Full Opinion

Filed 11/2/26 Petrini v. Simon CA6 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT KATRINA P. PETRINI, H053456 (Santa Clara County Plaintiff and Appellant, Super. Ct. No. 25CV461524) v. SCOTT SIMON, et al., Defendants and Respondents. Plaintiff and appellant Katrina P. Petrini appeals the trial court’s denial of an ex parte application for an injunction. Petrini’s notice of appeal specifies that she is appealing from an order issued on June 30, 2025 (June 30 order), but in her opening brief she indicates that the “[p]recise [o]rder” being appealed is dated June 6, 2025. Because an order from June 6 is not mentioned in the notice of appeal, we are without jurisdiction to consider any such order, and because Petrini does not address the June 30 order in her opening brief, she fails to meet her appellate burden to show error. Accordingly, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND Petrini filed a complaint against defendants and respondents Scott Simon and Simon Group Consulting, Inc. (defendants) in March 2025 for wrongful termination and retaliation. She alleged that defendants terminated her employment while she was on approved family leave, and that defendants retaliated against her by, among other things, issuing an untrue and defamatory termination letter, filing complaints with the Employment Development Department to prevent her from receiving unemployment benefits, circulating a defamatory letter relating to her work experience, and filing additional cases against her and against her husband and his companies. She prayed for damages in the amount of $125,000,000. Petrini filed several ex parte applications for a preliminary injunction in the trial court. As is relevant here, Petrini filed a “Notice of Ex Parte Application for Injunction” on June 4, 2025. The trial court issued a written order denying the application on June 9, stating: “Plaintiff’s ex parte application for injunction is DENIED. Plaintiff failed to establish a liklihood [sic] of prevailing on the merits of the claim for which she seeks injunctive relief.” The order was filed on June 10. On June 25, 2025, Petrini filed a new document entitled “Plaintiff’s 4th Amended Notice of Ex Parte Application for Injunction.” The trial court denied this application in an order signed and filed on June 30, again stating: “Plaintiff’s ex parte application for injunction is DENIED. [P]laintiff failed to establish a liklihood [sic] of prevailing on [the] merits of the claim for which she seeks injunctive relief.” Petrini appealed “regarding the order denying Plaintiff’s 4th Amended Ex Parte Application for Injunction issued on June 30, 2025.” II. DISCUSSION Defendants argue that we lack jurisdiction to consider any order other than the one issued by the trial court on June 30, 2025, because only the June 30 order was identified by Petrini in the notice of appeal. Even if defendants had not raised the issue, we would be obligated to consider the question of our appellate jurisdiction sua sponte. (Wong v. Dong (2025) 112 Cal.App.5th 109, 114; Jennings v. Marralle (1994) 8 Cal.4th 121, 126.) Although we have jurisdiction generally to consider an appeal from an order refusing to grant an injunction (Code Civ. Proc., § 904.1, subd. (a)(6)), we agree with defendants that we are without jurisdiction here to consider an order not specified in the notice of appeal. 2 Furthermore, we are unable to undertake a review of the June 30 order because Petrini’s appellate brief provides no argument related to that order. A. Notice of Appeal A notice of appeal “is sufficient if it identifies the particular judgment or order being appealed.” (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.100(a)(2).) Further, “we must liberally construe a notice of appeal in favor of its sufficiency.” (In re J.F. (2019) 39 Cal.App.5th 70, 75 (J.F.); Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.100(a)(2).) Doing so “ ‘ “protect[s] the right of appeal if it is reasonably clear what [the] appellant was trying to appeal from, and where the respondent could not possibly have been misled or prejudiced.” ’ [Citations.]” (J.F., at pp. 75–76, italics omitted.) However, the rule favoring liberal construction of notices of appeal is subject to a well-established limitation. “ ‘ “[W]here several judgments and/or orders occurring close in time are separately appealable (e.g., judgment and order awarding attorney fees), each appealable judgment and order must be expressly specified—in either a single notice of appeal or multiple notices of appeal—in order to be reviewable on appeal.” ’ [Citations.] The policy of liberally construing a notice of appeal in favor of its sufficiency (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.100(a)(2)) does not apply if the notice is so specific it cannot be read as reaching a judgment or order not mentioned at all. [Citations.]” (Filbin v. Fitzgerald (2012) 211 Cal.App.4th 154, 173 (Filbin).) Stated differently, “ ‘[o]ur jurisdiction on appeal is limited in scope to the notice of appeal and the judgment or order appealed from.’ [Citation.] We have no jurisdiction over an order not mentioned in the notice of appeal. [Citation.]” (Faunce v. Cate (2013) 222 Cal.App.4th 166, 170.) “[W]hen a notice of appeal manifests a ‘ “clear and unmistakable” ’ intent to appeal only from one order, we cannot liberally construe the notice to apply to a different, omitted order. [Citations.]” (J.F., supra, 39 Cal.App.5th at p. 76; accord, Shiver, McGrane & Martin v. Littell (1990) 217 Cal.App.3d 1041, 1045 [“Despite the rule favoring liberal 3 interpretation of notices of appeal, a notice of appeal will not be considered adequate if it completely omits any reference to the judgment being appealed.”].) Here, Petrini’s notice of appeal indicates that she is appealing solely from “the order denying Plaintiff’s 4th Amended Ex Parte Application for Injunction issued on June 30, 2025.” In her opening brief on appeal, however, she addresses a different order. Under the heading “The Precise Order Being Appealed,” she states that she “appeals from the trial court’s formal order dated June 6, 2025, which denied Appellant’s Application for a Temporary Restraining Order and Order to Show Cause Re: Preliminary Injunction.” The record includes the June 30 order, but the clerk’s transcript contains no order issued or filed on June 6. Petrini’s reference to a June 6 order appears instead to denote the “Order on Ex Parte Motion for Injunction,” signed on June 9 and filed by the trial court on June 10, 2025.1 Petrini’s brief supports this notion since her record citations are to the June 9 order. Although similar in language and effect, it is clear that the June 9 and June 30 orders addressed distinct applications for injunctive relief, which Petrini filed on different days and were addressed separately by the trial court. And the record shows that Petrini must have understood that the applications were two discrete requests for injunctions, each of which was ultimately denied in its own order. Indeed, after the June 9 order was issued, Petrini stated in an email to defendants’ counsel that she would be “filing another injunction … on Monday, under the same terms that you already opposed.” Under these circumstances, the question becomes whether we may liberally construe the notice of appeal to embrace the June 9 order. We conclude that we cannot do so here because the notice of appeal is “ ‘clear and unmistakable’ ” (J.F., supra, 39 Cal.App.5th at p. 76); it specifies only the June 30 order and makes no mention of a 1 For clarity and consistency, we will refer to this order hereafter as the June 9 order. 4 June 6 order or the June 9 order, either by name or by description. But the June 9 order was separately appealable. (Code Civ. Proc., § 904.1, subd. (a)(6).) “If an order is appealable, an aggrieved party must file a timely notice of appeal from the order to obtain appellate review. [Citation.]” (Sole Energy Co. v. Petrominerals Corp. (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 212, 239; Filbin, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at p. 173.) A notice of appeal from one appealable order does not encompass other separately appealable orders. (Sole Energy, at p. 239.) In sum, we conclude that because Petrini did not appeal from the order denying her ex parte application issued on June 9, 2025, we have no jurisdiction to review that order or any order issued on June 6.2 B. June 30 Order As we have stated above, we understand Petrini’s discussion in her opening brief of a June 6 order to instead address the June 9 order denying one of her ex parte applications. The brief does not contain any argument explaining why the June 30 order should be reversed; in fact, there is no mention of the June 30 order anywhere in the brief. It is a “fundamental principle of appellate procedure that a trial court judgment is ordinarily presumed to be correct and the burden is on an appellant to demonstrate … that the trial court committed an error that justifies reversal of the judgment. [Citations.]” (Jameson v. Desta (2018) 5 Cal.5th 594, 608–609.) To meet this burden, an “appellant must present meaningful legal analysis supported by citations to authority and citations to facts in the record that support the claim of error. [Citations.]” (In re S.C. (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 396, 408.) “ ‘When an appellant fails to raise a point, or asserts it but fails to support it with reasoned argument and citations to authority, we treat the point as 2 Since Petrini did not file a reply brief, we are left without an explanation for the discrepancy between her notice of appeal and her opening brief. 5 waived.’ [Citation.]” (In re A.C. (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 661, 672.) Moreover, we must treat a party who acts as her own attorney like any other party and uniformly apply these rules of appellate procedure. (County of Sacramento v. Singh (2021) 65 Cal.App.5th 858, 861; Nwosu v. Uba (2004) 122 Cal.App.4th 1229, 1247.) Because Petrini has not met her burden of demonstrating reversible error through reasoned argument directed to the only order identified in the notice of appeal, we deem any challenge to the June 30 order to be waived and affirm the order on this ground. We need not address any other arguments raised by the parties. III. DISPOSITION The trial court’s June 30, 2025 order is affirmed. Defendants shall recover their costs on appeal. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278(a)(1).) 6 ______________________________________ Adams, J. WE CONCUR: ____________________________________ Greenwood, P. J. ____________________________________ Danner, J. H053456 Petrini v. Simon et al.