N.U. v. C.U. CA2/6

Filed 10/28/26 N.U. v. C.U. CA2/6 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION SIX N.U., 2d Civ. No. B342477 (Super. Ct. No. 22FL01415) Respondent, (Santa Barbara County) v. C.U., Appellant; CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES, Respondent. THE COURT:* N.U. (wife) petitioned for dissolution while her husband C.U. (husband) served a prison sentence for felony spousal * Cody, P. J., Yegan, J., Baltodano, J. battery.1 Trial on support, custody, and property division occurred after his release. Husband now appeals the judgment and several pre-trial orders, including one declaring him a vexatious litigant. He contends the family court violated his due process rights and decided all contested issues erroneously. The appeal is frivolous. We will affirm but deny wife’s request for sanctions for reasons stated below. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Husband and wife met online. Wife immigrated from Russia to the United States to marry husband in 2012. She gave birth to their three children between 2013 and 2018. The marriage was troubled for its duration. A jury convicted husband of corporal injury to a spouse, dissuading a witness, assaults with force likely to cause great bodily injury, contempt of court, battery, and false imprisonment in 2019. It found true the allegation of a prior battery conviction relating to wife in 2015. The court sentenced him to an aggregate prison term of ten years and eight months. It granted both a criminal protective order (CPO) and a domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) prohibiting contact with his wife and children until 2027. We reduced his sentence by a year but affirmed the convictions. (People v. [C.U.] (Sept. 30, 2020, B299732) [nonpub. opn.].) Wife petitioned for dissolution in 2022. Husband promised a costly and acrimonious legal battle in a prison letter to wife’s counsel. He wrote, in part: “I appreciate your help for a quick and peaceful resolution for the sake of 3 little children. We don’t have any family or relatives in the U.S. We’ll be very grateful to you. [¶] On the other hand, if you do anything against your or 1 To protect wife’s privacy, we refer to the parties by their initials. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.90(a)(1), (b)(11).) 2 your father’s Christian faith, particularly if you are taking any part in the dark deeds of corrupt, faithless, racist, shameless, sexist, feminist prosecutors and attorneys, or if you take money from [N.U.] or me, or if anything happens to my children, property or belongings, I assure you it won’t go unresponded. [¶] The least I can do is make it very costly for you with the complaints, lawsuits, and appeals and expose your face (next to prosecutors) to every possible venue. [N.U.] will get the same responses separately. . . . I don’t have money, but I have the basic skills and resources to do all those and more. All the Prosecutors and Judges know that.” Husband was released from prison in October of 2023. Husband kept this promise. He sued wife for defamation and filed baseless requests for orders, requests for judicial notice, motions, and objections. He subpoenaed records from his children’s elementary school, served self-styled demands for his wife to attend hearings and “produce” his children, sought to disqualify wife’s counsel, requested sole custody while in prison, and asked the court to appoint counsel to represent him and the children separately at wife’s expense. Husband refiled whatever the court denied, quashed, or overruled. At the same time, he refused to respond to wife’s narrowly drafted interrogatories and demands for production, requiring the court to compel his response. It declared husband a vexatious litigant before trial and entered a prefiling order pursuant to the vexatious litigant statute. (Code Civ. Proc.2 §§ 391-391.8.) It granted wife’s motion to dismiss the defamation action under the anti-SLAPP statute. (§ 425.16.) 2 All further statutory cites are to the Code of Civil Procedure unless otherwise stated. 3  Trial on support, custody, visitation, and property division took place over six days. Husband represented himself and filed a 138-page trial brief. Three witnesses testified: wife, husband, and Sergiy Tarasenko, husband’s friend and pastor. Husband’s narrative testimony occupied much of trial. Much of that, in turn, consisted of him arguing the wrongfulness of his domestic violence convictions. He blamed wife’s delusional and paranoid behavior for any domestic violence in the household and noted she had recanted her accusations against him during his criminal case. Tarasenko testified briefly to corroborate husband’s narrative but did not return for cross-examination when trial reconvened. By the final day of trial, the court had grown exasperated by husband’s repeated attempts to use inadmissible evidence to impeach wife. “I guess it doesn’t do me any good to explain to you again, because I think I’ve done it maybe 10 or 20 times, [C.U.],” the court admonished him. “When I sustain an objection and you argue about it, it just takes up your time. I just want to be sure you understand that.” It sustained over 60 evidentiary objections made by wife’s counsel at trial. The court found in wife’s favor on all issues. It considered her testimony “very creditable” and “persuasive.” It found Tarasenko “very obviously biased” and noted he refused to comply with the court’s order to return for cross-examination. The court wrote as follows about husband’s testimony: “He testified for hours, days. The Court listened and watched him throughout his testimony. He is bright, articulate, and well educated. He was consistently very contentious and acrimonious toward [wife]; it was neither called for nor was there any viable evidence to support it. He made many claims against her but there was no substantial evidence presented that supported it. His testimony was often argumentative. His testimony related to 4 separate property claims was considered and rejected because he did not meet the tracing rules. He did not prove by a preponderance of evidence that any property was solely his separate property or that any community property had a separate property component.” The court concluded husband’s demeanor “was not persuasive” and the “he was not a creditable witness.” The court calculated guideline child support of $991 per month owed by husband based on his ability to earn minimum wage from the time of his release from prison. It offset husband’s arrears by the sum owed to him as an equalizing payment on the family home. This resulted in no payment from one party to the other. The court denied spousal support to husband and awarded wife 100 percent of her retirement and pension accounts under Family Code section 4324.5. It also denied husband’s request to enforce a purported premarital agreement signed by wife shortly after she arrived in the United States. The final statement of decision included a Propertizer dividing the community’s property and appointed an expert to prepare a Qualified Domestic Relations Order. The parties were found responsible for their own attorney’s fees and costs. The CPO and DVRO remained in effect. The court entered judgment of dissolution in December of 2024. We denied husband’s petition for a writ of mandate challenging the CPO and DVRO in July of 2025. ([C.U.] v. Superior Court (July 16, 2025, B347514) [denial order].) DISCUSSION Husband appeals dozens of purported errors relating to the family court’s findings on custody, support, and property division. Most of his contentions challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting these findings or matters within the court’s discretion. 5 We discuss those contentions that are deserving of closer scrutiny. Those not discussed were considered and rejected. 3 Due Process Contentions Husband contends the court denied him procedural due process on many occasions before and during trial. Three notable examples from his brief are representative of these: (1) when the court clerk “deceived” him about the start date of trial; (2) when the court refused to continue several hearings and trial dates when he was suffering from symptoms of depression and PTSD; and (3) when it denied his request to further cross-examine wife. Whether husband received adequate due process is a question of law we review independently. (In re Marriage of D.S. & A.S. (2023) 87 Cal.App.5th 926, 933.) “The failure to accord a party litigant his constitutional right to due process is reversible per se, and not subject to the harmless error doctrine.” (In re Marriage of Carlsson (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 281, 293.) The record does not support these contentions. Wife petitioned for dissolution in July of 2022. The court continued the case management conference to accommodate delays caused by husband’s incarceration. After husband’s release, the court continued the conference to January of 2024 so 3 We deny the following: husband’s “request to reconsider order denying to comply with the order to augment the record” dated October 7, 2025; his request for findings dated October 22, 2025; his requests for judicial notice dated October 22, 2025 and March 9, 2026; his requests to take evidence on appeal dated October 22, 2025, March 9, 2026, and October 12, 2026; his motion at oral argument for reconsideration of our September 16, 2026 order denying his request for judicial notice; and his “requests for reliefs” dated October 16, 2026. 6 he could conduct discovery. This was moved to March of 2024 so the parties could finish their financial disclosures. The court scheduled the September 18, 2024 trial date six months in advance. Husband asserts the court “deceived” him about the start date. This is based on an email from the court clerk in which she opined trial might not start on time because of an ongoing trial in another case. The court explained to husband that trial could begin the next morning, i.e., September 19, because evidence had closed in the other case. What husband perceives as “deception” was, in fact, a busy trial court managing its calendar. We view the court’s denial of husband’s continuance requests against the backdrop of a case both lengthened and complicated by his vexatious filings. The record shows the court did not rush him through trial. Wife’s evidence was completed on the first day of trial on September 19. Husband examined his only witness and began his own direct testimony during the morning session of September 20. The court allowed him to continue during part-day sessions on September 25, October 2, October 9, and October 15, and indulged his frequent digressions into matters outside the scope of the proceedings. Lastly, the court gave husband considerable latitude before halting his cross-examination of wife. This happened only after the court sustained several meritorious objections to husband’s questions related to matters decided long ago in his criminal case. No due process violation occurred. Vexatious Litigant Order Appellant contends the family court erred in declaring him a vexatious litigant before trial. We conclude otherwise. A court may enter, on its own motion or the motion of any party, “a prefiling order which prohibits a vexatious litigant from 7 filing any new litigation” in propria persona without first obtaining permission from the presiding judge. (§ 391.7, subd. (a).) As relevant here, a vexatious litigant includes any person who “repeatedly files unmeritorious motions, pleadings, or other papers, conducts unnecessary discovery, or engages in other tactics that are frivolous or solely intended to cause unnecessary delay.” (§ 391, subd. (b)(3).) “‘“A court exercises its discretion in determining whether a person is a vexatious litigant. [Citation.] We uphold the court’s ruling if it is supported by substantial evidence. [Citations.] On appeal, we presume the order declaring a litigant vexatious is correct and imply findings necessary to support the judgment.” [Citation.]’” (In re Marriage of Rifkin & Carty (2015) 234 Cal.App.4th 1339, 1346.) Moreover, “appellant must present meaningful legal analysis supported by citations to authority and citations to facts in the record that support the claim of error.” (In re S.C. (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 396, 408.) The rules of appellate procedure apply to appellant even though he is representing himself on appeal. (McComber v. Wells (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 512, 523.) Husband fails to meet his burden of showing the ruling was an abuse of discretion. The family court commented that “[Husband’s] 5th RFO, currently pending before the Court, is a good example of [his] misuse of the Court process: he recycles each and every request for relief brought in his 4 earlier RFOs, and seeks the Court’s ruling (again) on each of those already rejected requests, in direct defiance of the limitations on such relief posed by Code Civ. Proc. § 1008 (motions for reconsideration) and embodied by the legal doctrine of collateral estoppel (issue preclusion).” The record supports the family court’s assessment and findings. 8  Anti-SLAPP Ruling Husband contends the family court erred when it struck his defamation cause of action under the anti-SLAPP statute. (§ 425.16, subd. (b)(1).) He argues wife’s allegedly defamatory statements did not qualify as protected activity. We review the court’s anti-SLAPP ruling de novo. (Oasis West Realty, LLC v. Goldman (2011) 51 Cal.4th 811, 820.) As a threshold issue, wife argues the order is not reviewable because husband did not appeal the June 12, 2024 order granting the anti-SLAPP motion “within the proper timeline and procedure.” She does not cite which “timeline” or “procedure” applies. We assume she refers to the 60-day deadline following notice of entry. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.104(a)(1)(A)&(B).) The record contains the June 12 minute order and reporter’s transcript but does not confirm husband received notice of entry. We conclude the December 3, 2024 notice of appeal is timely because husband filed it within 180 days of the order’s entry in the permanent minutes. (Id., rule 8.104(a)(1)(C), (c)(2).) We will affirm the ruling. Wife made the allegedly defamatory statements in a 2022 email to friends describing husband’s abuse. We agree these statements arose from a protected activity because they were connected to an official proceeding, i.e., the criminal and DVRO proceedings then pending against husband. We also agree husband failed to show a probability of prevailing on his claim because wife’s statements were subject to the litigation privilege. (See Olive Properties, L.P. v. Coolwaters Enterprises, Inc. (2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 1169, 1174 [if the defendant shows challenged claim arises from a protected activity, the plaintiff must then establish a probability of prevailing on the claim].) 9  Family Code Section 3044 Presumption Husband contends the family court erred when it denied his request to modify the DVRO and to award him sole legal and physical custody of the children. He argues the court misapplied Family Code section 3044’s presumption that awarding custody to a perpetrator of domestic violence would be detrimental to the children’s best interest. (Fam. Code, § 3044.) We review custody and visitation orders for abuse of discretion. (In re Marriage of Burgess (1996) 13 Cal.4th 25, 32.) No abuse of discretion occurred. “[A] party seeking to modify a permanent custody order can do so only if he or she demonstrates a significant change of circumstances justifying a modification.” (Montenegro v. Diaz (2001) 26 Cal.4th 249, 256.) The court denied husband’s similar request to modify the DVRO six months before trial because he failed to rebut the section 3044 presumption. Husband argues, among other things, that he rebutted the presumption at trial by introducing evidence that he had been released from prison, completed probation, attended required classes, and enrolled in law school since the DVRO was issued in 2022. The court properly admitted evidence about husband’s convictions and the CPO in effect at the time of trial. It expressly found husband’s testimony lacked credibility. The abuse of discretion standard of review precludes us from reweighing the evidence – especially by reassessing the credibility of witnesses testifying in the court’s presence. (See Jennifer K. v. Shane K. (2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 558, 579 [“As the exclusive judge of the credit and weight to be given to the testimony of a witness, the trier of fact may reject the testimony of a witness even if, as is certainly not the case here, it is uncontradicted.”].) 10  Family Code Section 4324.5 Domestic Violence Presumptions Husband contends the court erred when it applied Family Code section 4324.5’s presumptions when denying his request for spousal support and awarding wife her community property investment account. We again disagree. A court must consider a spouse’s “documented . . . history of domestic violence” when awarding spousal support in dissolution proceedings. (Fam. Code, § 4320, subd. (i).) It may not award spousal support to the perpetrator if they were convicted of a domestic violence crime within five years of the petition for dissolution. (Id., § 4324.5, subd. (a)(1).) The injured spouse is also entitled to “100 percent of the community property interest in [their] retirement and pension benefits.” (Id., subd. (a)(4).) The court may determine these provisions do not apply if the convicted spouse “presents documented evidence of . . . domestic violence . . . perpetrated by the other spouse . . . .” (Id., subd. (c).) “[T]hese provisions represent ‘a legislative determination that victims of domestic violence not be required to finance their own abuse.’ [Citation.]” (In re Marriage of Priem (2013) 214 Cal.App.4th 505, 510.) “‘As long as the court exercised its discretion along legal lines, its decision will be affirmed on appeal if there is substantial evidence to support it.’ [Citation.]” (See In re Marriage of Blazer (2009) 176 Cal.App.4th 1438, 1443.) Husband’s conviction for domestic violence in 2019 is not in dispute. The presumptions apply as a matter of law. Our inquiry, then, is limited to whether substantial evidence supports the court’s finding that husband failed to rebut them under Family Code section 4324.5, subdivision (c). He did not. Husband testified at length about wife’s own acts of domestic violence and introduced his own 11 evidence on the issue. The court considered and rejected this testimony. Wife’s Motion to Dismiss Appeal and Request for Sanctions Wife describes husband’s legal arguments as frivolous and based mostly on “subjective conclusory statements and inaccurate holdings of caselaw . . . .” She requests an award of sanctions in her respondent’s brief . We decline her request for sanctions absent a separately filed motion. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.276(b) [party must file motion for sanctions and supporting declaration “no later than 10 days after the appellant’s reply brief is due”].) DISPOSITION Judgment is affirmed. Wife shall recover from husband her costs on appeal. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278(d).) NOT TO BE PUBLISHED. 12  Thomas P. Anderle, Judge Superior Court County of Santa Barbara ______________________________ C.U., in pro per, for Appellant. Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County, Camille Agnello, for Respondent N.U. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Cheryl L. Feiner, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Maureen Onyeagbako, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Nicolas P. Rossenblum, Deputy Attorney General, for Respondent California Department of Child Support Services. 13