Supreme Court to make her husband pay for the costs of her appeal: $1,500 in attorney's fees, $275 for the transcript of the trial, and a $25 filing fee. The husband did not show up to oppose the motion, in person or through a lawyer. The wife supported her request with the court reporter's estimate that the transcript would cost about $275 and with her own sworn statement that she was destitute while her husband earned about $250 a month. Her papers did not describe the history of the case or the issues that had been tried. The court granted allowances in a reduced total of $700: the full $25 filing fee, the full $275 for the transcript, and $400 (rather than the requested $1,500) for attorney's fees, all to be paid within thirty days.

A husband obtained a divorce from a jury on the ground of extreme cruelty in a Nevada trial. His wife appealed, making two main arguments: first, that the husband's Nevada residence was not genuine but was set up only to get a divorce, which (she said) was a fraud on her and on the court and left the court without jurisdiction; and second, that two of the jury instructions were wrong. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. On residence, it explained that to give a Nevada court jurisdiction in a divorce, the plaintiff must be physically present in the state for the required time and must intend to make Nevada his home permanently or indefinitely. The evidence about the husband's intent was sharply conflicting, and although the court had some doubt about his good faith, it was not convinced the jury was clearly wrong, so it would not overturn the verdict. On the instructions, the court held that an instruction allowing a divorce to the party 'least in fault' when both spouses were at fault was a correct statement of a Nevada statute and could not have misled the jury into thinking the wife was also seeking a divorce, and that an instruction about the six-week physical-presence requirement was proper because the separate element of good-faith intent was covered by another instruction.

After a divorce was granted to her husband, the wife appealed and asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order him to pay $400 toward the cost of prosecuting her appeal. The husband did not contest the motion or appear. Her lawyer's sworn statement said the appeal had been properly perfected, that she could not pay the costs of preparing the record, and it itemized the needed sums: $100 for the reporter's transcript, $25 for certified copies, $25 for filing, and $250 for attorney's services. It also said the husband had the means to pay but refused and had left Nevada to live in Oakland, California. The court held that once an appeal is perfected, it has power to make an allowance for the wife's appeal expenses even though no transcript of the record has yet been filed. It then trimmed the request. It disallowed the separate $25 filing fee, reasoning only one filing fee is charged for an appeal and she had presumably already paid it. And it cut the $250 attorney item to $100, because that sum was only for getting the transcript and bill of exceptions before the court (she could ask for more later for briefing and argument). The court ordered the husband to pay $100 as an attorney's fee and $125 for her other appeal expenses.

A husband filed for divorce in the First Judicial District Court in Ormsby County, alleging he had been a bona fide resident of Washoe County (a different county, in the Second Judicial District) for more than six weeks. The wife filed a special demurrer arguing the Ormsby County court had no jurisdiction because he lived in Washoe County. The demurrer was overruled, the wife defaulted, and a divorce decree was entered. She appealed on the jurisdiction question. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It examined the 1931 amendment to the divorce statute, which both shortened the required residence from three months to six weeks and, crucially, changed the wording from the district court of 'the' county to the district court of 'any' county. The court held that under the amended statute, a six-week residence anywhere in the state gives the district court of any county jurisdiction to hear the divorce - the basis had shifted from county residence to state residence. The change from 'the' to 'any' was highly significant and reflected the Legislature's steadily more liberal approach. The wife's complaint that this lets a plaintiff shop for a favorable judge or a low filing fee was an argument about legislative policy, which is not the court's concern; and the same problem could arise under her reading anyway.

A husband obtained a divorce on the ground that his wife had willfully deserted him for more than a year. The wife had left the couple's Tonopah home for her own ranch in 1930 and never lived with him again. She had counterclaimed for separate maintenance, accusing the husband of desertion, failure to provide, and cruelty, but the trial court found none of her claims proven and found she had deserted him. She appealed, insisting the husband had offered no evidence that her leaving was against his will and without his consent - which she called the heart of the appeal. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It found the record full of flatly conflicting testimony, but held the husband's own testimony - that he never wanted her to stay at the ranch and repeatedly tried to persuade her to return - was some evidence that her departure and absence were against his will. Because it could not say the trial court's findings were clearly wrong, and because much must be left to the trial judge who saw the witnesses, it upheld the desertion finding. The court also rejected several other arguments: the wife's claim that the husband had 'condoned' (forgiven) any desertion could not be raised for the first time on appeal, because condonation is an affirmative defense that must be specially pleaded and it never was; Nevada does not require corroboration of the grounds for divorce (only residence must be corroborated), and there was no collusion; a deserting spouse who wants to end the desertion must make a good-faith, unconditional offer to return, which the wife never did; her evidentiary objections were not adequately argued and showed no prejudicial error; and her late attempt to add certain depositions to the record was procedurally improper.

After a husband won a divorce, the wife asked the trial court for two things: a new trial based on 'newly discovered evidence,' and an award of her attorney's fees and costs for making the new-trial motion. The court denied both, and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court split its decision. On the new trial, it affirmed the denial. To win a new trial for newly discovered evidence, the moving party must show she could not, with reasonable diligence, have found and produced the evidence at trial. The wife's affidavit gave only general conclusions of diligence with no specific facts, some of the evidence concerned public records she was charged with knowing about, and the rest was cumulative or merely impeaching. Granting a new trial is largely up to the trial judge, and there was no abuse of discretion. But on the fees and costs, the court reversed. The trial court had refused any allowance mainly because the parties had earlier signed a stipulation fixing fees, and because it did not appear the attorney handling the new-trial motion was unpaid. The Supreme Court held a fee stipulation does not prevent the court from making further allowances for good cause - just as a court is not bound by the parties' agreement about alimony - and that the court should have presumed the wife (who swore she was destitute) had not already provided the funds. It reversed the denial of allowances (except as to funds for transcribing the trial testimony) and sent that issue back to the trial court.

A husband sued for divorce under a Nevada statute allowing a divorce, in the court's discretion, when the spouses have lived apart continuously for more than five years without living together. He won, and the wife appealed. She argued that the husband had not put on enough evidence for the court to properly exercise its discretion, and that granting him the divorce was an abuse of that discretion - pointing out that in an earlier Ohio separate-maintenance case the husband had been found guilty of extreme cruelty and she had been found without fault. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It first clarified that a trial court exercising this discretion considers the facts that are actually in evidence, not facts that were never testified to; and here there was sufficient evidence. More importantly, the court held that under this separation statute a divorce does not depend on which spouse behaved better. The statute does not require the person seeking the divorce to be free of fault. The real question is whether there is a probability the parties can live together in a way that serves their best interests and the interests of society; where long separation shows they cannot, a divorce serves those interests. Because there was ample evidence to support the trial court's conclusion, there was no abuse of discretion.

A husband won a divorce against his wife in the Ormsby County district court. The wife wanted to appeal but had no money, so she asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the husband to deposit money for her appeal costs and attorney fees. She had already filed her notice of appeal and the required appeal bond, but had not yet filed the trial transcript. The husband asked the court to throw out her request, arguing that without a transcript there was no appeal on file and therefore the court had no power to act. The court rejected that argument. It held that an appeal is complete once the appealing party files the notice of appeal and the appeal bond on time - the court's power attaches then, not when the transcript is later filed. Having that power, the court can order appeal-cost allowances even before a transcript exists; otherwise a poor wife's right to appeal would be worthless. The court also reaffirmed that when the husband is the one who brought the divorce suit, his own poverty is no reason to deny the wife money to defend or appeal - he must either fund her or accept a hold on the case. Both sides swore they were essentially broke, but the court noted the husband had managed to hire several lawyers. It granted the wife's application and ordered the husband to pay the amounts she requested to the court clerk for her benefit.

A wife sued her husband for divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty. Her complaint described how the couple ran a California sanitarium, how she did a great deal of the work caring for patients, and how the husband expected her to work even harder. She pointed to his remarks such as "you could stand to do a lot more work" and "I've made a damn sight more money before I married you anyway," saying his conduct and the overwork caused her great mental anguish and hurt her health. The husband did not appear at trial, and the court granted the wife a divorce plus expense money, an attorney fee, and costs. The husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court held the complaint did not state extreme cruelty. Nevada law let a party plead a ground in the words of the statute, but the specific facts here were actually inconsistent with cruelty. The court reasoned that telling a spouse she "could stand to do a lot more work" was a suggestion, not a command, and that her hard work appeared voluntary; the husband's lack of appreciation might be thoughtlessness rather than ill will. The rude money remark, though wounding, was not made in front of others and would not, occasionally spoken, impair the health of an ordinarily sensitive wife or make her reasonably fear injury. Quoting its earlier Kelly v. Kelly decision, the court repeated that legal cruelty requires danger (or reasonable fear of danger) to life, limb, or health, and that mere rudeness, petulance, or occasional temper is not enough. Because the complaint was insufficient, the divorce and all the money awards fell with it, and the court reversed.