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Private Judge Hired to Decide Divorce Issues Was Empowered to Issue DVRO—C.A.
But, Opinion Says, She Erred in Specifying That Order Was Not to Be Entered in Law Enforcement Computer System
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday rejected the contention by a woman that when she and her husband stipulated that that a former member of the Ventura Court Superior Court would resolve issues in their dissolution of marriage, as a temporary judge, that did not empower the jurist to issue a domestic violence restraining order.
That, the wife, Dorit Reichental, maintained, was an ancillary matter, not covered by the stipulation.
Disagreeing, Acting Presiding Justice Kenneth Yegan said in an opinion for Div. Six that retired Judge Melinda Johnson did not exceed her authority in issuing a domestic violence restraining order (“DVRO”) but did err in declaring that its issuance would not be reported to the state Department of Justice for entry in California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (“CLETS”).
Request Was ‘Motion’
He wrote:
“The parties stipulated that Judge Johnson was authorized to ‘hear and try the above-entitled matter,’ e.g., the petition for the dissolution of the parties’ marriage, ‘including hearing and determining all pretrial motions....’ In the family law context, a request for order is the equivalent of a motion….Accordingly, the parties’ stipulation authorizing Judge Johnson to hear and determine pretrial motions applies to Husband’s request for a DVRO.”
Yegan spelled out that “the fact that a DVRO may be obtained in a separate proceeding does not mean that it must be a separate proceeding,” and that “a DVRO may also be obtained in a dissolution proceeding, as it was here.”
‘Non CLETS’ Order
Johnson, who served on the Ventura Superior Court from 1982 to 2002, specified that she was issuing a “non-CLETS order,” explaining that entering it into the law enforcement system would have “the potential of disrupting” the wife’s “employment as a life coach and, perhaps, eventually, a therapist, to an unwarranted degree.”
That “aspect of the order was an error of law,” Yegan said, explaining:
“Judge Johnson found that Wife committed acts of abuse within the meaning of the statute. [Family Code] Section 6380 required the resulting restraining order to be reported to the Department of Justice and entered in CLETS….The obligation to register the order in CLETS was mandatory, not discretionary.
The matter was remanded to Johnson for a modification of the order to excise the “non CLETS” proviso.
Johnson acted in the matter as a temporary judge of the Santa Barbara Superior Court.
The case is Marriage of Reichental, 2021 S.O.S. 6846.
M. Jude Egan of the Santa Maria firm of Egan Law represented the wife and Gregory W. Jessner, Adam N. King and Raymond K. Martinez of the Bunker Hill firm of Phillips Jessner acted for the husband, Avi Reichental.
Copyright 2021, Metropolitan News Company