GARCIA VS. AGUILAR (FAMILY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court dismissed sua sponte for lack of appellate jurisdiction following preliminary review. Two independent jurisdictional defects supported dismissal. As to the March 28, 2025 order, the court applied the finality rule articulated in Lee v. GNLV Corp., 116 Nev. 424, 426, 996 P.2d 416, 417 (2000): "[A] final judgment is 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." Because the March 28 order contemplated further district court consideration and left unresolved issues including marital waste, it was not a final, appealable judgment. As to the purported November 14, 2025 fees-and-costs order, the docket reflected only a memorandum of fees and costs filed by respondent, not a district court order. There was therefore no order from which to appeal. As to the remaining "interlocutory and intermediate orders," the court invoked Brown v. MHC Stagecoach, LLC, 129 Nev. 343, 345, 301 P.3d 850, 851 (2013), reiterating that the Supreme Court "may only consider appeals authorized by statute or court rule," and concluded that no statute or rule authorized an appeal from the challenged interlocutory orders.

In plain language

This was an attempted appeal in a divorce/annulment case. Ms. Garcia, representing herself, tried to bring three things up to the Nevada Supreme Court: a March 28, 2025 district court order, what she described as a November 14, 2025 order awarding attorney's fees and costs to the other side, and various other in-between rulings. The Supreme Court, before reaching any of the substance, looked at whether it had the power to hear the appeal at all. It concluded it did not, for two reasons. First, the March 28, 2025 order was not a final judgment. In Nevada, a case generally must be fully resolved at the trial-court level before the Supreme Court can review it. The March 28 order left issues open for the district court to decide later, including the issue of marital waste, so it was not the kind of order that can be appealed yet. Second, there was no November 14, 2025 order awarding fees and costs. What was actually filed on that date was a memorandum of fees and costs submitted by the respondent - not a court order. You cannot appeal something that does not exist. Because no statute or rule allowed an appeal from any of the orders Ms. Garcia challenged, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.