Justia Nevada Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Appellant was twice convicted in municipal courts of riding a motorcycle without wearing proper headgear. Appellant appealed, seeking a trial de novo. The prosecution subsequently dismissed the charges with prejudice. The district court issued remittiturs, returning the cases to the municipal courts. Thereafter, Appellant filed a motion for his attorney fees and court costs, arguing that Nevada's helmet law is unconstitutionally indeterminate and that his ticketing and prosecution were without probable cause and malicious, entitling him to recover attorney fees as "costs of the action" under Nev. Rev. Stat. 176.115. The district court denied the motion. The Supreme Court dismissed Appellant's appeals, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to hear Appellant's cases where, because they originated in the municipal courts and were heard on appeal by the district court, the district court's appellate jurisdiction was final. View "Stilwell v. City of N. Las Vegas" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with trafficking, possession for sale, and possession of controlled substances. Appellant filed a motion to suppress the evidence, arguing that the warrantless search of his car that uncovered illegal drugs was prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. The search was conducted after a highway patrol officer saw Appellant run a red light and followed him into a parking lot to issue him a ticket. While the ticket was being processed, a drug detection dog was summoned, and the dog alerted for the presence of drugs in Appellant's car. The district court concluded that for a warrantless automobile search to pass muster under Nevada law, both probable cause and exigency beyond the exigency inherent in a car's ready mobility must be shown. Because the State did not prove exigent circumstances beyond the car's mobility, the district court suppressed the evidence. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) exigency is not a separate requirement of the automobile exception to the constitutional warrant requirement; and (2) the drug detection dog's alert provided probable cause to search Appellant's car. Remanded. View "State v. Lloyd" on Justia Law

Appellant filed a request with the Administrative office of the Courts (AOC) pursuant to Nevada's Public Records Act (Act) seeking access to certain records related to Nevada's Foreclosure Mediation Program. The AOC agreed to provide some of the documents in redacted or statistical form but refused to disclose other information as either privileged or confidential. Appellant subsequently filed a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel the AOC to produce all of the requested documents in their original form. The district court denied the petition, concluding (1) the AOC was a judicial entity and thus not subject to the Act; and (2) the requested documents were otherwise confidential as a matter of law. The Supreme Court affirmed without deciding whether the Act applied to the AOC, as the records in question were confidential as a matter of law. View "Civil Rights for Seniors v. Admin. Office of Courts" on Justia Law

Husband and Wife had four children when Wife filed a complaint for divorce. During the trial proceedings, Wife, who was representing herself, failed to comply with several of Husband's discovery requests. Subsequently, the district court concluded that discovery sanctions were warranted and entered a default divorce decree. The decree awarded the parties joint legal and joint physical custody of the children, set forth child support, and divided the parties' community assets and liabilities. The Supreme Court reversed the default divorce decree, holding (1) it is not permissible to resolve child custody and child support claims by default as a sanction for discovery violations; (2) as for division of community property and debt, a court must make an equal disposition as statutorily required before entering a default; and (3) regarding all other claims, a court must first make a through evaluation and express findings of whether less severe sanctions are appropriate, which the court did not do in this case. Remanded. View "Blanco v. Blanco" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of attempted burglary. The following year, Appellant was honorably discharged from probation. More than a decade later, Appellant filed a petition for a writ of coram nobis seeking relief from the judgment of conviction because his trial counsel did not inform him of the immigration consequences of his plea. The State argued that the writ of coram nobis was abolished by statute. The district court construed Appellant's petition to be a post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus and denied relief. At issue on appeal was whether the writ of coram nobis exists in Nevada. The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's decision to deny the petition, holding (1) the common-law writ of coram nobis is available in Nevada only for petitioners who are no longer in custody on the judgment being challenged and may be granted only to address errors of fact outside the record that were not known to the court entering the judgment, could not have been raised earlier, and affect the validity and regularity of the decision itself in that they would have precluded the judgment from being rendered; and (2) the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim raised by Appellant was not within that limited scope. View " Trujillo v. State" on Justia Law

Respondent, a sitting justice of the peace with twenty-three years of creditable Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) service, retired as justice of the peace and took office as a district court judge. As a district court judge, Respondent was employed by a PERS-eligible employer when he applied for retirement benefits. PERS staff determined that, consistent with Nev. Rev. Stat. 286.541(2), Respondent could not retire from PERS while employed in a PERS-eligible position and therefore denied Respondent's application. The PERS Board denied Respondent's appeal. The district court reversed and ordered PERS to pay Respondent retirement payments, concluding that PERS could and should have equitably excused Respondent's noncompliance with section 286.541 and allowed him to reverse his eventual election to transfer from PERS to the Judicial Retirement System. The Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the PERS Board's determination, holding that the district court erred in its interpretation of the controlling statutes and in reviewing the PERS Board's decision de novo, rather than deferentially. View "Nev. Pub. Employees Ret. Bd. v. Smith" on Justia Law

Respondents, the county board of county commissioners and county treasurer, attempted to provide refunds to property owners who paid excessive property taxes due to improper appraisals. To cover the cost of the refunds, Respondents withheld amounts from property tax distributions made to various county taxing units that had previously benefited from the excessive property taxes. Appellant, one of the taxing units from which distribution amounts were withheld, petitioned for a writ of mandamus compelling Respondents to cease withholding portions of the distributions. The district court denied relief. The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's order denying extraordinary relief, holding that Respondents were within their authority to withhold distributions, and because the manner in which they withheld distributions was discretionary, the political question doctrine precluded judicial review. View "N. Lake Tahoe Fire Prot. Dist. v. Washoe County Bd. of County Comm'rs" on Justia Law

Following a dispute over unpaid property assessments, a homeowners association, management company, and an assessment collection company (collectively, the HOA) sold McKnight Family, LLP's properties at a trustee sale. McKnight filed a complaint against the HOA and the purchaser of one of the properties, alleging several claims, including one for quiet title. McKnight also filed a motion to set aside the sale based on improper notice. The district court denied McKnight's motion to set aside the sale, determining that the HOA properly served McKnight. The court then dismissed McKnight's complaint, determining that, pursuant to Nev. Rev. Stat. 38.310, the claims should have been submitted to a form of alternative dispute resolution before McKnight could bring the claims in district court. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding that the district court (1) correctly determined that most of McKnight's claims were subject to section 38.310; and (2) erred in dismissing McKnight's claim for quiet title because that claim was not subject to section 38.310. The Court also reversed the district court's order denying the motion to set aside the trustee's sale, concluding that the court should reconsider the motion once it resolves the quiet title claim on remand. View "McKnight Family, LLP v. Adept Mgmt. Servs., Inc." on Justia Law

Among the issues in this appeal was whether a juvenile court has authority under Nev. Rev. Stat. 62C.230(1)(a) to dismiss a delinquency petition and refer a juvenile for informal supervision without the written approval of the district attorney. In this case, the State filed a delinquency petition alleging that Respondent, a juvenile, committed unlawful acts that would be felony and gross misdemeanor charges if committed by an adult. The juvenile court dismissed the State's petition without the district attorney's written approval and referred Respondent to the probation office for informal supervision. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) section 62C.230(1)(a) grants the juvenile court the authority to dismiss a petition and refer a juvenile for informal supervision only if the district attorney gives written approval for placement of the juvenile under informal supervision where the acts alleged in the petition would be a felony or gross misdemeanor if committed by an adult; and (2) the juvenile court is limited by the provisions of Nevada Revised Statutes Title 5 when exercising its authority to carry out its duties in overseeing juvenile justice matters. Remanded. View "In re Steven P." on Justia Law

Century Steel and Pacific Coast Steel (PCS) filed third- and fourth-party complaints and amended complaints against Converse Professional Group after being brought into commercial construction litigation as defendants. PCS and Century, subcontractors whose work Converse had inspected, sought to recover damages that allegedly arose from the deficient performance of Converse's services. Converse filed motions to dismiss the complaints, asserting that the initial pleadings were void ab initio and could not be cured by the amended pleadings because PCS and Century failed to file an attorney affidavit and expert report that Nev. Rev. Stat. 11.258 requires for actions involving nonresidential construction. The district court denied the motions after expressing concern that Nev. Rev. Stat. 11.259 could require dismissing the entire litigation. The Supreme Court granted Converse's petition for a writ of mandamus to compel the dismissal of the amended pleadings, holding (1) PCS's and Century's pleadings subjected them to section 11.258's attorney affidavit and expert report requirements; and (2) the Otak Nevada, LLC v. Eighth Judicial District Court court correctly construed section 11.259(1) as requiring the dismissal of an amended pleading, rather than the entire action, that followed an initial pleading that was filed without adhering to section 11.258. View "In re CityCenter Constr. & Lien Litig." on Justia Law