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Civil Restraining Order Denied Against Our Client, Pasadena
Our client was 66 years old and living with his elderly mom, caring for her in her last days. He lived in a small home, with his mom, in San Gabriel.
Next door to their small home was a family from the Middle East who had their grandparents also living with them. The family had other adults often living at the home. They had two large dogs who barked throughout the night, which bothered our client, but not his mom who was hard of hearing.
The family also had a young boy who would yell loudly and would be up well past midnight on many nights. The family also allowed trash to lay on their driveway and smoked outside at all hours of the day.
Our client regarded his neighbors as inconsiderate, but tried to tolerate them as best he could.
One day, the family next door noticed our client looking at them with a not-so-friendly expression.
The family then installed a security camera outside their home that was pointed into our client’s home. This bothered our client, but he installed drapes on the windows and again, silently tolerated this.
Finally, one day, when the neighbors seemed to be gone, he brought a ladder onto the neighbor’s property and attempted to turn the security camera to the side to give his mom and him some privacy. As he tried to turn the camera, it fell from its mounting and broke when it hit the ground.
The neighbors returned home and played the security video from the camera, seeing that our client had attempted to turn the camera. The neighbors then called the Los Angeles Police Department, who came to the scene and cited our client for vandalism.
At the same time, the neighbors hired a civil law firm and filed a civil restraining order against our client for harassment, stalking and trespassing. The restraining order claimed our client had called their young boy derogatory terms and this caused the boy to have sleepless nights.
The client then called Greg Hill & Associates and explained what had taken place. He then retained Greg Hill & Associates.
Greg Hill & Associates represented the client in the criminal case, which was resolved with judicial diversion (so a dismissal after the period of diversion), provided our client attended 26 anger management classes and performed 60 hours of community service, which he completed in about six months.
At the continued hearing for the civil restraining order, the attorney for the next door neighbors was not ready for a hearing on the merits of the restraining order and proposed a six-month continuance of the hearing, which Greg agreed to because he did not want the client to have to defend himself on the merits anyways.
Just prior to the third hearing date, Greg received an email from opposing counsel, asking Greg to stipulate to a continuance of the hearing because the neighbors were outside the country on a vacation.
Greg responded that he would need to discuss this with the client. However, Greg planned to not stipulate and ask the judge to dismiss the case if the neighbors failed to appear in court for the hearing. Greg never got back to the other attorney.
At the hearing on the restraining order, our client and Greg appeared. Opposing counsel asked the judge for a continuance because her clients were on vacation outside the country. The judge asked Greg if he would so stipulate and Greg said no.
Based on this, the judge denied the continuance and dismissed the request for a restraining order because petitioners (the next door neighbors) were not present in court.
Our client was very happy with this dismissal.
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