OUR NEV. JUDGES, INC. VS. DIST. CT. (MINTER)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court reviewed the petition under the familiar mandamus standard: mandamus issues to compel performance of a legal duty or to correct a manifest abuse of discretion or arbitrary or capricious action where no other adequate legal remedy exists. NRS 34.160; Walker v. Second Jud. Dist. Ct., 136 Nev. 678, 680, 476 P.3d 1194, 1196 (2020). The court situated the petition against its recent decision in Falconi v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 140 Nev., Adv. Op. 8, 543 P.3d 92 (2024), which recognized a constitutional right of access to family court proceedings and held EDCR 5.207, EDCR 5.212, and NRS 125.080 unconstitutional. Following Falconi, the petitioner moved for limited unsealing of the docket index. The motion was unopposed, but the district court denied it on the rationale that the SRCR did not apply because NRS Chapter 125 or NRS Chapter 126 governed. The Supreme Court identified three problems. First, the underlying matter appeared to be a child custody action under NRS Chapter 125C, a context in which the SRCR apply; the district court's reliance on NRS 125.110(2) (a divorce-record sealing provision) was misplaced because the matter was not a divorce action. Second, to the extent the district court treated the matter as a presumptively closed parentage action under EDCR 5.207, the court reiterated that EDCR 5.207 had been declared unconstitutional in Falconi, 543 P.3d at 99-100. Third, the sealing order failed to comply with SRCR 3(4), which requires specific written findings supporting a conclusion that a compelling privacy or safety interest outweighs the public interest in access, and it sealed the entire file in violation of SRCR 3(5)(c) ("[u]nder no circumstances shall the court seal an entire court file."). Concluding that the district court acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying the unopposed limited motion, the court granted the petition and directed issuance of the writ.

In plain language

Our Nevada Judges, Inc. (a media organization operated by Alexander Falconi) had been trying to obtain access to a family court case in Clark County. Earlier in 2024, in a decision called Falconi, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the public has a constitutional right of access to family court proceedings and struck down certain rules and a statute that had been used to keep those proceedings closed. The Supreme Court ordered the district court to vacate its denial of camera access in this case. After that win, Our Nevada Judges asked the district court for something narrower: to unseal just the docket index - the basic list of filings in the case - rather than the full case file. No one opposed the request. The district judge nevertheless denied it, taking the position that the Nevada Supreme Court's Rules Governing Sealing and Redacting Court Records (the "SRCR") did not apply because the case was governed by either NRS Chapter 125 (divorce) or NRS Chapter 126 (parentage). In its response to the writ petition, the district court characterized the matter as a parentage action that was presumptively closed. The Supreme Court disagreed. It explained that the case appeared to be a child custody matter under NRS Chapter 125C, where the Supreme Court's sealing rules do apply. The Court noted it was "concerning" that the district court had sealed the record under NRS 125.110(2) - a divorce-record provision - when the case was not a divorce. The Court also pointed out that the sealing order did not include the specific written findings the SRCR require to justify sealing, and that the SRCR flatly forbid sealing an entire court file. Because the district court had wrongly concluded the sealing rules did not apply and had sealed the entire file in violation of those rules, the Supreme Court found the denial of the unopposed motion to unseal was arbitrary and capricious. It granted the writ and ordered the district court to grant the motion to unseal the docket index.