Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Re: Service of a restraining order

You've got one hell of a problem that needs proper attention and handling before you end up with a criminal record with serious consequences, like loss of firearms rights and possible effect on your employability. Ignore this and you will regret it for a long time. You need to get counsel and fight this attempt before the order becomes permanent. You need to have the court withdraw and cancel the temporary order, with a finding of factual innocence after a hearing and testimony. You won't likely succeed in doing so pro per. Feel free to contact me if you decide to do this right.

Re: Service of a restraining order

You're splitting hairs about the name issue. The documents clearly refer to you, which is all that matters.

The temporary restraining order ("TRO") is not "bogus" as you say. It is quite genuine. The young woman evidently obtained it by fraud, but the order itself is real and you should not take it lightly.

There will be a hearing on whether to make the TRO permanent, and it sounds like you should be able to defeat it at that time, though you may need a lawyer to help protect your rights. People can only seek restraining orders to prevent contact with themselves or their minor children, not their adult parents (unless the parent is under the child's guardianship). Additionally, your efforts to contact her mother strike me as protected by the First Amendment and by a legal doctrine known as the common interest privilege.

As I said earlier, you should get a lawyer to help you present these arguments to the court. It's easy for a layperson to mess up a restraining order hearing, and the consequences of having one of these ordered in place can be more drastic than you may realize.

Please feel free to contact me if you want to discuss this further.