WEST VS. WEST, JR. (CHILD CUSTODY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court conducted a sua sponte jurisdictional review under NRAP 3(g) and identified a timing defect under NRAP 4(a). Citing AA Primo Builders v. Washington, 126 Nev. 578, 245 P.3d 1190 (2010), the court treated appellant's March 24, 2022 motion for reconsideration as a tolling motion to alter or amend within the meaning of NRAP 4(a)(4). Per NRAP 4(a)(4), a timely tolling motion terminates the 30-day appeal period, and a notice of appeal filed after such a motion but before the district court enters a written order resolving it is "of no effect." Because the reconsideration motion remained unresolved when the notice of appeal was filed, the court determined it lacked appellate jurisdiction and dismissed.

In plain language

This is a divorce case. After the district court denied Jacqueline West's request to set aside the divorce decree, she filed two things in succession: first, a motion asking the district judge to reconsider that denial, and second, a notice of appeal asking the Nevada Supreme Court to review the matter. The problem is the order in which those filings were made and what was still pending. Under Nevada's appellate rules, certain post-judgment motions - including a motion for reconsideration - pause, or "toll," the clock for filing an appeal. While that motion is pending in the district court, any notice of appeal filed in the meantime has no legal effect. The party must wait for the district court to issue a written order resolving the motion before filing (or refiling) the notice of appeal. Here, the docket showed that Jacqueline West filed a timely motion for reconsideration on March 24, 2022, and that motion had not yet been decided when she filed her notice of appeal. Because the notice was filed in that gap, the Nevada Supreme Court concluded it had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal and dismissed it.