IRANPOUR VS. WINNINGHAM (CHILD CUSTODY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

This is an appeal from a decree of divorce in a family-law matter. The appellant's fast track statement raised a single summary allegation of error—that the district court conducted trial without her counsel despite a continuance request—supported by three unexplained citations to authority. The court identified two independent grounds for affirmance. First, the appellant failed to present cogent argument. The court noted her briefing "misrepresents the nature of the hearing held below," observing that the transcripts in her own appendix from the October 13, 2022 hearing showed the district court did not conduct trial without counsel present; rather, because counsel failed to appear and did not demonstrate good cause for a continuance, the district court resolved the case on the briefs, arguments, and evidence presented during previous hearings. Because Iranpour failed to identify how the district court's conduct resulted in prejudice or to identify any specific errors in the decree, she failed to present any cogent argument. The court invoked Edwards v. Emperor's Garden Rest., 122 Nev. 317, 330 n.38, 130 P.3d 1280, 1288 n.38 (2006), for the proposition that the court need not consider claims that are not cogently argued or lack relevant authority. Second, to the extent the bare assertions could be construed as challenging prior findings and orders of the district court, the appellant's appendix was insufficient because it did not include the orders or transcripts related to those decisions. Applying Cuzze v. Univ. & Cmty. Coll. Sys. of Nev., 123 Nev. 598, 603, 172 P.3d 131, 135 (2007), the court presumed the missing portions of the record supported the district court's decision, and accordingly presumed those orders supported the decree. In a footnote, the court observed that the appellant's bare assertions and summary arguments did not satisfactorily meet the requirements of NRAP 3E(d)(1), and reminded counsel that future noncompliance with the Nevada Rules of Appellate Procedure may result in sanctions, citing NRAP 3E(i) regarding sanctions for failure to raise material issues or arguments in a fast track statement or response. The panel consisted of Judges Gibbons, Bulla, and Westbrook.

In plain language

Michelle Iranpour and Mark Winningham married in 2013 and had three minor children. In 2021, Iranpour filed for divorce. Over the course of the case, the district court held several hearings addressing contested issues including child custody, child support, spousal support, and how to divide the couple's shared property and debts. In July 2022, Iranpour's lawyer asked to postpone a scheduled trial in order to gather more information about alleged "marital waste" (wasting of shared assets) by Winningham. The court granted that request and rescheduled the trial for October 2022. Three days before the new trial date, Iranpour's lawyer again asked to postpone the trial, and the court set that request to be heard on the same day as the trial itself. According to the opinion, Iranpour's lawyer then did not show up either for the hearing on the postponement request or for the trial. Because the lawyer did not appear and did not show a good reason to delay, the district court declined to take any new evidence and said it would decide the divorce based on the briefs, arguments, and evidence already presented in the earlier hearings. On October 13, 2022, the court entered the divorce decree with its findings on custody, support, and property. On appeal, Iranpour made a single main argument: that the court held a trial without her lawyer present despite her requests. The Court of Appeals found that this description did not match the record. The transcripts Iranpour herself submitted showed the court did not hold a trial in her lawyer's absence; instead, because her counsel failed to appear and gave no good cause to postpone, the court resolved the case on the materials already in the record. The appeals court concluded that Iranpour never explained how the court's actions actually harmed her or pointed to any specific mistake in the decree, so she failed to present a developed legal argument the court could consider. The court also noted that, to the extent she was challenging the district court's earlier rulings, she had not included the necessary orders and transcripts in her appeal record. Under Nevada law, when parts of the record are missing, the appeals court assumes those missing materials support the lower court's decision. For these reasons, the court affirmed the divorce decree.