California Court of Appeal

In this case arising out of a child custody dispute between Rifkin, the Father, and Carty, the Mother, the family court issued an order declaring Rifkin a vexatious litigant and prohibiting him from filing any new litigation in propria persona without first obtaining leave of court (the prefiling order), and ordered Rifkin to pay some of Carty's attorney fees. Rifkin applied to vacate the prefiling order and remove his name from the Judicial Council's list of vexatious litigants, and the family court denied his application. Rifkin appeals the family court's order denying this application. The order appealed from is affirmed, where: 1) Rifkin's challenges are untimely because they should have been raised in an appeal from the prefiling order itself, rather than from the later order denying his application to vacate that order; and 2) even if the merits of Rifkin's challenges to the prefiling order were properly before the court, they would be rejected.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/06/2015
• Published 03/06/2015

Judges

• Rivera

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel