ELFZAFtr A. DR0 1 .AiN CLE F r.c 

### IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEVADA

No. 83763 

# FILED OCT 11 2022 MARGARET REDDY; MOHAN THALAMARLA;AND MAX GLOBAL, INC., Appellants, vs. MEDAPPEAL, LLC, AN ILLINOIS LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, Respondent.

ORDER OFAFFIRMANCE

This is an appeal from a postjudgment award of attorney fees. Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County;Adriana Escobar, Judge.'

In a previous appeal, this court affirmed the district court's decision to grant summary judgment in respondent's favor. See Reddy v. Medappeal, LLC, No. 83253, 2022 WL 2197101(Nev. June 17, 2022) (Order of Affirmance). In doing so, we rejected appellants' argument that respondent needed to be licensed in Nevada as a limited liability company (LLC) in order to file the underlying lawsuit. Id. at *2. The basis for our conclusion was NRS 86.5483(1), which provides that "fflor the purposes of NRS 86.543 to 86.549, inclusive, the following activities do not constitute transactingbusinessin this State: [m]aintaining, defendingor settling any proceeding." Id. (quotingNRS 82.5483(1)). Inparticular, we reasonedthat Iplursuinga legalaction appearstofall squarelywithinthisdefinition, and appellants do not argue otherwise." Id.

'Pursuant to NRAP 34(f)(1), we have determined that oral argument is not warranted.

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- 32-°-.3)Now in this appeal, appellants do "argue otherwise." Namely,

they contend that "maintaining" and "commencing" have different meanings, and that respondent needed to be licensed in Nevada to "commence" the underlying action.2 We decline to consider this argument, both because it is barred bythe law-of-the-case doctrine andbecause it was not raised in district court.3 See Recontrust Co. v. Zhang, 130 Nev. 1, 7-8, 317 P.3d 814, 818 (2014) ("The law-of-the-case doctrine refersto a familyof rules embodying the general concept that a court involved in later phases ofa lawsuit should not re-open questions decided (i.e., established as law of thecase)bythat court or a higher onein earlierphases." (internalquotation marks omitted)); Hall v. State, 91 Nev. 314, 316, 535 P.2d 797, 799 (1975) ("The doctrine ofthe law of the case cannot be avoided by a more detailed and precisely focused argument subsequently made after reflection upon the previous proceedings."); see also OldAztec Mine, Inc. v. Brown, 97 Nev. 49, 52, 623 P.2d 981, 983 (1981) (recognizing that this court need not consider arguments raised for thefirst time on appeal). Because appellants

2Appellants also reiterate their argument that a corporation must be qualified to do business in Nevada as a prerequisite for filing a lawsuit in Nevada. While appellants' relied-upon authorities support the proposition that qualification is a prerequisite for a corporation actually doing business in Nevada, we are not persuaded that those authorities apply to the respondent LLC that undisputedly did not conduct anybusinessin Nevada.

3Inthis, we note that respondent relied on NRS 86.5483initsAugust 13, 2021, district court filing, such that appellants had multiple opportunities to contest respondent's position before doing so for the first time in this appeal. Despite the untimely argument, we deny respondent's request for sanctions under NRAP 38.

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OF NCVADA (0) I947A 4DID 2

### , Sr.J. Parraguirre

J. Herndon have not provided any other argument in support of reversing the district court's attorney fee award,4 we

ORDER thejudgment ofthe district court AFFIRMED.5

cc: Hon.Adriana Escobar, DistrictJudge Stephen E. Haberfeld, Settlement Judge The Wasielewski Law Firm, Ltd. The Ball Law Group LLC Eighth District Court Clerk

4

### To the extent that appellants are challenging the district court's October 25, 2021, order, we are not persuaded that reversal is warranted.

5

### The Honorable Mark Gibbons, Senior Justice, participated in the decision ofthis matter under a general order ofassignment.

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