GRIGALANZ VS. DIST. CT. (COPAS) (FAMILY)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court applied the familiar standard that writ relief is extraordinary and discretionary, and that the petitioner bears the burden of demonstrating entitlement to such relief. Pan v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 120 Nev. 222, 228, 88 P.3d 840, 844 (2004); Smith v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 107 Nev. 674, 677, 818 P.2d 849, 851 (1991). Mandamus is available to control a manifest abuse of discretion, Round Hill Gen. Imp. Dist. v. Newman, 97 Nev. 601, 603-04, 637 P.2d 534, 536 (1981), and prohibition under NRS 34.320 addresses jurisdictional excess. The court identified multiple procedural deficiencies under NRAP 21(a)(3)(A), 21(a)(4), 21(a)(6), 21(d), and 21(e), as well as an apparent failure to comply with NRAP 25(c) regarding consent to electronic service. The court invoked NRAP 2 to excuse the defects on this one occasion and granted the petitioner's August 5, 2025, motion to accept the filings and to expedite consideration. On the merits, the court held petitioner had failed to provide a record sufficient for review under NRAP 21(a)(4): the district court's challenged email or decision was not included, nor was the motion for alternative service. Substantively, petitioner did not show compliance with NRCP 4.4(b)(2)'s prerequisites for court-ordered alternative service, citing Browning v. Dixon, 114 Nev. 213, 217-18, 954 P.2d 741, 743-44 (1998), and Penn Moultrie Corp. v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 79 Nev. 269, 271 & n.2, 382 P.2d 397, 398 & n.2 (1963), regarding the due diligence required before alternative service may be authorized. Finally, the court noted that a motion for reconsideration of the alleged district court decision remained pending below, weighing against extraordinary intervention. The petition was denied.

In plain language

Mr. Grigalanz is involved in a child custody case in Las Vegas family court. He wanted to serve the other party, Elizabeth Marie Copas, with court papers by email rather than by traditional means. The district court apparently did not allow that, so he came directly to the Nevada Supreme Court asking for an emergency order - called a writ of mandamus or prohibition - that would force the district court to permit email service and would also reassign his case to a different judge. A writ of mandamus is a court order telling a lower court to do something it is legally required to do; a writ of prohibition tells a lower court to stop doing something beyond its authority. Both are considered "extraordinary" remedies, meaning the Supreme Court only grants them in unusual circumstances and the person asking has the burden to show the relief is warranted. The Supreme Court denied the petition. It pointed out several practical problems. First, his filings were missing required components (no routing statement, no page numbers, no certificate of compliance, and an appendix without a cover page or proper index), and his service on the other party did not appear to comply with the appellate rules because he had not shown she consented in writing to electronic service. The court excused these defects this one time and considered the petition anyway. On the merits, the court explained that Grigalanz had not given it the materials it needed - he did not include the district court's email or order he was challenging, nor did he include the motion he had filed below asking for alternative service. He also did not show that he had satisfied the rule (NRCP 4.4(b)(2)) that requires a party to demonstrate due diligence before a court will authorize alternative methods of service. On top of that, he had a motion for reconsideration still pending in the district court, meaning the lower court had not yet finished addressing the issue. Because Grigalanz had not shown the kind of clear legal failure by the lower court that would justify extraordinary intervention, the Supreme Court denied his petition.