My difficulties with the Clark County Family Courts began in 2013. After many years of dysfunction, I filed for divorce in January, 2013. My divorce was finalized later that month and I moved to my new home one month thereafter, looking forward to the prospect of parenting my daughters in a more peaceful environment. However, unknown to me Jane had begun quietly focusing her attention on relocating with our daughters.

Within days of the divorce being finalized, Jane terminated her full-time job with her now-attorney. With her sudden drop in income, she further sought and was granted WIC benefits. In April, 2013, I received a letter from Jane’s attorney informing me of her intent to relocate with the children to Sweden. Jane claimed in initial documents that she simply wanted to move for a change of scenery, but later changed her justification to a need to work in the legal field in Sweden.

After an initial hearing in June, 2013, a custody trial was scheduled for September, 2013, in which Judge Gonzalez of the 8th District Court ultimately approved Jane’s motion to relocate, despite documented cases of willful violation of visitation orders, lack of change in circumstances and no solid justification to warrant the move.

Throughout the hearing, the judge made contradicting statements about how he felt about Jane’s proposed relocation. I mentioned in my previous post that he called legal counsel into his chambers to lean on my attorney in an effort to coerce me into allowing the relocation. However, he was more candid in a statement made early in the hearing. Quoting from testimony, in an analysis of the degree of honor in Jane’s actions, the judge stated:

The quality of the children’s lives without their father would not be improved, while [Jane’s] motives may not necessarily be dishonorable, she certainly has no concern from taking the children away.

Regardless, the judge was careful to find ways to check as many legal boxes as possible, albeit by relying on shaky evidence. While the foremost consideration in making any determination in Family Court is currently the Best Interest standard, the judge simply relied on the requirements set forth in Schwartz v. Schwartz, 107 Nev. 378, 812 P2.d 1268 (1991) to make his decision.

He went further to make this case of international relocation fit in with case law pertaining to domestic relocation. In court the judge states:

Allowing a relocation which has been allowed by District Courts and sustained or affirmed by the Supreme Court to move back east, the non-custodial parent, for the most part is relegated to extended summer visitation and winter break. If you’re on a three day weekend, flying from New Jersey or Pennsylvania, you’re essentially, you know, with the flight, the travel time, you essentially eat up the weekend, on a three day weekend, in the travel time. So, it’s really not feasible, if you’re living back east, to have, yo know, a holiday schedule which would allow for your typical three day weekends, for Labor Day, for Martin Luther King, President’s Day, those days that you have the three day weekend. Its’ really not feasible.

And when you look at the cost of that, in conjunction with the limited time that the children would actually spend with the non-custodial parent, it appears that the time frame that essentially would be exercised would be an extended summer and winter break. Again, that type of visitation schedule has been sustained by – or affirmed by the Nevada Supreme Court, that this is adequate visitation, because they have actually affirmed those decisions going back east. And that’s really one of the cruxes in this case.

A flight to the east coast from Nevada takes 5 hours and the time change is 3 hours, whereas a flight to Sweden takes roughly 22 hours, with a 9 hour time zone change.

When pressed by Jane’s attorney, the judge made several “findings of fact” in order to make my appeal more difficult. Quoting from the transcripts, the judge contradicted his earlier statement regarding the best interest of the kids, stating:

Again, the Court is making a finding that the life of the children will improve, with greater interaction with family members [grandparents], more family members to support [grandparents], as far as assisting with the children and their needs.

Thus, the judge found that the best interest of my kids would be served by having them closer to their grandparents than to their father. This runs contrary to a whole host of psychological and sociological studies, which generally show that children do best with regular contact with both parents.

In my next blog post I’ll analyze the Schwartz factors and explain the opposing arguments made by both Jane and I to show the basis, or lack thereof, in making the determination in this case.