Court Opinion

ID: 9593058
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:19:11.55894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:14:18.906284
License: Public Domain

Rose, J.,
with whom Springer, C. J., joins,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
This court properly declined to address the application of the federal Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act since the issue was not raised below. Although I agree that the district court erred in concluding that appellants are limited to a six-year period of recovery, in my view, NRS 125B. 050(3) should not be applied to extend their recovery to July 1, 1981.
It appears to me that NRS 125B.050(3) eliminates the period of limitation beginning from the day the provision took effect, i.e., July 1, 1987. In other words, payments that accrue on or after July 1, 1987, are not subject to any period of limitation. On the other hand, payments that accrued before July 1, 1987, remain subject to the six-year period of limitation prescribed by NRS 11.190(l)(a).
This application of NRS 125B.050(3) is in line with our case law holding that the statute of limitations begins to run against an installment payment when that payment becomes due. See Gibbs v. Giles, 96 Nev. 243, 607 P.2d 118 (1980); Bongiovi v. Bongiovi, 94 Nev. 321, 579 P.2d 1246 (1978). The period of limitation that governed prior to July 1, 1987, was six years. See NRS 11.190(1)(a). As this limitation period applied as soon as each payment became due, it remained the applicable limitation period for all payments that came due before July 1, 1987. Applying NRS 125B.050(3) in this manner is consistent with our earlier holding that NRS 125B. 050(3) does not apply retroactively. See McKellar v. McKellar, 110 Nev. 200, 203, 871 P.2d 296, 298 (1994). Additionally, this application of the statute is faithful to our conclusion in McKellar that “[i]n amending NRS 125B.050, the legislature intended to eliminate the statute of limitations for actions to collect child support payments, beginning on the effective date of the amendment.” Id. (emphasis added). Finally, applying the six-year statute of limitations to payments that became due before July 1, 1987, is equitable to obligors and obligees; it imposes no hardship on either since they were on notice at the time the payments became due that the period of limitation was six years.
Accordingly, I would remand these cases for the district court to apply NRS 125B.050(3) to the recovery of child support payments that accrued on and after July 1, 1987, only, and to recalculate the collectible child support arrears.