Court Opinion

ID: 9891818
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-19 18:03:51.561501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:00:40.489513
License: Public Domain

Filed 10/19/23 Suslova v. Stremovskiy CA4/1
                   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for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.

                 COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                                       DIVISION ONE

                                              STATE OF CALIFORNIA

EKATERINA SUSLOVA,                                                           D081240

          Respondent,

          v.                                                                 (Super. Ct. No. 22FL002081N)

OLEG STREMOVSKIY,

          Appellant.

          APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of San Diego County,
Victor M. Torres, Judge. Affirmed.
          Oleg Stremovskiy, in pro. per., for Appellant.
          Ekaterina Suslova, in pro. per., for Respondent.

                                                                    I
                                                     INTRODUCTION
          Oleg Stremovskiy (Father) appeals a domestic violence restraining
order (DVRO) protecting Ekaterina Stremovskiy (Mother) and the couple’s
minor daughter, Y.A.S. (Daughter), from Father for a period of three years.
The DVRO prohibits Father from abusing the protected parties and permits
only peaceful contact between Father and the protected parties to effectuate
court-ordered visitations between Father and Daughter. We affirm.
                                       II
                                 BACKGROUND
      Father and Mother got married in 2007. They had Y.S. (Son) in 2012,
and Daughter in 2019.
      After Daughter’s birth, the family of four lived in Georgia for about six
months. In January 2020, Mother and Daughter moved to Los Angeles, while
Father and Son remained in Georgia. In December 2021, Father and Son
moved to San Diego. The following month, Mother and Daughter moved to
San Diego as well.
      On February 24, 2022, Mother filed a request for a DVRO against
Father. Because the parties have not included the DVRO request in the
appellate record, we are unable to summarize its allegations. However,
according to the parties’ appellate briefs, the DVRO request alleged that
Mother suffered years of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse at Father’s
hands. The DVRO request asked the court to designate Mother, Son, and
Daughter as protected parties.
      The trial court issued a temporary restraining order granting
temporary legal and physical custody of both Son and Daughter to Mother.
At some point thereafter, Son was removed as a protected party from the
temporary restraining order.
      On or about March 8, 2022, Father filed an objection to the DVRO
request, which denied the alleged abuse.
      The trial court set the matter for an evidentiary hearing, which took
place over three half-day sessions on April 26, June 8, and August 31, 2022,
and one full-day session on September 9, 2022. During the hearing, the court

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received testimony from multiple witnesses including Mother, Father,
Mother’s mother, Father’s sister, and two professional visitation monitors
who supervised visitations between the parents and their children.
      Of pertinence here, Mother testified that Father physically abused her
at least three times. First, she testified he pushed her while she was
breastfeeding Daughter, causing her to land on the edge of a bed and sustain
a back injury. Second, she testified he forcibly grabbed her and pulled her
from a vehicle during a verbal confrontation. Third, she testified he once
shoved her through an open doorway. Mother also testified that Father
called her derogatory and vulgar names, maliciously coached Son to mistreat
her, read her electronic messages and listened to her telephone calls without
her consent, threw her clothing away without her permission, and secretly
tape-recorded many of his conversations with her.
      At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court issued a three-year
DVRO protecting Mother and Daughter—but not Son—from Father. On the
record, the court stated Father’s credibility “came under serious attack”
during the hearing, and it found Mother was “credible on a number of points”
and “not credible on a number of other points.” The court did not specify all
of the testimony it found credible or not credible, but it opined that Mother’s
testimony concerning one instance of physical abuse—Father’s shoving of
Mother through an open doorway—was “very credible.”
                                       III
                                DISCUSSION
      Father appeals the DVRO protecting Mother and Daughter. He
proceeds with his appeal in propria persona.
      “ ‘To prevail on appeal, an appellant must establish both error and
prejudice from that error. [Citation.] In order to demonstrate error, an

                                       3
appellant must supply the reviewing court with some cogent argument
supported by legal analysis and citation to the record. Rather than scour the
record unguided, we may decide that the appellant has forfeited a point urged
on appeal when it is not supported by accurate citations to the record.
[Citations.] Similarly, we may disregard conclusory arguments that are not
supported by pertinent legal authority.’ ” (Champir, LLC v. Fairbanks Ranch
Assn. (2021) 66 Cal.App.5th 583, 597 (Champir); United Grand Corp. v.
Malibu Hillbillies, LLC (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 142, 146 (United Grand) [“ ‘an
appellant must supply the reviewing court with some cogent argument
supported by legal analysis and citation to the record’ ”].)
      These principles of appellate practice apply to Father, even though he
is proceeding with this appeal as a self-represented litigant. “ ‘[S]uch a party
is to be treated like any other party and is entitled to the same, but no
greater consideration than other litigants and attorneys.’ ” (Nwosu v. Uba
(2004) 122 Cal.App.4th 1229, 1247; see Elena S. v. Kroutik (2016) 247
Cal.App.4th 570, 574 [“Although [a party] is representing himself in propria
persona, he is not exempt from the rules governing appeals.”].) “In other
words, when a litigant accepts the risks of proceeding without counsel, he or
she is stuck with the outcome, and has no greater opportunity to cast off an
unfavorable judgment than he or she would if represented by counsel.”
(Burnete v. La Casa Dana Apartments (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 1262, 1267.)
      In his opening brief, Father presents arguments that largely describe
his version of events and seek to cast doubt on Mother’s credibility and the
probative value of her evidence. For instance, he argues Mother’s motivation
for filing the DVRO request was to retaliate against him for seeking a divorce
from her; Father was physically unable to shove Mother through the open
doorway as she testified (in testimony the court found “very credible”)

                                        4
because he had a tendon tear in his elbow when the incident occurred;
Mother “falsified” documents she tried to introduce into evidence; an audio
recording played in court for impeachment purposes allegedly revealed
Mother insulting and physically abusing Father; Son suffered emotionally
and academically while he was in Mother’s sole physical custody; and the
inclusion of Daughter as a protected party in the DVRO “deprive[d] [him] of
the opportunity to communicate” with Daughter and “deprived [her] of the
opportunity to be with her brother ....” Additionally, Father claims he “did
not have the opportunity to present [his] case” based on the duration of time
the court allowed him to testify and cross-examine Mother.
      None of these are cogent arguments, accompanied by proper citations to
the appellate record and supporting legal authorities, articulating why the
trial court erred in granting the DVRO, or why the DVRO should otherwise
be reversed. Father has forfeited his challenge to the DVRO by not making a
cogent argument for reversal, supported by proper appellate record citations
and legal authorities. (Champir, supra, 66 Cal.App.5th at p. 597; United
Grand, supra, 36 Cal.App.5th at p. 146.) Thus, we must affirm the DVRO.
      The argument that perhaps most closely resembles a cogent argument
for reversal of the DVRO—albeit an argument unsupported by any legal
authority—is Father’s claim he did not have a sufficient opportunity to
present his case. Even if we were to consider this argument, despite Father’s
forfeiture of it, we would still affirm the DVRO because the trial court neither
abused its discretion nor deprived Father of his due process rights.
      The court gave the parties ample time to present their cases over the
four sessions composing the evidentiary hearing. It allowed Father to call all
of the witnesses he desired (three in total) and to call one of those witnesses
out of order during Mother’s case in chief. It granted Father significant

                                       5
leeway in his nearly two-hour cross-examination of Mother. It also permitted
him to testify for approximately two hours. During Father’s two-hour
testimony, the court repeatedly advised him how much time he had
remaining (until the end of the fourth hearing date), instructed him to avoid
or limit discussion of topics with little or no relevance, and admonished him
to focus on the subject matter of the proceeding—i.e., whether he abused
Mother. Notwithstanding these frequent warnings, Father spent much of his
testimony discussing irrelevant or marginally relevant issues like Mother’s

fidelity during the marriage. On this record, we discern no error.1

1      Mother filed a motion requesting that we strike thirteen documents
included in the appellant’s appendix. We grant the motion as to documents
that were not before the trial court, including: (1) an email from the minors’
counsel to the parents’ counsel concerning the scope of the temporary
restraining order; (2) a report prepared by Family Court Services; and (3) the
parents’ schedules of assets and debts (FL-142 forms). (Doers v. Golden Gate
Bridge, Highway & Transportation District (1979) 23 Cal.3d 180, 184, fn. 1
[“As a general rule, documents not before the trial court cannot be included
as a part of the record on appeal.”].) We deny the motion as to the remainder
of the documents identified in Mother’s motion to strike.
                                       6
                                       IV
                                   DISPOSITION
      The domestic violence restraining order is affirmed. Respondent is
entitled to her appellate costs.

                                                         McCONNELL, P. J.

WE CONCUR:

O’ROURKE, J.

BUCHANAN, J.

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