DREYER VS. DREYER (DIVORCE)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Respondent moved to dismiss the husband's appeal for failure to comply with Rule 75(a), (b), and (d), NRCP, after appellant filed his notice of appeal and cost undertaking on June 21, 1957, but failed to serve or file a designation of the record on appeal or a statement of points, ordered no transcript, and failed to cause the record on appeal to be filed within 40 days. Opposing counsel attributed the omissions to confusion and misunderstanding among successive counsel as to their individual responsibilities and asserted excusable neglect. Considering the extent of the lapse of time involved, the court held the showing insufficient to constitute excusable neglect and granted the motion to dismiss. Doolittle v. Doolittle, 70 Nev. 163, 262 P.2d 995 (1953); Bank of Nevada v. Drayer-Hanson, Inc., 70 Nev. 416, 270 P.2d 668 (1954). The court denied respondent's motion for $500 in damages for a frivolous and sham appeal, noting that the statutory provision formerly authorizing such damages when an appeal was taken for delay (sec. 8906, NCL 1929) was no longer in effect. Costs of docketing, preparing the record, and the motion were awarded to respondent.

In plain language

The wife had earlier been awarded certain community property and funds by a California court. The husband then filed for divorce in Nevada, where the wife counterclaimed and won a judgment that ordered the husband to pay her money, which he did not pay. The husband filed a notice of appeal and a cost bond in June 1957 but then failed to take the steps needed to actually perfect the appeal: he never filed a designation of the record, never filed a statement of the points he would rely on, never ordered a transcript, and did not get the record on appeal filed within the 40 days the rules required. The wife moved to dismiss the appeal. The husband's lawyers said the failures resulted from confusion among several attorneys about who was responsible for perfecting the appeal, and argued this was excusable neglect. The Nevada Supreme Court disagreed, holding that given how much time had lapsed, the showing was not enough to constitute excusable neglect, and it dismissed the appeal. The court denied the wife's separate request for $500 in damages for a frivolous appeal, because the statute that had once allowed such damages was no longer in effect.