Case Update (21 July 2023): Lee v. Hollings; remand for trial court to assess the child's best interests before deciding whether to permit Father to seek a U.S. passport for child

In an unpublished opinion, the Nevada Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, for further proceedings, the trial court's summary denial of a Father's request for a U.S. passport for his minor child. The parents are joint legal custodians of the child per a Nevada court order. The Father sought a U.S. passport simply because he might want to travel internationally with the child in the future.

The Father appealed the summary denial, and the Mother countered, arguing that without concrete travel scheduled, the issue was not ripe and therefore not justiciable. The Court stated, "[g]iven that the process of obtaining a passport is typically lengthy -particularly when a parent must seek a court order to do so- and that a parent's inability to obtain a passport for a child will often forestall international travel plans, the harm to [Father] arising from his inability to secure [Mother's] cooperation with respect to a passport for the child was sufficiently concrete to present an existing controversy that was ripe for judicial review." Therefore, the district court should have evaluated the Father's request for a passport by examining the best interest standard. It did not. The matter is remanded for the trial judge to do so.

*The appeal addressed other "non-international" issues, which were affirmed on appeal.