Tuesday, July 21, 2026
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Court of Appeal:
Judge Abused Discretion in Dumping DVRO Proceeding
Proceeding Terminated Because Two Days Were Consumed; Woman, Child Left Without Protection
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday that a San Diego judge was off base in denying an order protecting a woman from a husband who, according to testimony, physically and verbally abused her, terminating the proceedings because the parties had not completed presenting their cases within the two days allotted to the matter.
Coming in for criticism was Judge Charles E. Bell Jr. who denied a domestic violence restraining order (“DVRO”) sought by Glory Ama Ebere, an entrepreneur and founder of a hair and scalp care product. The order would have protected her and her child from Ikechi Dents, a licensed vocational nurse.
Presiding Justice Judith McConnell, writing for the panel, noted that “[p]rior to the challenged ruling, Wife presented extensive testimony that Husband struck her and the couple’s minor child on several different occasions, threatened to kill them, routinely said he would have her deported to her home country of Nigeria, and strictly controlled her finances and social relationships.”
Manifest Abuse
She declared:
“The family court manifestly abused its discretion by abruptly dismissing the DVRO petition without resolving it on the merits. When it dismissed the DVRO petition, the court acted without statutory authority and exceeded the bounds of its inherent authority to control the litigation before it.”
McConnell said Bell also erred in terminating the temporary restraining order “that protected Wife and her child from their alleged abuser, as Wife had received no advance notice that the court might terminate” placing the two in jeopardy.
“Here, the court not only herded an alleged victim through the judicial system; it closed the courthouse door to her altogether,” she wrote.
CCP §533
Bell purported to dismiss the action under Code of Civil Procedure §533 which provides:
“In any action, the court may on notice modify or dissolve an injunction or temporary restraining order upon a showing that there has been a material change in the facts upon which the injunction or temporary restraining order was granted, that the law upon which the injunction or temporary restraining order was granted has changed, or that the ends of justice would be served by the modification.”
A judge does have a duty to regulate proceedings, McConnell said, but declared:
“However, the family court in this case did not merely regulate the proceedings before it by excluding or limiting the admission of cumulative or marginally relevant evidence. Nor did it impose and enforce time restrictions for the evidentiary hearing, which it could have done by providing clear time limitations at the outset, adjusting those time limitations as needed considering the realities of trial, and barring the parties from introducing additional evidence after the time limitations expired. Instead, the court dismissed the DVRO petition altogether without issuing any decision on the merits of the petition. The court’s ruling thus amounted to a de facto summary denial of Wife’s DVRO action.” Bell also mistakenly relied on §533 is dissolving the temporary restraining order, McConnell wrote.
Inherent Powers
Addressing the judge’s interest powers, the presiding justice said:
“When viewed through this lens, the family court’s ruling undoubtedly exceeded the bounds of its inherent authority to control the case before it.”
She remarked:
“The family court’s error is especially striking given the fact that Wife rested her case in chief after she had testified for just two and a half hours on direct examination and 15 minutes on redirect….Indeed, Husband’s cross-examination of Wife and his own direct examination together consumed more time than Wife’s direct and redirect examinations, and often focused on tangential issues that were not especially probative of Wife’s central allegations of abuse and excessive control. Nevertheless, the court dismissed Wife’s DVRO petition, which inured solely to her detriment and had no corresponding disability or negative consequences for Husband.”
McConnell observed that Bell’s action violated the strong policy in favor of cases being determined on the merits.
Bell was appointed to the Superior Court by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022. At the time, Bell was city attorney for National City in San Diego County.
The case is In re the Marriage of G.E. and I.D., 2026 S.O.S. 2116.
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