ANDERSON-ALEXANDER VS. MOTEN, III (CHILD CUSTODY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court raised appellate jurisdiction sua sponte upon review of the notice of appeal. Citing Brown v. MHC Stagecoach, LLC, 129 Nev. 343, 345, 301 P.3d 850, 851 (2013), the court reiterated that it "may only consider appeals authorized by statute or court rule." The order challenged was an emergency district court order for return of child and an award of temporary sole legal and physical custody. The court held that no statute or court rule authorizes an appeal from such a temporary custody order, citing In re Temporary Custody of Five Minor Children, 105 Nev. 441, 777 P.2d 901 (1989), for the proposition that no appeal may be taken from temporary custody orders subject to periodic mandatory review. The court contrasted this with NRAP 3A(b)(7), which permits an appeal from a district court order that finally alters the custody of minor children - a category into which the challenged order did not fall. Lacking jurisdiction, the court dismissed the appeal.

In plain language

This case involves a parent who tried to appeal a family-court order. The order was an "emergency" temporary ruling that required a child to be returned and gave the other parent temporary sole legal and physical custody. The Nevada Supreme Court did not decide who should have custody of the child. Instead, the court looked at a threshold question: does it even have the power to hear this kind of appeal? The court concluded that it does not. Under Nevada law, the Supreme Court can only hear appeals that a statute or court rule specifically allows. Temporary custody orders - the kind that are not final and remain subject to ongoing review by the family court - are not on the list of orders that can be appealed. Because the court lacked jurisdiction (the legal authority to hear the case), it dismissed the appeal. The parent who filed the appeal will need to pursue any further proceedings about custody in the family court itself, since this order does not resolve the underlying custody dispute one way or the other.