Filed 10/22/20 Feitosa v. Bass CA2/5

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FIVE

DENNIS FEITOSA,

Petitioner and Respondent,

v.

ADAM G. BASS, 

Defendant and Appellant.

B299974

(Los Angeles County

Super. Ct. No. 

19STRO03023)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, Helen Zukin, Judge. Affirmed.

Cliff Dean Schneider for Defendant and Appellant.

No appearance for Appellant and Respondent.

_______________________
2

INTRODUCTION

Adam Bass appeals the trial court’s issuance of a five-year 

civil harassment restraining order (Code Civ. Proc., § 527.6)

protecting neighbors Dennis Feitosa and Lauren Sciretta.1 Bass 

contends the trial court’s findings and order were not supported 

by substantial evidence. We affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Bass, a planning commissioner for the City of West 

Hollywood, lived next door to Feitosa and his girlfriend Sciretta. 

In the two years that preceded the June 2019 hearing on the 

restraining order, Bass regularly photographed and recorded 

Feitosa and Sciretta when they were outside their home.

During 2019, Feitosa and Sciretta provided doggy daycare 

services out of their home.2 Bass learned of the business and 

reported it to the City of West Hollywood’s Code Enforcement

Division in four different complaints. On May 5, 2019, Bass

photographed Feitosa and Sciretta on the sidewalk with a dog. 

This photograph was included in a complaint Bass filed with local 

code enforcement that same day.

On May 7, 2019, Feitosa filed a self-represented request for 

a civil harassment restraining order, seeking protection for 

himself, his girlfriend, and his assistant, who worked out of their 

home. Feitosa alleged that the harassment, which involved Bass 

regularly photographing and videoing them, had been ongoing for 

over a year and had recently escalated. He requested the court to 

restrain Bass from filming, photographing, or recording them.

1 All subsequent statutory references are to the Code of Civil 

Procedure.

2 On May 8, 2019, Feitosa ended his dog daycare business.
3

On May 29, 2019, Bass, through his attorney, filed a 

response to the request. In a declaration, Bass attested that his 

“role as a community leader requires [him] to ensure that the 

neighborhoods of West Hollywood are safe, code-compliant, and 

that the residents of West Hollywood thusly enjoy a high quality 

of life.” Bass felt that it was his responsibility to report code 

violations and other matters that “blight” the streets of his 

neighborhood. Based on his observations of Feitosa and Sciretta 

running a doggy daycare business, he photographed them on 

May 5, 2019 from 150 feet away. Bass attested that Feitosa and 

Sciretta could not prove that Bass was causing them emotional 

distress as he had never met them.

The trial court heard two days of testimony in June 2019. 

Feitosa testified that over the course of two years, he witnessed 

Bass hide behind objects on the street to photograph Feitosa and 

Sciretta walking dogs and double parking their car to carry 

groceries inside.3 When Bass’s counsel questioned how Feitosa 

knew Bass was photographing him, Feitosa stated Bass “will hide 

behind a lamppost or behind a tree, and he will lean out from 

behind the tree with his cell phone pointed at me, and then he 

will hide behind the tree, . . . and he will lean over again, getting 

pictures. . . . every instance [Bass] wears a hat and the hat covers 

part of his face, and he will hide.”

Feitosa stated Bass filmed and photographed him and 

Sciretta daily, and had taken photos of him “maybe over 100 

times.” Feitosa testified that Bass filed a total of four complaints 

with the city’s code enforcement, but that all of the complaints 

were closed without penalty or judgment against Feitosa or 

3 Feitosa and Sciretta testified that Bass was typically out on 

the street walking his two dogs when he hid behind objects to 

photograph them.
4

Sciretta. Feitosa also showed through exhibits and testimony 

that Bass’s statements that he had never met Feitosa or Sciretta, 

and about how close he was when taking the May 5, 2019 

photograph were untrue: Bass had met them on two prior 

occasions and was much closer than 150 feet for the photo. The 

May 5, 2019 photo, which was attached to Bass’s complaint to 

code enforcement was the only photograph Feitosa produced 

during the trial. The filming made Feitosa feel uncomfortable 

and harassed.

Sciretta testified that she had seen Bass photograph her 

“over 20 times.” Sciretta testified that Bass photographed her 

from his apartment window, which overlooked her driveway and 

the street. This regularly occurred when she had to double park 

to empty groceries from her car, as she did not have a parking 

space near her home. She also stated “whenever I’m walking my 

dog or if I’m meeting a friend, . . . If I have friends coming over, 

he’ll go behind – there will be like lampposts or trees, and I’ll see 

him hide behind them, and it’s really creepy.”

Sciretta testified that six months before the hearing, she 

was standing in the driveway and taking pictures with friends. 

Bass exited his apartment building, crossed the street, watched 

her and her friends, and pointed his phone toward them as if he 

was recording them. She testified: “He had his phone up, and it 

was he was looking at us, so it was like a – like an eye contact 

interaction that made me feel very uncomfortable.” When 

questioned how Bass held his phone, she stated: “He had it 

pointed like up in front of his – like he was like looking at it to 

take a photo.” Sciretta testified that Bass’s persistent recording 

gave her anxiety, and caused her to go to a therapist and take 

anxiety medication. She worried about what Bass was doing 

with the photos.
5

Feitosa’s assistant, who worked out of Feitosa’s home, 

testified that on May 20, 2019 (about a month before the 

hearing), he was walking down the street towards the Feitosa’s 

home and Bass was walking in the opposite direction, toward 

him. When he looked up from his phone, the assistant saw Bass 

immediately in front of him, photographing him. The assistant 

became nervous, crossed the street, and continued walking 

toward Feitosa’s home. Yet, Bass continued to photograph him

and smiled at him “creepily.” Bass next hid behind a tree and 

then crossed the street again, following the assistant. 

Bass also testified. Other than the single photo he took on 

May 5, 2019, he had never photographed Feitosa, Sciretta, or the 

assistant. He testified that he always takes his phone with him 

when walking his two dogs and holds the phone directly in front 

of his face, at least at chin level, because he has a dog leash over 

his arm and because he is farsighted. He denied hiding behind 

trees and light poles to photograph or record Feitosa and Sciretta. 

Bass indicated that he may have ducked down on his walks to 

clean up after his dogs. Bass also stated that on the day of the 

driveway incident about which Sciretta testified, he was actually 

photographing the construction site across the street.

Following testimony and admission of several of Feitosa’s 

exhibits, the court issued its ruling:

“Pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure 

section 527.6, I find that petitioner [Feitosa] has met 

his burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence 

that there have been acts of harassment on the part 

of respondent [Bass].

“The court finds that petitioner was a credible 

witness as was Lauren Sciretta, in that they 

described excessive photographing and videotaping, 

that was creditable to the court, being followed by the 
6

respondent. The court recognized that respondent 

believes he has a role to play in the city, whether on 

the planning commission or otherwise, to report what 

he perceives as violations, but the court doesn’t find 

that a role on the planning commission gives one the 

license to excessively photograph and obviously

photograph and videotape and follow to the point of 

stalking one’s neighbors.

“The court did not find respondent to be a 

credible witness. The court found that his 

description of his own behavior betrayed a manner of 

obsessively wanting to monitor his neighborhood, 

including the petitioners here, and control the outside 

environment, therefore the court finds that conduct 

over a period of years of stalking the petitioners while 

out on the street and harassing them by videotaping 

their movements, both from his window and out on 

the street.

“The court found that petitioner and the 

witnesses were credible in their description that 

respondent was attempting sometimes to hide behind 

trees, sometimes to obviously follow them.

“Based upon the evidence presented, the court 

finds that a reasonable person would be afraid, 

annoyed, and intimidated by respondent’s behavior.

“The court finds it to be harassment.

“The court also finds that the evidence 

presented a reasonable likelihood that the 

harassment would continue in the future if a 

restraining order did not issue.”
7

On June 14, 2019, the court issued a five-year civil 

harassment restraining order protecting Feitosa and Sciretta

(but not the assistant), prohibiting Bass from harassing, 

photographing, filming, or recording either of them, and 

requiring Bass to maintain a 10-foot distance from them.

Bass appeals.

DISCUSSION

“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) ‘[that] seriously 

alarms, annoys, or harasses the person’; (4) ‘[that] serves no 

legitimate purpose’; (5) [that] ‘would cause a reasonable person to 

suffer substantial emotional distress’ and ‘actually cause[s] 

substantial emotional distress to the [the person to be protected 

by the order]’; and (6) which is not a ‘[c]onstitutionally protected 

activity.’ ” (Schild v. Rubin (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 755, 762.)

To issue a restraining order, the court must find by “clear 

and convincing evidence that unlawful harassment exists.” 

(§ 527.6, subd. (i).) “The standard of proof known as clear and 

convincing evidence demands a degree of certainty greater than 

that involved with the preponderance standard, but less than 

what is required by the standard of proof beyond a reasonable 

doubt. This intermediate standard ‘requires a finding of high 

probability.’ ” (Conservatorship of O.B. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 989, 998

(O.B.).) When “the clear and convincing standard of proof applied 

in the trial court, an appellate court should review the record for 

sufficient evidence in a manner mindful of the elevated degree of 

certainty required by this standard.” (Id. at pp. 1000–1001.)

Bass asserts that the trial court’s finding that Bass had 

excessively photographed and videotaped was not supported by 
8

substantial evidence. He argues there was no evidence of 

videotaping because no video was introduced at trial and that 

there was insufficient evidence of photographing because a single 

photo since was admitted at trial. Bass contends that the court’s 

findings were impermissibly based on “speculative” witness 

testimony that was “simply not enough to eliminate a substantial 

doubt that [Bass] could have been taking a picture of himself or 

simply reading his phone.” He asserts “no expert testimony was 

offered to explain how holding a phone a particular way indicates 

that a photo is being taken of someone else instead of oneself or 

simply trying to angle the phone to avoid a glare from the sun.”

The problem with Bass’s arguments is that he essentially 

asks us to reweigh the evidence and redetermine credibility

findings by the trial court. This we cannot do. The appellate 

court “must indulge reasonable inferences that the trier of fact 

might have drawn from the evidence; it must accept the fact 

finder’s resolution of conflicting evidence; and it may not insert 

its own views regarding the credibility of witnesses in place of the 

assessments conveyed by the judgment.” (O.B., supra, 9 Cal.5th 

at p. 1008.) We “must defer to the trial court’s determinations of 

credibility.” (Harris v. Stampolis (2016) 248 Cal.App.4th 484, 

498.)

Contrary to Bass’s assertions, the testimony of Feitosa, 

Sciretta, and their assistant provided substantial evidence that 

defendant excessively photographed and recorded Feitosa and 

Sciretta. As summarized in the background section, they 

testified to numerous instances where Bass directed his phone at 

them, positioned in a manner to take photos or video. An expert 

is not necessary to explain what Feitosa and Sciretta observed. 

The common, everyday experience of how cellphones are used to 

photograph and record is appropriate for lay testimony. (Evid. 

Code, § 801, subd. (a) [expert opinion admissible if it is “Related 
9

to a subject that is sufficiently beyond common experience that 

the opinion of an expert would assist the trier of fact . . . .”]). 

Feitosa and Sciretta described several instances where 

Bass hid behind neighborhood trees, lampposts, and other 

structures, to surreptitiously photograph or record them. Bass’s 

photographing and recording persisted for about one to two years, 

and culminated in the four complaints he filed against Feitosa 

and Sciretta with the city. The trial court’s express findings gave 

credence to this testimony.4 The trial court found Bass’s 

explanation for holding his phone up and pointing it at Feitosa 

and Sciretta not credible. 

Bass argues that the excessive photographing could have a 

legitimate purpose because the photos were not taken in private 

spaces, and that “it is beyond absurd to find taking photos of 

someone taking photos to be harassment.” The trial court found 

otherwise and substantial evidence supported that finding. 

Feitosa and Sciretta described knowing, willful, and persistent 

recording and photographing by Bass directed specifically at 

them that seriously alarmed, annoyed, and harassed them to the 

point that Sciretta sought medical attention for anxiety. Bass 

provided no legitimate purpose for his course of conduct other 

than to say he just coincidentally, regularly held his phone up in 

a manner that looked like he was photographing them, and that 

he wasn’t actually hiding behind trees or cars—he was really 

4 In its ruling, the court stated it “finds that conduct over a 

period of years of stalking the petitioners while out on the street 

and harassing them by videotaping their movements, both from 

is window and out on the street.” Earlier, the court found that 

Feitosa and Sciretta were credible when “they described excessive 

photographing and videotaping.”
10

picking up dog feces. The trial court found Bass not credible, and 

as we have observed, we will not disturb that finding.5

DISPOSITION

The order is affirmed.

RUBIN, P.J.

WE CONCUR:

BAKER, J

KIM, J.

5 At oral argument, Bass’s counsel argued for the first time 

that any photographs he took were subject to the litigation 

privilege (Civ. Code, § 47) and were otherwise protected. His 

failure to raise this argument either in the trial court or in the 

briefs filed on appeal forfeits that argument, and we do not 

address it.