FISHER VS. DIST. CT. (WING) (FAMILY)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The Court of Appeals addressed an original emergency petition for a writ of mandamus challenging a divorce decree and an order denying a motion for a change of venue. The court set out the governing framework: mandamus is available to compel the performance of an act the law requires as a duty resulting from an office, NRS 34.160, or to control an arbitrary or capricious exercise of discretion, Int'l Game Tech., Inc. v. Second Jud. Dist. Ct., 124 Nev. 193, 197, 179 P.3d 556, 558 (2008). The decision whether to entertain such a petition rests within the court's sole discretion, and the petitioner bears the burden of demonstrating that relief is warranted, Pan v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 120 Nev. 222, 228, 88 P.3d 840, 844 (2004). Applying that framework, the court determined that the petitioner had not demonstrated entitlement to extraordinary relief. The court emphasized that writ petitions are not substitutes for an appeal, and that the petitioner failed to show that appealing the challenged orders would not provide an adequate legal remedy. The court noted that the challenged orders are appealable under NRAP 3A(b)(1) and (6), which make appealable final judgments and orders denying motions to change venue. The court cited Archon Corp. v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 133 Nev. 816, 819, 407 P.3d 702, 706 (2017), for the proposition that "[a] writ of mandamus is not a substitute for an appeal," and Pan, 120 Nev. at 224, 88 P.3d at 841, for the proposition that "[t]he right to appeal is generally an adequate legal remedy that precludes writ relief." On that basis, the court denied the petition.

In plain language

Steven A. Fisher asked the Nevada Court of Appeals to step in and overturn two decisions from a district court in Lander County: a divorce decree and an order refusing to move his case to a different court location (a "change of venue"). He did this by filing what is called a petition for a writ of mandamus - a request asking a higher court to order a lower court to do something the law requires, or to correct a decision that was made in an arbitrary or unreasonable way. The Court of Appeals explained that this kind of extraordinary court order is not something a person is automatically entitled to. The court has full discretion over whether to even consider such a petition, and the person who files it carries the burden of showing that this special relief is justified. The court concluded that Fisher had not made that showing. A central reason was that a writ petition is not a stand-in for a normal appeal. Because the divorce decree and the order denying the change of venue can ordinarily be challenged through a regular appeal, and because Fisher did not show that an appeal would fail to adequately address his complaints, the court declined to use its extraordinary writ power. As a result, the court denied the petition.