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Civil Harassment Restraining Order May Be Imposed Based on Single Incident, C.A. Says
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Reference to a “course of conduct” in the statute authorizing issuance of civil harassment restraining orders does not restrict imposition of restrictions on a defendant who has committed only a single act of violence, Div. Five of this district’s Court of Appeal has held.
At issue in the appeal decided Monday, in an unpublished opinion, is the meaning of Code of Civil Procedure §527.6(b)(3), which says:
“ ‘Harassment’ is unlawful violence, a credible threat of violence, or a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person that seriously alarms, annoys, or harasses the person, and that serves no legitimate purpose. The course of conduct must be that which would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and must actually cause substantial emotional distress to the petitioner.”
That paragraph, Justice Dorothy C. Kim wrote, “defines unlawful harassment in the alternative, providing three separate types of conduct on which a finding of harassment can be based: (1) an act of unlawful violence; (2) a credible threat of violence: (3) a knowing and willful course of harassing conduct.”
She declared:
“Only the third alternative requires proof of a series of acts.”
A single act of “unlawful violence,” defined in subd. (b)(7) as including “any assault or battery,” the justice said, “will suffice for purposes of showing entitlement to a restraining order, so long as the trial court also finds evidence of a future threat of violence.”
The opinion affirms a restraining order imposed on Ramon Laveaga by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Susel Carillo-Orellana in favor of Joselin Guzman and his minor son. The judge found credible the account by Guzman of Laveaga having attempted to stab him with a knife, corroborated in testimony by the boy.
Kim said Laveaga’s testimony that no threat with a knife occurred, which Carillo-Orellana found to be untrue, “undercut any assertion that defendant had accepted full responsibility and was no longer a threat to plaintiff or his son.”
The case is Guzman v. Laveaga, B341723.
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