Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Angel Muñoz, plaintiff and appellant, sought civil harassment protection from defendant and respondent Javier Ceriani after Ceriani posted a YouTube video on March 3, 2025. Muñoz alleged the video contained threatening and intimidating statements and photographs of him and family members. On March 5, 2025, he filed a Request for Civil Harassment Restraining Order on Judicial Council form CH-100, seeking protection for himself, his wife, and three stepsons and asking the court to restrain Ceriani from contacting the protected parties, making further threats, stalking, harassing, or intimidating them, and using his public platform to incite harassment.
Muñoz also requested a temporary restraining order until the hearing date without giving Ceriani notice. The same day, the Los Angeles County Superior Court denied the TRO request on form CH-109, checking the box denying all TROs until the court hearing and handwriting that a hearing was necessary. The court scheduled a hearing for March 28, 2025, and directed Muñoz to serve specified documents on Ceriani.
At the March 28 hearing, Ceriani's attorney obtained a statutory continuance to file a motion to strike. On May 12, 2025, Ceriani filed an anti-SLAPP motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16 to strike Muñoz's restraining order request. After further continuances, hearings on both matters were set for June 12, 2025. The parties filed opposition, reply, and surreply briefs and declarations. At the June 12 hearing, the court announced a tentative ruling granting the motion, finding the video was protected activity and that Muñoz had not shown a likelihood of prevailing; it denied Muñoz's request to call Ceriani to testify, adopted the tentative ruling, and granted the motion to strike. Muñoz appealed, identifying only the June 12, 2025 order.
The Court’s Holding
The Second District Court of Appeal, Division Five, affirmed, reviewing the anti-SLAPP ruling and statutory interpretation de novo. Muñoz's sole contention—that the court erred by granting the anti-SLAPP motion without first holding an evidentiary hearing on his TRO request—conflated two distinct section 527.6 procedures. An ex parte TRO request is governed by subdivisions (c) through (f), which let the court grant or deny it the day it is filed, and neither party is entitled to a hearing before the court rules on a TRO request. A petition for a restraining order after hearing is governed by subdivisions (g) through (j), which require an expedited hearing and clear and convincing evidence of unlawful harassment—and, under Thomas v. Quintero, such a petition is subject to an anti-SLAPP motion.
That distinction did not help Muñoz. The March 5, 2025 TRO denial was not the order identified in his notice of appeal, which identified only the June 12, 2025 order, so the TRO denial was not before the court. By the time Ceriani moved to strike, the only pending issue was the request for a restraining order after hearing, which Thomas clearly holds is subject to an anti-SLAPP petition. The court found no error in deciding the anti-SLAPP motion first, rejected as irrelevant Muñoz's argument based on 2024 amendments defining 'temporary restraining order,' and noted that Muñoz raised no further challenge to the protected-activity and minimal-merit determinations, so no error was shown.
Key Takeaways
- A petition for a civil harassment restraining order after hearing under section 527.6 may be stricken under the anti-SLAPP statute before any evidentiary hearing on the petition.
- An ex parte temporary restraining order application is not itself a claim subject to an anti-SLAPP motion, and neither party is entitled to a hearing before the court rules on the TRO request.
- The March 5, 2025 TRO denial was not before the appellate court because Muñoz's notice of appeal identified only the June 12, 2025 order.
- Muñoz did not separately challenge the findings that the petition arose from protected activity and lacked minimal merit.
- The June 12, 2025 order was affirmed, and Ceriani was awarded his costs on appeal.
Why It Matters
The decision clarifies how the expedited civil harassment process interacts with anti-SLAPP procedure: a respondent may test whether a section 527.6 petition arises from protected activity and has minimal merit before the petitioner receives an evidentiary hearing. It also underscores the importance of identifying the order actually challenged—the March 5 TRO denial and the later order striking the petition were separate rulings, and only the latter was presented.
The ruling confirms that a petitioner cannot revive an earlier TRO denial by appealing only the later anti-SLAPP disposition, and that the 2024 amendments defining temporary restraining orders did not disturb the Thomas v. Quintero framework.