Monday, June 29, 2026
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C.A. Says Social Media Posts May Qualify as Disturbing ‘Contact’ for DVRO Purposes
Opinion Says Derogatory Comments on User’s Page May Be Sufficient to Trigger Protections Even if Party Refrained From Making Any Direct Communication
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. One of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that a trial judge erred in declining to issue a domestic violence protective order against a man based on a finding that he had stopped communicating with his ex-girlfriend after their break-up, despite evidence that he had repeatedly changed his social-media profile name to derogatory comments about her and posted purportedly embarrassing images of her on his page.
Saying that the posts may qualify as disturbing communications even if the poster refrained from reaching out to her directly, Justice Gregory Weingart, writing for the court, declared that the law allows courts to issue a Domestic Violence Protection Order (“DVPO”) based on indirect contacts that “disturb the peace” of the other party.
The opinion, joined in by Presiding Justice Frances Rothschild and Justice Helen I. Bendix, was filed on May 27 and certified for publication on Thursday.
At issue is under what circumstances a court may issue a DVRO under the Domestic Violence Protection Act (“DVPA”), found at Family Code §6200 et seq., which was adopted, in part, “to provide for a separation of the persons involved in the domestic violence for a period sufficient to enable these persons to seek a resolution of the causes of the violence.”
To achieve those ends, a party may seek a restraining order upon “reasonable proof of a past act…of abuse,” which is defined to include “any behavior that…could be enjoined” under §6320. That section provides that a court “may issue an…order enjoining a party from,” among other things, “disturbing the peace of the other party.”
Subd. (c) defines “disturbing the peace” as:
“[C]onduct that, based on the totality of the circumstances, destroys the mental or emotional calm of the other party. This conduct may be committed directly or indirectly, including through the use of a third party, and by any method or through any means including, but not limited to, telephone, online accounts, text messages, internet-connected devices,…or other electronic technologies.”
Dueling Petitions
The decision follows the filing of dueling petitions for DVROs filed by former romantic partners Ashley Jo Galand (referred to in the opinion as “A.G.”) and Richard Melendez (identified in the decision as “R.M.”). The couple purportedly broke up sometime between November and December 2023 after each side accused the other of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse.
Melendez filed his petition on April 26, 2024, asserting that Galand had sent him over 1,000 messages since the breakup despite his efforts to block her by changing phone numbers, email addresses, and social media accounts.
Galand opposed the request and filed her own application for a DVRO the following month, providing evidence that he had recently changed his profile name on a social media platform to “ashleygalandispsycho,” “ketaminewhore,” and “pleasekillurself,” the latter title having been purportedly adopted shortly after she had sent him a message asking him if he wanted her to commit suicide.
According to Galand, he also posted pictures of her face and bare shoulder that were allegedly taken while she was in the bath, asleep, or in other intimate settings, and had contacted her mother to say that she had, at one point, worked as a stripper.
On Sept. 10, 2024, then-Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Timothy Martella (now retired) granted Melendez’ petition for a DVRO but denied Galand’s request, saying:
“[Galand] described a bad relationship they had, but it was back in late 2023 when it ended. He’s made no attempts to contact her, although she’s made…a thousand attempts to contact him, along with going over to his mother’s.”
Saying that “the court narrowly defined ‘contact’ to include only direct contact,” Weingart wrote:
“The court’s statements about R.M. making no attempt to contact A.G. are true only if the court excluded indirect contact from its consideration. As described above, that is not the statutory standard. Had the court considered A.G.’s evidence of indirect contact from R.M. as relevant, it may well have concluded that his indirect conduct should have been enjoined under the DVPA. A.G. provided substantial evidence that during roughly the same period she was attempting to contact R.M., R.M. was indirectly communicating with her in ways that disturbed her peace.”
He noted that Melendez cited cases involving civil harassment restraining orders issued under Code of Civil Procedure §527.6 for the proposition that posts on his own social media account do not amount to harassing communications to the other party, but the jurist remarked that “courts exercise their discretion to grant a DVRO” more liberally and “the DVPA is not limited to harassment or direct contact.”
Within Ambit
Commenting that Martella “denied A.G.’s DVRO request not because it did not believe that R.M. posted about her on Instagram or otherwise indirectly contacted her, but because it did not consider that activity to be within the ambit of the DVPA,” he declared:
“That was error and requires a new evidentiary hearing.”
Adding that, “[b]ecause the parties sought mutual restraining orders, the need for a new evidentiary hearing on A.G.’s request means that we must also reverse the grant of R.M.’s DVRO,” he pointed out that in such circumstances the court is obligated to make findings about who acted as the primary aggressor and “nothing in the record indicates that the court undertook this analysis.”
He continued:
“[W]e lastly note that the court may not restrict the parties’ evidence or its consideration of it only to what occurred after the end of their relationship in late 2023. The court must ‘consider the totality of the circumstances in determining whether to grant or deny’ a DVRO request…and not just conduct in the most recent few months after the parties separated.”
The case is R.M. v. A.G., 2026 S.O.S. 1855.
Galand was represented by Arati Vasan, Jodi Lewis, Jennafer Dorfman Wagner, Craig E. Stewart of the Family Violence Appellate Project as well as Nathaniel P. Garrett and Sam N. Silva of the San Francisco office of Jones Day. Acting for Melendez were Eric J. Olson, Michele T. Ferroni and Mary Louise Byrne of the Pasadena-based EJ Olson Law.
Copyright 2026, Metropolitan News Company