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Filed 12/14/20 Santsche v. Hopkins CA1/1

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for 

publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or 

ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. 

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

KIMBERLY R. SANTSCHE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

JERMAINE A. HOPKINS,

Defendant and Appellant.

 A158007, A158468, A159025

 (Humboldt County

 Super. Ct. No. CV180293)

MEMORANDUM OPINION1

Jermaine Hopkins, appearing in propria persona, appeals from 

numerous trial court orders dated between June and September 2019. The

orders were entered after we ruled in his favor in a prior appeal, in which he 

challenged the trial court’s denial of his special motion to strike under 

California’s anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16.2 

(Santsche v. Hopkins (Mar. 26, 2019, A154559, A154734) [nonpub. opn.] 

(Santsche I).) Hopkins fails to explain why the orders at issue—by which the 

trial court (1) complied with the Santsche I remittitur by granting his anti1 We resolve this case by a memorandum opinion in accordance with 

California Standards of Judicial Administration, section 8.1.

2 SLAPP is an acronym for “strategic lawsuit against public 

participation.” (Navellier v. Sletten (2002) 29 Cal.4th 82, 85.) All further 

statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.
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SLAPP motion and dismissing the case and (2) rejected his subsequent 

attempts to file documents in the closed action—are subject to reversal. 

Accordingly, we affirm.

This case stems from Hopkins’s rental of a storage unit from a Eureka

company where Kimberly Santsche was employed as the general manager. 

In April 2018, Santsche filed a petition for a civil harassment restraining 

order against Hopkins (the petition). In response, he filed an anti-SLAPP 

motion seeking to have the petition stricken. The trial court denied the 

motion in June 2018, and Hopkins appealed, initiating Santsche I. 

Concluding that the petition rested on allegations of constitutionally 

protected conduct, we reversed and directed the trial court to dismiss the 

petition, without prejudice to Santsche’s filing of a petition premised on 

unprotected activity by Hopkins. The remittitur in Santsche I issued on 

May 31, 2019. 

Meanwhile, shortly after Hopkins appealed from the denial of his antiSLAPP motion in Santsche I, the trial court entered an order confirming that 

the proceedings before it were thereby stayed. (See Varian Medical Systems, 

Inc. v. Delfino (2005) 35 Cal.4th 180, 186 (Varian Medical) [appeal from 

denial of anti-SLAPP motion “automatically stays all further trial court 

proceedings on the merits upon the causes of action affected by the motion”].) 

Hopkins appealed from the order confirming the appeal-related stay, 

initiating Santsche v. Hopkins (A154874) (Santsche II). On May 30, 2019—

the day before the remittitur issued in Santsche I—we dismissed Santsche II, 

holding that the order confirming the stay was not an appealable order. The 

remittitur in Santsche II issued on August 6, 2019.

Between July and November 2019, Hopkins appealed from several trial

court orders, and we consolidated the resulting three appeals. Hopkins 
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began by filing four notices of appeal that were purportedly from orders dated 

June 5, July 25, July 26, and July 29, 2019, which initiated A158007. In fact, 

the three notices of appeal from the July 2019 orders pertain to only two 

orders: one executed on July 25 and filed July 26, which we will refer to as 

the July 26 order, and one dated July 26 and executed on July 29, which we 

will refer to as the July 29 order. The June 5 order granted Hopkins’s antiSLAPP motion and dismissed the petition without prejudice, as required by 

the Santsche I remittitur. The July 26 order, an amended version of the 

June 5 order, likewise dismissed the petition without prejudice. And the 

July 29 order rejected various filings by Hopkins, including his cross-request 

for a civil harassment restraining order, because the action had been 

dismissed and “[a] new case will need to be filed to pursue further action 

between the parties.” 

After filing the notices of appeal under A158007, Hopkins filed two 

more notices of appeal. The first, from an order dated August 22, 2019, 

initiated A158468, and the second, from an order dated September 24, 2019, 

initiated A159025. Both the August 22 and September 24 orders rejected 

Hopkins’s successive attempts to request a civil harassment restraining order 

and ordered him not to file further documents in the case. 

Hopkins claims that the five orders at issue “are null and void because 

the trial court was without jurisdiction to enter [them],” since “the case was 

automatically stayed because remittitur had not yet been issued in Case 

No. A154874”—i.e., Santsche II. Although it is true that the June 5, July 26, 

and July 29 orders were entered before the Santsche II remittitur issued, the 

pendency of Santsche II did not deprive the trial court of jurisdiction to enter 

them. As we have said, Santsche II involved a nonappealable order that 

confirmed there was a stay due to Santsche I. But that stay dissolved once 
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the Santsche I remittitur issued on May 31, 2019, and Santsche II itself did 

not effect a complete stay under Varian Medical because it was not an appeal 

from the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion. 

As for the August 22 and September 24 orders, Hopkins does not

attempt to explain why Santsche II would affect them, given that the

remittitur in that appeal issued on August 6, 2019. Rather, for the first time 

in his reply brief, Hopkins implies that these two orders are void because 

they were entered after July 30, 2019, the date on which he filed his first 

notice of appeal in A158007, from the July 26 order. But he offers no theory 

for why his appeal of an order granting his own anti-SLAPP motion would 

automatically stay proceedings in the trial court, and we reject the notion.

Hopkins also suggests that the June 5 and July 26 orders are 

separately subject to reversal because they were issued “by a disqualified 

judge or by a judge who consented to his disqualification by failing to serve 

[Hopkins] with the disqualified judge’s answer to [Hopkins’s] statement of 

disqualification.” The two orders were signed by different judges but are 

substantively the same, suggesting the earlier judge’s disqualification as a 

possible reason the otherwise duplicative later order was entered. But

Hopkins provides no factual context or legal authority to support his claim on 

this point. As we decline “ ‘to search the record to ascertain whether it 

contains support for [his] contentions,’ ” we treat the claim as forfeited. 

(Salas v. Department of Transportation (2011) 198 Cal.App.4th 1058, 1074.)

Next, Hopkins makes the baffling argument that Santsche was “barred 

by law from filing an amended complaint” once he filed his anti-SLAPP 

motion. But there is no indication Santsche ever filed an amended petition. 

Indeed, the July 29, August 22, and September 24 orders would not have 

been necessary if she had, since they rejected Hopkins’s persistent attempts
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to file documents in a closed case. And even if Santsche had chosen to file an 

amended petition, she was authorized to do so once the trial court followed 

our directive in Santsche I and dismissed the petition without prejudice.

Finally, Hopkins claims that “[a] defendant who prevails on an antiSLAPP motion, in whole or in part, is statutorily entitled to attorney’s fees 

and costs,” and he asks us to “direct the trial court to award [him] the fees 

and costs that he incurred below and on appeal.” Although it is true that a 

prevailing party on an anti-SLAPP motion is entitled to attorney fees and 

costs (§ 425.16, subd. (c)(1)), we already resolved this issue in Santsche I. 

Specifically, while we awarded him his costs on appeal in that case, we 

indicated that he should seek his costs below in the trial court in the first 

instance, and we explained that he was not entitled to attorney fees as a 

party acting in propria persona. (See Ramona Unified School Dist. v. Tsiknas

(2005) 135 Cal.App.4th 510, 524–525.) Consistent with our discussion, the 

trial court indicated in the June 5 and July 26 orders that Hopkins should 

file a memorandum of costs if he wished to recover them, but none of the 

other orders at issue involve those costs, much less purport to deny them. 

The trial court’s orders are affirmed. Santsche is awarded her costs on 

appeal.
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_________________________

Humes, P.J.

WE CONCUR:

_________________________

Margulies, J.

_________________________

Banke, J.

Santsche v. Hopkins A158008, A158468, A159025