CHESLER VS. CHESLER (CHILD SUPPORT)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The appellant challenged an order modifying a divorce decree that (1) reduced the respondent's child support from $25 per week to $17.50 per month per child; (2) ordered the respondent to pay $25 monthly toward child support arrearages; and (3) expanded visitation to include four weekends per year in Las Vegas plus summer and alternating holiday periods in Minnesota, with the respondent bearing costs. The court held that the only change in the respondent's circumstances was a move from California (salary $1,200 plus auto allowance and full expense account) to Minnesota (salary $1,200 with no expense account), and the only changes in the appellant's circumstances were her remarriage and the resulting cessation of trust income her father had provided for the children. On these facts, the district court abused its discretion in reducing the respondent's child support obligations. Cf. Wicker v. Wicker, 85 Nev. 141, 451 P.2d 715 (1969). The court found the visitation order supported by the evidence but held that the respondent should not be permitted to transport the children away from Las Vegas until he is current in all support payments required by the original decree, because to permit otherwise would let him expend on his own purposes money that should be channeled to child support. The court further held the appellant was not aggrieved by the order requiring payments on arrearages, as it did not limit her rights. Costs were allowed to appellant under NRS 18.060.

In plain language

After a divorce, the father asked to change the decree, and the trial court entered an order that (1) sharply reduced his child support (from $25 per week per child to $17.50 per month), (2) required him to pay $25 a month toward his past-due child support, and (3) expanded his visitation to include weekends in Las Vegas and holidays in Minnesota, with the father paying travel costs. The mother appealed, challenging all of it. The Nevada Supreme Court focused on whether circumstances had really changed enough to justify cutting support. The only change for the father was that he moved from California (where he earned $1,200 a month plus a car allowance and full expense account) to Minnesota (where he earned the same $1,200 but with no expense account). The only changes for the mother were that she remarried a casino dealer and that, because of the remarriage, her father stopped letting her draw income from a trust he had set up for the children. Given those facts, the court held that cutting the father's child support was an abuse of discretion, and it reversed that part of the order. On visitation, the court found the trial court's order was supported by the evidence, so it generally affirmed it - but with an important condition: the father may not take the children away from Las Vegas while he is behind on his child support. Otherwise he would be spending on travel money that should go to supporting his children. On the order requiring payments toward past-due support, the court found the mother was not harmed by it - it did not limit her rights - so she had nothing to complain about there. The result: the support reduction was reversed, and the rest of the order was affirmed subject to the no-removal-while-in-arrears condition.