SALAS VS. GUARDADO (CHILD CUSTODY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

This is a pro se appeal from a district court order denying a motion for relief under NRCP 60(b) issued by the Eighth Judicial District Court, Family Court Division. The appeal was subject to fast track procedures. After the clerk granted a telephonic extension to July 5, 2022, and after the court issued two subsequent orders (July 21, 2022, and August 22, 2022) extending the deadline and cautioning that noncompliance could result in dismissal as abandoned, the appellant failed to file the fast track statement or otherwise communicate with the court. The court dismissed the appeal as abandoned. The order does not reach the merits of the NRCP 60(b) ruling below.

In plain language

Ana Maria Salas filed an appeal challenging a family court ruling that denied her request to undo or get relief from an earlier order in a child custody case. In the Nevada Supreme Court, appellants in cases like this must file a "fast track statement" - a short document that tells the court what the appeal is about and why the lower court got it wrong. Salas did not file that statement. The court's clerk first gave her a telephonic extension until July 5, 2022. When that deadline passed with no filing, the court issued an order on July 21, 2022, giving her until August 4, 2022, and warning that failing to file could lead to dismissal. When she still did not file, the court issued another order on August 22, 2022, extending the deadline to September 6, 2022, and warning again that the appeal could be dismissed as abandoned. Salas never filed the statement and never communicated with the court. Concluding that she had abandoned her appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court dismissed it. The decision does not address the merits of her underlying child custody dispute or her NRCP 60(b) motion.