MCMURTRY VS. MCMURTRY (CHILD CUSTODY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court reviewed a jurisdictional challenge to a custody award entered after a contested hearing. Notice that the district court had set a hearing to consider "all matters pending" in the divorce litigation was adequate notice that undecided child custody would be addressed, because custody had not been finally determined and thus remained a pending matter. Both parties and counsel attended. Because appellant supplied neither the hearing transcript nor a substitute permitted by NRAP 10(c), the court presumed each party was given a full opportunity to be heard and that the record supported the district court's action. Nothing supported the contention that the district court acted without or in excess of its jurisdiction. See Matthews v. District Court, 91 Nev. 96, 531 P.2d 852 (1975); Turner v. Saka, 90 Nev. 54, 518 P.2d 608 (1974).

In plain language

In this short divorce appeal, the husband challenged a district court order that, among other things, awarded custody of the parties' minor child to the wife after a contested hearing. He argued that the court had no power to decide custody because, he said, he never received notice that custody would be considered at that hearing. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected the argument. The record showed that the husband, through his attorney, received timely notice that the court had set a hearing to consider "all matters pending" in the divorce. Because custody of the child had not yet been finally decided, it was one of the pending matters covered by that notice. Both parties and their attorneys attended the hearing. The husband did not provide the appellate court with a transcript of the hearing, or an approved substitute for one allowed by the appellate rules, so the court assumed each side had a full opportunity to be heard. On that record there was nothing to support the claim that the district court acted without or beyond its jurisdiction. The order was affirmed.