Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. KS011439, Dan T. Oki, Judge.
May Chen, in pro. per., for Defendant and Appellant.
Jeffrey L. Romig, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Respondent.
EPSTEIN, P. J.
May Chen appeals from a restraining order entered against her pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 527.6. We affirm the order because Chen has failed to present an adequate record on appeal and has not affirmatively demonstrated error to overcome the presumption in favor of the order.
Statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL SUMMARY
As we discuss below, appellant has failed to present an adequate record for appellate review. From what we can glean from the sparse record on appeal, Chen claims she had some sort of relationship with respondent Jeffrey Romig, an immigration judge with the United States Department of Justice. According to Romig’s brief, he met Chen through an on-line dating service in late 2003. He asserts she harassed him for more than three years by repeated unwelcome contact, including e-mail messages, voice mail messages, and attempted personal visits at his home and office. Romig states that Chen harassed employees of the Justice Department in an effort to obtain information about him.
At some point Romig apparently sought a restraining order pursuant to section 527.6; the application is not in the record on appeal. On March 2, 2007, the trial court issued a restraining order prohibiting Chen from harassing, stalking, contacting, or attempting to contact Romig. She was ordered to stay at least 100 yards away from Romig and his home. The restraining order expires on March 1, 2010. Chen appealed from this order. After filing the appeal, she filed a motion to vacate the restraining order. The record does not reflect the disposition of that motion.
DISCUSSION
Section 527.6 provides, in pertinent part: “(a) A person who has suffered harassment as defined in subdivision (b) may seek a temporary restraining order and an injunction prohibiting harassment as provided in this section. [¶] (b) For the purposes of this section, ‘harassment’ is . . . 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 such as would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and must actually cause substantial emotional distress to the plaintiff. [¶] . . . [¶] . . . [¶] (3) ‘Course of conduct’ is a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts over a period of time, however short, evidencing a continuity of purpose, including following or stalking an individual, making harassing telephone calls to an individual, or sending harassing correspondence to an individual by any means, including, but not limited to, the use of public or private mails, interoffice mail, fax, or computer e-mail. Constitutionally protected activity is not included within the meaning of ‘course of conduct.’”
“‘In 1978 the Legislature enacted Code of Civil Procedure section 527.6, a special statute designed to afford protection against harassment. (Stats. 1978, ch. 1307, § 2, p. 4294.) This statute authorizes a “person who has suffered harassment” to obtain a temporary restraining order and injunction against the harassing conduct and provides an expedited procedure to obtain such an injunction. [Citation.]’” (Schild v. Rubin (1991) 232 Cal. App.3d 755, 762, quoting Diamond View Limited v. Herz (1986) 180 Cal. App.3d 612, 616.) “The elements of unlawful harassment, as defined by the language in section 527.6, are as follows: (1) ‘a knowing and willful course of conduct’ entailing a ‘pattern’ of ‘a series of acts over a period of time, however short, evidencing a continuity of purpose’; (2) ‘directed at a specific person’; (3) ‘which seriously alarms, annoys, or harasses the person’; (4) ‘which serves no legitimate purpose’; (5) which ‘would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress’ and ‘actually cause[s] substantial emotional distress to the plaintiff’; and (6) which is not a ‘[c]onstitutionally protected activity.’” (Schild v. Rubin, supra, 232 Cal. App.3d at p. 762.)
“In assessing whether substantial evidence supports the requisite elements of willful harassment, as defined in [section 527.6], we review the evidence before the trial court in accordance with the customary rules of appellate review. We resolve all factual conflicts and questions of credibility in favor of the prevailing party and indulge in all legitimate and reasonable inferences to uphold the finding of the trial court if it is supported by substantial evidence which is reasonable, credible and of solid value. [Citations.]” (Schild v. Rubin, supra, 232 Cal. App.3d at p. 762.)
Chen first claims that she was not properly served with the application for the restraining order. But she appeared at the hearing on the motion, which forfeits her objection to the adequacy of service. (See Arambula v. Union Carbide Corp. (2005) 128 Cal. App.4th 333, 343 [“principal purpose of the requirement to file and serve a notice of motion a specified number of days before the hearing . . . is to provide the opposing party adequate time to prepare an opposition. That purpose is served if the party appears at the hearing, opposes the motion on the merits, and was not prejudiced in preparing an opposition by the untimely notice”].)
Chen asserts that she raised the inadequacy of the notice in the trial court, but we have nothing in the record to support that claim. We are not provided with a reporter’s transcript. Nor has Chen shown how she was prejudiced in preparing her opposition to the motion.
Chen argues she did not harass Romig. As appellant, she was obligated to provide an adequate record for appellate review. “It is the appellant’s affirmative duty to show error by an adequate record. [Citation.] ‘A necessary corollary to this rule [is] that a record is inadequate, and appellant defaults, if the appellant predicates error only on the part of the record he provides the trial court, but ignores or does not present to the appellate court portions of the proceedings below which may provide grounds upon which the decision of the trial court could be affirmed.’ (Uniroyal Chemical Co. v. American Vanguard Corp. (1988) 203 Cal. App.3d 285, 302.)” (Osgood v. Landon (2005) 127 Cal. App.4th 425, 435.)
Chen’s failures to include the application for the restraining order or the reporter’s transcript of the hearing are fatal to her appeal. “[T]he trial court’s judgment is presumptively correct, such that error must be affirmatively demonstrated, and where the record is silent the reviewing court will indulge all reasonable inferences in support of the judgment. [Citations.]” (Yield Dynamics, Inc. v. TEA Systems Corp. (2007) 154 Cal. App.4th 547, 556-557.) Since we are not provided any of the evidence on which the trial court based its decision to issue the restraining order, the record here is silent. In these circumstances, Chen has failed to affirmatively demonstrate that the trial court erred in issuing the order.
DISPOSITION
The order of the trial court is affirmed. Each party is to bear his or her costs on appeal.
We concur: WILLHITE, J., SUZUKAWA, J.