Doan v. Wilkerson

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Standard of review: "This court reviews district court decisions concerning divorce proceedings for an abuse of discretion." Shydler v. Shydler, 114 Nev. 192, 196, 954 P.2d 37, 39 (1998). Rulings supported by substantial evidence will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion, Devries v. Gallio, 128 Nev. __, __, 290 P.3d 260, 263 (2012), but the district court must apply the correct legal standard, Williams v. Waldman, 108 Nev. 466, 471, 836 P.2d 614, 617-18 (1992). Framework: NRS 125.090 requires family law cases to "conform to the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure as nearly as conveniently possible." NRCP 60(b) imposes a six-month limitation on motions for relief from judgment premised on mistake, newly discovered evidence, or fraud. Relying on Kramer v. Kramer, 96 Nev. 759, 762, 616 P.2d 395, 397 (1980) - which reasoned that if the Legislature had intended continuing jurisdiction over property rights it would have said so expressly, as it did in NRS 125.140(2) for child custody and support - the court held that NRCP 60(b)'s time limitation applies to a motion for relief from or modification of a divorce decree. Catherine's motion, filed more than six years after entry of the decree, was untimely. (The court noted that NRCP 60(b)(4) and (5) are not subject to the time limitation but were not germane here.) The court declined to treat the procedural mislabeling as dispositive: "A party is not bound by the label he puts on his papers. A motion may be treated as an independent action or vice versa." NC-DSH, Inc., v. Garner, 125 Nev. 647, 652, 218 P.3d 853, 857 (2009). It therefore analyzed the motion as an independent action in equity. Under Bonnell v. Lawrence, 128 Nev. __, __, 282 P.3d 712, 715 (2012) (quoting United States v. Beggerly, 524 U.S. 38, 47 (1998)), such an action is "available only to prevent a grave miscarriage of justice," and claim preclusion does not bar it because the exceptional circumstances justifying equitable relief also justify departure from claim preclusion. See also Amie v. Amie, 106 Nev. 541, 542, 796 P.2d 233, 234 (1990). The court abrogated Tomlinson v. Tomlinson, 102 Nev. 652, 654, 729 P.2d 1363, 1364 (1986), to the extent it conflicts with Amie and Williams. Doctrinally, the court traced its caselaw from Taylor v. Taylor, 105 Nev. 384, 386-87, 775 P.2d 703, 704 (1989) (pre-NRS 125.161 rule requiring extrinsic fraud) to the recognition that nonadjudication of a marital asset is an exceptional circumstance justifying equitable relief: an asset omitted from the divorce proceedings and therefore not litigated or adjudicated "may be subject to partition in an independent action in equity." Williams, 108 Nev. at 474, 836 P.2d at 619; see also Amie, 106 Nev. at 542-43, 796 P.2d at 234-35; Henn v. Henn, 605 P.2d 10, 13 (Cal. 1980); McCarroll v. McCarroll, 96 Nev. 455, 456, 611 P.2d 205, 205 (1980). Application: Unlike Amie, Henn, or Williams, the FAA retirement benefit was disclosed and discussed during the divorce proceedings, and the parties had a fair opportunity to litigate its division. Substantial evidence supported the district court's finding of full disclosure - FAA earnings and leave statements, W-2s evidencing a retirement plan, retirement contributions listed in Craig's financial affidavit, and Catherine's pretrial memorandum explicitly identifying the benefit - and the district court found the benefit was considered in determining the length of alimony. The district court nonetheless erred as a matter of law in treating the benefit as an omitted asset "merely because it was not mentioned in the decree"; the relevant inquiry is whether the asset was litigated and adjudicated, not merely whether it was written down in the decree. The court observed that California has created a statutory postjudgment remedy for omitted assets, Cal. Fam. Code § 2556 (West 2004); see In re Marriage of Thorne & Raccina, 136 Cal. Rptr. 3d 887, 895 (Ct. App. 2012), but "[i]t is up to the Legislature" whether to do so in Nevada. Because Catherine showed no extraordinary circumstances justifying equitable relief, the court reversed the partition order and did not reach Craig's argument under Nevada's four-year residual statute of limitations, NRS 11.220. The court also noted, in response to an amicus brief from the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Nevada, that concerns about incentivizing hidden assets were misplaced because the asset here was not hidden. (The district court had divided the benefit under a fractional formula in United States Code, Title 5, § 8445 (2012).)

In plain language

Craig and Catherine Doan married in 1985 and later divorced. Craig worked as an air traffic controller for the FAA for more than 23 years and earned federal retirement benefits. During the divorce, both spouses filed sworn financial statements indicating they had retirement accounts or pensions, and Catherine's pretrial memorandum specifically identified Craig's federal retirement benefits as property earned during the marriage. After their lawyers withdrew shortly before trial, the couple settled their property division themselves at a conference with the judge. The final divorce decree, entered in August 2003, divided one retirement asset (a voluntary thrift savings plan) but said nothing about Craig's FAA retirement benefit. Six years later, in June 2009, Catherine asked the court to divide the FAA retirement benefit, arguing it had been left out of the decree and should now be split. The district court first denied her motion, finding the benefit had been fully disclosed during the divorce. But after Catherine asked the court to reconsider, the court changed course: it found the benefit had been left out of the decree by "mutual mistake" and divided it using a federal formula. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It explained that under NRCP 60(b) - a rule of court procedure allowing a party to ask for relief from a final judgment - a motion based on mistake, newly discovered evidence, or fraud must be filed within six months of the judgment. Catherine waited more than six years, so her motion was too late. The court then asked whether her request could instead be treated as an "independent action" - a separate lawsuit seeking relief in equity, which is not subject to the six-month deadline but requires a much higher showing: it is available "only to prevent a grave miscarriage of justice." The court held that Catherine could not meet that standard. Nevada law recognizes that when a marital asset was never litigated or decided in the divorce - for example, because neither party mentioned it - it can be divided later through an equitable action. But here, the FAA retirement benefit was disclosed and discussed throughout the divorce proceedings: it appeared in Craig's pay statements, W-2 forms, and financial affidavit, and Catherine's own pretrial memorandum named it as property to be divided. The district court even found that the benefit was considered in setting the length of alimony. The Supreme Court explained that the key question is whether the asset was actually litigated and decided in the divorce, not simply whether it was written into the decree. Because the benefit was before the court in the original divorce, it was not an "omitted asset," and leaving it out of the written decree was not the kind of exceptional circumstance that justifies reopening a final judgment years later. Whether Nevada should have a law allowing courts to divide property merely left out of a decree - as California does - is, the court said, a question for the Legislature.