MARIN VS. LEON (FAMILY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court dismissed the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. Under NRAP 4(a)(1), a notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days after service of written notice of entry of the order being appealed, with 3 additional days added under NRAP 26(c) when service is by mail. An untimely notice of appeal deprives the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. Healy v. Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft, 103 Nev. 329, 741 P.2d 432 (1987). Notice of entry of the 2009 decree of annulment and QDRO was served on June 4, 2009. Notices of entry for the December 13, 2023 order, the April 2, 2024 order, and the June 27, 2024 order vacating the July 2, 2024 hearing were served on December 13, 2023; April 2, 2024; and July 1, 2024, respectively. Appellant's February 3, 2025 notice of appeal was filed well outside the appeal period for each of those orders, and the docket reflected no intervening entry between July 1, 2024, and the filing of the notice of appeal. As to the April 10, 2012, stipulation and order waiving rights under the QDRO, the court held that appellant was not aggrieved and therefore lacked standing to appeal under NRAP 3A(a). As to the September 24, 2019, district court minutes, the court held that no appeal may be taken from district court minutes, citing Div. of Child & Fam. Servs. v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 120 Nev. 445, 451-52, 92 P.3d 1239, 1243-44 (2004). Collateral motions were resolved as follows: the motion to extend time to file the docketing statement was granted; the motion to correct a clerical error in the district court case number was denied as a matter for the district court; the motion to proceed in forma pauperis was denied as moot because the filing fee had been waived; and the motion to amend the caption to name the Nevada Public Employee's Retirement System, the Social Security Administration, the State of Nevada, and Elizabeth Giallanza as respondents was denied because they had not been properly joined below and were not properly substituted for a deceased defendant under NRAP 43.

In plain language

Amanda Marin tried to appeal a 2009 court decision that annulled her marriage and divided retirement benefits, along with several later orders the family court entered in her case. She filed her notice of appeal - the document that starts an appeal - on February 3, 2025. The Nevada Supreme Court explained that an appeal must be filed within a short window after the lower court's order is served (generally 30 days, plus 3 more days if served by mail). Because the orders Marin wanted to challenge were served years or many months before February 3, 2025, the deadline to appeal each of them had already passed. Without a timely notice of appeal, the Supreme Court has no power (no "jurisdiction") to review the case. The court also addressed two other categories of rulings Marin wanted reviewed. As to a 2012 stipulation and order in which rights under the retirement order were waived, the court said Marin was not "aggrieved" by it and therefore lacked standing - the legal right to challenge it on appeal. As to a September 24, 2019, set of district court minutes, the court said minutes of that kind are not the sort of order that can be appealed at all. The court also resolved several housekeeping motions: it granted Marin extra time to file her docketing statement; it denied her request to fix a clerical error in the district court case number (saying that request belongs in the district court); it denied as moot her request to proceed without paying fees because the filing fee had already been waived; and it denied her request to add the Nevada Public Employee's Retirement System, the Social Security Administration, the State of Nevada, and Elizabeth Giallanza as respondents, because they had not been properly made parties below and could not be substituted under the appellate rule governing deceased parties. Because of all of these problems, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal without reaching the merits of any of Marin's underlying complaints.