JENSEN VS. PLEDGER (CHILD CUSTODY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The Nevada Supreme Court dismissed this appeal for failure to pay the filing fee required by NRAP 3(e) and failure to respond to the court's notice directing payment or compliance with NRAP 24 within 14 days. The court invoked NRAP 3(a)(2) as authority for dismissal. The order does not reach any substantive issues in the underlying child custody matter from the Eighth Judicial District Court, Family Division (Hon. Charles J. Hoskin).

In plain language

This is a brief administrative dismissal, not a ruling on the merits of any custody dispute. When someone files an appeal with the Nevada Supreme Court, they generally must pay a filing fee or, if they cannot afford it, follow a procedure (under a rule called NRAP 24) to ask the court to waive the fee because of financial hardship. In this case, the appellant, Ryan Michael Jensen, filed his appeal but did not pay the filing fee. The court sent him a notice the same day his appeal was docketed, telling him he had 14 days either to pay the fee or to follow the waiver procedure, and warning him that if he did neither, the appeal would be thrown out. According to the court, Jensen did not pay the fee and did not respond to the notice. The court therefore dismissed the appeal. Because the dismissal is procedural, the court did not consider any of the underlying child custody issues between Jensen and Devyn Nicol Pledger.