BONGIOVI VS. BONGIOVI (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court dismissed an appeal challenging a partial reduction of installment arrearages to judgment. It held that the six-year limitations period of NRS 11.190 commences to run against each installment as it becomes due, not from the date of the divorce decree, citing Brown v. Vonsild, 91 Nev. 646, 541 P.2d 528 (1975); accordingly only the installments falling due more than six years before the motion were barred. The court further held that a pending appeal did not deprive the district court of jurisdiction to reduce the arrearages to judgment, because that matter was entirely collateral to and independent from the issues on appeal. Originally filed as an unpublished order on June 7, 1978, the disposition was published as an opinion because of the paucity of published authority.

In plain language

When the Bongiovis divorced in 1971, the decree required the husband to pay the wife $1,000 per month, starting July 1, 1971, until $10,000 had been paid, as a partial settlement of her alimony and community property rights. He never paid. In late 1977, the wife asked the court to convert the unpaid amount into a money judgment. The district court gave her judgment for $5,000 but ruled that the rest was barred by Nevada's six-year statute of limitations. The husband appealed, arguing the entire $10,000 was time-barred. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected that argument. It held that the six-year limitations period runs separately against each installment as it comes due, not from the date of the divorce decree, so only the older installments were barred. The court also rejected the husband's claim that the district court lacked jurisdiction because of a pending appeal, holding the arrearage matter was entirely collateral to and independent of the issues on appeal. Finding no reversible error, the court dismissed the appeal.