Santsche v. Hopkins CA1/1

Filed 12/14/20 Santsche v. Hopkins CA1/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

KIMBERLY R. SANTSCHE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A158007, A158468, A159025 v. JERMAINE A. HOPKINS, (Humboldt County Super. Ct. No. CV180293) Defendant and Appellant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION1 Jermaine Hopkins, appearing in propria persona, appeals from numerous trial court orders dated between June and September 2019. The orders were entered after we ruled in his favor in a prior appeal, in which he challenged the trial court’s denial of his special motion to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16.2 (Santsche v. Hopkins (Mar. 26, 2019, A154559, A154734) [nonpub. opn.] (Santsche I).) Hopkins fails to explain why the orders at issue—by which the trial court (1) complied with the Santsche I remittitur by granting his anti-

We resolve this case by a memorandum opinion in accordance with 1

California Standards of Judicial Administration, section 8.1. SLAPP is an acronym for “strategic lawsuit against public 2

participation.” (Navellier v. Sletten (2002) 29 Cal.4th 82, 85.) All further statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.

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SLAPP motion and dismissing the case and (2) rejected his subsequent attempts to file documents in the closed action—are subject to reversal. Accordingly, we affirm. This case stems from Hopkins’s rental of a storage unit from a Eureka company where Kimberly Santsche was employed as the general manager. In April 2018, Santsche filed a petition for a civil harassment restraining order against Hopkins (the petition). In response, he filed an anti-SLAPP motion seeking to have the petition stricken. The trial court denied the motion in June 2018, and Hopkins appealed, initiating Santsche I. Concluding that the petition rested on allegations of constitutionally protected conduct, we reversed and directed the trial court to dismiss the petition, without prejudice to Santsche’s filing of a petition premised on unprotected activity by Hopkins. The remittitur in Santsche I issued on May 31, 2019. Meanwhile, shortly after Hopkins appealed from the denial of his anti- SLAPP motion in Santsche I, the trial court entered an order confirming that the proceedings before it were thereby stayed. (See Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Delfino (2005) 35 Cal.4th 180, 186 (Varian Medical) [appeal from denial of anti-SLAPP motion “automatically stays all further trial court proceedings on the merits upon the causes of action affected by the motion”].) Hopkins appealed from the order confirming the appeal-related stay, initiating Santsche v. Hopkins (A154874) (Santsche II). On May 30, 2019— the day before the remittitur issued in Santsche I—we dismissed Santsche II, holding that the order confirming the stay was not an appealable order. The remittitur in Santsche II issued on August 6, 2019. Between July and November 2019, Hopkins appealed from several trial court orders, and we consolidated the resulting three appeals. Hopkins