CHEN VS. TORGISON (FAMILY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

This is a clerk's order dismissing an appeal for failure to comply with the filing-fee requirement. Per NRAP 3(e), payment of the filing fee is required upon docketing. After appellant failed to pay or to demonstrate compliance with NRAP 24 (governing in forma pauperis status) within the 14-day cure period set by the court's notice, the court dismissed the appeal under NRAP 3(a)(2). The order does not address the merits of the underlying district court proceedings before Hon. David S. Gibson, Jr.

In plain language

When someone files an appeal with the Nevada Supreme Court, they generally must pay a filing fee at the time the appeal is docketed. If a person cannot afford the fee, there is a procedure to ask the court to waive it (proceeding "in forma pauperis," governed by NRAP 24). In this case, appellant Maegan Christine Chen filed an appeal in a family-law matter against Adam Lee Torgison but did not pay the filing fee when the appeal was docketed on May 12, 2025. The same day, the court sent her a notice giving her 14 days either to pay the fee or to follow the procedure for asking that it be waived. The notice warned that if she did neither, the appeal would be dismissed. She did not respond. The court therefore dismissed the appeal without reaching the merits of any underlying family-court ruling.