COGBURN VS. COGBURN (FAMILY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court dismissed the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction, applying the finality requirement articulated in Lee v. GNLV Corp., 116 Nev. 424, 426, 996 P.2d 416, 417 (2000), which defines a final judgment as "one that disposes of all the issues presented in the case, and leaves nothing for the future consideration of the court, except for post-judgment issues such as attorney's fees and costs." Initial jurisdictional screening of the notice of appeal and docketing statement indicated the challenged orders - a decree of divorce together with an order partially granting a motion to amend the decree - did not finally resolve all issues presented. After the court issued an order to show cause, appellant conceded the orders were not final and appealable and represented that the notice of appeal had been filed out of an abundance of caution. The court accordingly dismissed the appeal and denied as moot the pending motion to stay the appeal and hold deadlines in abeyance.

In plain language

This is a divorce appeal that never reached the merits. After Kristin Cogburn filed her notice of appeal from a divorce decree and a related order partially granting a motion to amend that decree, the Nevada Supreme Court noticed a problem with its own ability to hear the case. Generally, an appellate court can only review a lower court's decision once that decision has fully wrapped up the case. Here, the orders being appealed had not finished resolving every issue between the parties. The court issued what is called an order to show cause, which asks the appealing party to explain why the case should not be thrown out. The appellant agreed that the orders were not yet final and appealable, and explained she had filed the notice of appeal "out of an abundance of caution" - meaning she filed just in case, to protect her rights, rather than because she was certain the appeal was proper at this stage. Because the orders did not finally resolve everything, the Supreme Court concluded it had no power to hear the appeal and dismissed it. A pending motion to stay the appeal and pause deadlines was denied as moot, meaning there was nothing left to stay once the appeal was dismissed.