LIPATA VS. RAZO (CHILD CUSTODY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court applied the settled rule that it "may only consider appeals authorized by statute or court rule." Brown v. MHC Stagecoach, LLC, 129 Nev. 343, 345, 301 P.3d 850, 851 (2013). Identifying the order on appeal as a post-judgment order granting a motion to change venue, the court found no statutory or rule-based authorization for appellate review of such an order. Lacking jurisdiction, the court dismissed the appeal sua sponte on initial docketing review and took no action on the pending transcript request.

In plain language

This case involves a child custody dispute between Lou Matthew Lipata and Jocelin Sandra Razo. After the trial court issued its judgment, the trial court entered an order moving the case to a different county - what lawyers call a "change of venue." Mr. Lipata, representing himself without an attorney, tried to appeal that order to the Nevada Supreme Court. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the change of venue was right or wrong. Instead, it dismissed the appeal because of a threshold problem: the court can only hear appeals that a Nevada statute or court rule specifically allows. The Supreme Court concluded that no statute or court rule allows an appeal from a post-judgment order granting a motion to change venue, so it had no power - no "jurisdiction" - to consider the appeal at all. Because the appeal was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, the court also declined to act on Mr. Lipata's September 22, 2023, request for transcripts.