OPINION By the Court, PICKERING , J. : This is a homeowners' association (HOA) lien foreclosure dispute. The HOA did not give the first deed of trust holder the notice of default Nevada law requires to foreclose a superpriority lien. Despite this failure, the district court held that the lien foreclosure sale extinguished the first deed of trust and quieted title in favor of the foreclosure sale buyer's successor. The district court found the first deed of trust holder was not entitled...
OPINION By the Court, HARDESTY , J. : Intermountain Water Supply, Ltd., 1 holds water rights permits to transmit water to Lemmon Valley for municipal use and was granted an extension of time by the State Engineer in which to apply the water to beneficial use. Appellant Sierra Pacific Industries argues that the extension impermissibly allowed Intermountain to speculate the water, as Intermountain had no intention to put the water to beneficial use itself but was instead seeking a third-...
OPINION By the Court, PICKERING , J. : The issue presented by this appeal is whether the district court erred in ordering, under NRS 163.556, half of a wholly charitable trust's property "decanted" (i.e., appointed) into a newly created wholly charitable trust with the same purpose as the original charitable trust, to be administered solely by one trustee of the original trust, against the objection of co-trustees. Because the terms of the trust instrument require the unanimous...
OPINION By the Court, HARDESTY , J. : In this appeal we must determine whether Nevada's prevailing wage law requirements apply to none or part of a maintenance contract for an airport shuttle system. Generally, work performed under a maintenance contract is not subject to prevailing wage requirements, as it does not qualify as "public work" under NRS 338.010(15). However, the Labor Commissioner determined that because a portion of the work under the contract at issue in this case is...
OPINION By the Court, PICKERING , J. : This is an appeal from an order dismissing a litigation malpractice suit as time-barred. Nevada follows the rule that a litigation malpractice claim does not accrue, and the two-year statute of limitations in NRS 11.207(1) does not start to run, until the client's damages are no longer contingent on the outcome of an appeal. This case asks us to determine how this rule applies when, without seeking a stay of remittitur from this court, the client...
OPINION By the Court, STIGLICH J. : This medical malpractice suit requires us to determine whether a tooth injury is "directly involved" or "proximate" to a hysterectomy that required an endotracheal intubation to safely anesthetize the patient. NRS 41A.100(1)(d). We hold that it is not. Therefore, the patient was not required to attach a medical expert's affidavit to her complaint, so the district court erred in dismissing her suit. Accordingly, we reverse and remand. FACTS AND...
OPINION By the Court, PICKERING , J. : The Nevada workers' compensation system provides the exclusive remedy an employee has against his or her employer for a work-related injury. This case requires us to decide whether an injury arising from an employer's failure to provide medical assistance to an employee suffering a stroke arose out of and in the course of the employment. We hold that it did. Because an employee's sole remedy for such an injury is workers' compensation, we affirm...
OPINION PER CURIAM : The district court denied appellant Randolph Moore's postconviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus as procedurally barred without conducting an evidentiary hearing. We affirm. 2 Moore was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for his involvement in killing his friend Dale Flanagan's grandparents. See Flanagan v. State, 112 Nev. 1409, 1412, 930 P.2d 691 , 693 (1996). Moore filed the postconviction petition at issue in this case on September...
OPINION By the Court, CHERRY , J. : These consolidated original petitions for writs of mandamus challenge a district court order directing that the minor child be removed from her current adoptive foster home and placed with maternal relatives in Georgia based on a familial placement preference under NRS 432B.550(5). Because the placement order was entered after parental rights to the child were terminated, the parties dispute whether the statutory preference for placement with a family...
OPINION By the Court, STIGLICH , J. : Under the doctrine of issue preclusion, a Nevada court defers to a foreign court's final judgment resolving an issue between litigants if those same litigants previously litigated the same issue before the foreign court. However, the Nevada court does not defer to the foreign court's final judgment if it contravenes a final judgment previously entered by a Nevada court. The question to be resolved in this appeal is whether a Nevada district court's...
OPINION By the Court, GIBBONS , J. : This petition asks this court to determine whether the time to appeal outlined in the Justice Court Rules of Civil Procedure (JCRCP), specifically the time set forth in JCRCP 98, is jurisdictional and mandatory, therefore removing from the district court's jurisdiction an untimely appeal from justice court. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY This case arose originally as a small claims action in the Las Vegas Justice Court Township. Petitioner Peter...
OPINION By the Court, STIGLICH , J. : This medical malpractice suit requires us to reconsider under what circumstances a hospital can be vicariously liable for the alleged negligence of a doctor who works at the hospital as an independent contractor. The district court held that the hospital could not be liable, particularly when the doctor independently settled with the plaintiff and when the plaintiff signed forms stating that all doctors at the hospital are independent contractors. We...
OPINION By the Court, HARDESTY , J. : Water in Diamond Valley, Nevada, is over-appropriated and has been pumped at a rate exceeding its perennial yield for over four decades. In 2014, the Office of the State Engineer found that groundwater levels in southern Diamond Valley had fallen over 100 feet. A vested, senior water rights holder has asked the district court to order the State Engineer to curtail junior water rights in the Diamond Valley Hydrographic Basin No. 153 (Diamond Valley)...
OPINION By the Court, STIGLICH , J. : At issue in this appeal is the definition of "deadly weapon" within the context of battery. Daniel Rodriguez contends the jury instruction that led to his conviction for battery with the use of a deadly weapon was erroneous because the object he used to stab his victim — a screwdriver — is not designed to be inherently dangerous. We disagree because, within the context of battery, "deadly weapon" includes an instrument which, under the circumstances...
OPINION By the Court, HARDESTY , J. : NRS 41A.071 provides that a district court must dismiss a plaintiff's medical malpractice complaint if it is not accompanied by an expert affidavit. However, under NRS 41A.100(1), a plaintiff need not attach an expert affidavit for a res ipsa loquitur claim. In this appeal, we consider whether either statutory res ipsa loquitur or the common knowledge res ipsa loquitur doctrine provides an exception to the expert affidavit requirement for suit. We...
OPINION By the Court, GIBBONS , J. : In this original proceeding, we are asked to consider whether seven managers of a limited liability company (LLC) are subject to suit for personal negligence as individual tortfeasors or under an alter ego theory of liability. We conclude that NRS 86.371 is not intended to shield members or managers from liability for personal negligence. We further conclude that the corporate alter ego doctrine applies to LLCs. Accordingly, we grant the petition...
OPINION By the Court, HARDESTY , J. : In this opinion, we conduct an automatic review of a Southern Nevada Disciplinary Board hearing panel's recommendation that attorney R. Christopher Reade be suspended from the practice of law in Nevada for 30 months and be required to pay a $25,000 fine to the Clients' Security Fund, based on violating RPC 8.4(b) (misconduct). This court previously considered, and rejected, the panel's approval of a conditional guilty plea agreement between Reade and...
OPINION By the Court, HARDESTY J. : In this appeal, we are asked to determine whether, under the statutory definitions existing in 2012, the offense of statutory sexual seduction is a lesser-included offense of sexual assault when that offense is committed against a minor under 14 years of age. 1 Under the elements test, for an uncharged offense to be a lesser-included offense of the charged offense so that the defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on the lesser offense, all of...
OPINION By the Court, DOUGLAS , J. : This case addresses the tension in the law that arises where a party that served an NRCP 68 offer of judgment discovers facts, during the ten-day irrevocable period for acceptance of NRCP 68 offers, that would otherwise impact the offering party's decision to serve an NRCP 68 offer in the first instance. Specifically, we must determine whether claims that are brought by the offering party in a second action, and arise out of these facts that were...
OPINION By the Court, CHERRY , C.J. : We previously determined in Eureka County v. State Engineer (Eureka I), 131 Nev. ___, 359 P.3d 1114 (2015), that the State Engineer failed to rely upon substantial evidence in finding that Kobeh Valley Ranch, LLC (KVR) would be able to mitigate conflicts to prior water rights when approving KVR's applications to appropriate water. Specifically, we concluded that the State Engineer's "decisions must be supported by substantial evidence in the...
