Rahemo v. Naworah CA4/1

Opinion

Filed 8/17/26 Rahemo v. Naworah CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

RAMIZ RAHEMO, D085786

Appellant, (Super. Ct. No. 23FL003626E)

v.

MASSARA NAWORAH,

Respondent.

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Charles E. Bell, Judge. Affirmed. Ramiz Rahemo, in pro. per., for Appellant. Massara Naworah, in pro. per., for Respondent.

I INTRODUCTION Ramiz Rahemo (Father) appeals a family court order awarding sole legal custody and physical custody of his two minor children to their mother, Massara Naworah (Mother), subject to a step-up parenting plan that grants Father progressively more parenting time upon his completion of certain benchmarks. Father asks us to reverse the order on the following grounds: (1) the Family Court Services (FCS) department of the family court is unlawfully biased against men because it employs only female counselors; (2) the court adopted the custody and visitation recommendation of an FCS counselor who was allegedly removed from the case for bias or poor performance; (3) the court did not factor Mother’s violation of prior court visitation orders into its decisionmaking; and (4) the court did not make the findings required by Family Code section 3044.1 We reject these arguments and affirm the order. II BACKGROUND2 Mother and Father married in November 2018, and a petition to dissolve the marriage was filed in April 2023. They had two children together during the marriage. In December 2023, the family court issued a three-year domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) identifying Father as the restrained party 1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Family Code.

2 Our task of summarizing the facts was significantly hindered by both parties’ failure to support their statements of fact with citations to the appellate record. California Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(C) provides that appellate briefs must “[s]upport any reference to a matter in the record by a citation to the volume and page number of the record where the matter appears.” This rule “is intended to enable the reviewing court to locate relevant portions of the record ‘without thumbing through and rereading [other] portions of a brief.’ [Citation.] To provide record citations for alleged facts at some points in a brief, but not at others, frustrates the purpose of that rule, and courts will decline to consider any factual assertion unsupported by record citation at the point where it is asserted.” (Alki Partners, LP v. DB Fund Services, LLC (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 574, 590, fn. 8.)

2 and listing both Mother and the children as protected parties.3 The court also awarded sole legal custody and primary physical custody to Mother, and granted Father supervised visitation rights. In May 2024, the court granted Mother’s request to move away with the children from California to Florida. Mother and the children relocated to Florida soon afterwards. In June 2024, the court found Mother in contempt for disobeying court visitation orders and sentenced her to three years of informal probation. A few weeks later, Father filed a request for order (RFO) to change the custody arrangement and visitation schedule. Father requested joint legal and physical custody of the children, unsupervised visitation rights, and a revised holiday schedule. He sought the modification due to Mother’s violation of the court’s prior visitation orders and his substantial completion of a 52-week domestic violence training program. At the time, Father had completed 44 weeks of the domestic violence training program. In September 2024, Mother and Father separately participated in an FCS conference with a counselor, who prepared a report and recommendations for the family court’s consideration. According to the report, the parties agreed Mother would retain primary physical custody. They also agreed Father would be entitled to scheduled telephone and video contacts with the children. However, they disagreed on several other matters including legal custody, a parenting plan, vacation time, holiday time, and school breaks.

3 The DVRO is not included in the record and the circumstances underpinning the DVRO are not apparent from the record.

3 As to these disputed issues, the FCS counselor recommended the following: Mother shall retain sole legal custody of the children due to the existing DVRO and potential safety concerns if both parents were required to make legal decisions about the children; after Father provides proof that he has completed at least 49 classes of his 52-week domestic violence training program, he shall be entitled to five consecutive days of unsupervised parenting time in Florida with the long-term goal of exercising parenting time in California; and upon completion of the parenting time just discussed, Father shall have the option to exercise parenting time in San Diego during spring break each year, two weeks of summer break, one week of fall break every other year, and half of winter break each year. The counselor further recommended that Father receive up to one week per month of parenting time in Florida when the children are not on their school breaks if Father can care for the children in Florida. The family court conducted an RFO hearing and family resolution conference on November 12, 2024. Thereafter, the court issued a written order adopting the recommendations of the FCS counselor, subject to minor modifications not pertinent to the present appeal.4 4 While this appeal was pending, we granted Father’s motion to augment the record with the FCS counselor’s report and the family court’s findings and order after the RFO hearing. We deferred consideration of the motion insofar as it sought augmentation for additional documents Father submitted to the family court in November 2024, including a certificate of completion for the 52-week domestic violence training program, an FCS data sheet, a complaint Father made to FCS and FCS’s response thereto, and a minute order granting Mother’s move-away request. We now grant the motion to augment the record with these additional materials.

4 III DISCUSSION A. Legal Standards Proceeding in propria persona, Father appeals the order granting legal custody and physical custody of his two minor children to Mother. “ ‘To prevail on appeal, an appellant must establish both error and prejudice from that error. [Citation.] In order to demonstrate error, an appellant must supply the reviewing court with some cogent argument supported by legal analysis and citation to the record. Rather than scour the record unguided, we may decide that the appellant has forfeited a point urged on appeal when it is not supported by accurate citations to the record. [Citations.] Similarly, we may disregard conclusory arguments that are not supported by pertinent legal authority.’ ”5 (Champir, LLC v. Fairbanks Ranch Assn. (2021) 66 Cal.App.5th 583, 597 (Champir); see United Grand Corp. v. Malibu Hillbillies, LLC (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 142, 146 (United Grand) [“ ‘an appellant must supply the reviewing court with some cogent argument supported by legal analysis and citation to the record’ ”].) “[T]he record does not include a reporter’s transcript of the change of custody hearing, which severely impairs analysis of [F]ather’s assertions. ‘ “A judgment or order of the [trial] court is presumed correct. All intendments 5 These rules apply to Father, even though he is a self-represented party. A self-represented “ ‘party is to be treated like any other party and is entitled to the same, but no greater consideration than other litigants and attorneys.’ ” (Nwosu v. Uba (2004) 122 Cal.App.4th 1229, 1247.) “In other words, when a litigant accepts the risks of proceeding without counsel, he or she is stuck with the outcome, and has no greater opportunity to cast off an unfavorable judgment than he or she would if represented by counsel.” (Burnete v. La Casa Dana Apartments (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 1262, 1267.)

5 and presumptions are indulged to support it on matters as to which the record is silent ....” (Orig. italics.) [Citation.]’ [Citation.] It is the appellant’s affirmative duty to show error by an adequate record. [Citation.] ‘A necessary corollary to this rule [is] that a record is inadequate, and appellant defaults, if the appellant predicates error only on the part of the record he provides the trial court, but ignores or does not present to the appellate court portions of the proceedings below which may provide grounds upon which the decision of the trial court could be affirmed.’ ” (Osgood v. Landon (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 425, 435 (Osgood).) “The standard of appellate review of custody and visitation orders is the deferential abuse of discretion test. [Citation.] The precise measure is whether the trial court could have reasonably concluded that the order in question advanced the ‘best interest’ of the child. We are required to uphold the ruling if it is correct on any basis, regardless of whether such basis was actually invoked.” (In re Marriage of Burgess (1996) 13 Cal.4th 25, 32.) B. Analysis Father raises four claims of error on appeal. We address each of these arguments in turn. First, Father contends the FCS department of the family court utilizes only female counselors, which “automatically” biases all FCS reports and recommendations in favor of mothers and against fathers. According to Father, FCS reports and recommendations do not accurately reflect the “psychology” or “perspectives” of fathers because they are written by women. Father asserts this alleged bias against fathers violated his equal protection and due process rights under the state and federal constitutions, state and international law, and canons of judicial ethics.

6 As an initial matter, Father provides no factual support or record citations to substantiate his bare assertion that FCS utilizes only female counselors. The claim is forfeited for that reason. (Champir, supra, 66 Cal.App.5th at p. 597; United Grand, supra, 36 Cal.App.5th at p. 146.) But even if Father had supported his argument with proper record citations, we reject the abhorrent and utterly meritless implication of his claim—that women are incapable of rendering unbiased evaluations in custody cases due to their sex. “ ‘The fact that an individual belongs to a minority does not render one biased or prejudiced, or raise doubts about one’s impartiality: “that one is black does not mean, ipso facto, that he is anti-white; no more than being Jewish implies being anti-Catholic, or being Catholic implies being anti-Protestant.” ’ ” (Rebmann v. Rohde (2011) 196 Cal.App.4th 1283, 1293; accord Briganti v. Chow (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 504, 511 [“We review judgments and judicial rulings, not physical or other supposed personal characteristics of superior court judges.”].) Likewise, one’s identity as a woman does not mean that one is anti-man or incapable of making an unbiased report and recommendation that properly considers the interests and perspectives of all parties. Second, Father asserts the family court erred by adopting the recommendations of the counselor who oversaw the FCS conference because the FCS department “fired” the counselor after she prepared her report. The record does not support this claim. Rather, it reveals that Father submitted a complaint to FCS arguing the counselor was “biased” and had “twisted [his] words” in her report. In response, a supervising FCS counselor sent Father a letter stating that only a judge could assess his complaints about perceived inaccuracies in the FCS report. However, the supervisor stated in closing 7 that if Father should “require another appointment at Family Court Services, [his] case [would] be assigned to a different Family Court Counselor.” As the record makes clear, the counselor who conducted the FCS conference was not “fired” based on a finding of poor performance or wrongdoing, as Father’s appellate brief suggests. Indeed, the supervising FCS counselor expressly declined to address the merits of Father’s complaints. Instead, the FCS department simply advised Father it would assign a different counselor to him for future appointments, apparently due to his dissatisfaction with the counselor who had overseen the FCS conference and prepared the report. In any event, Father has provided no legal authority for the proposition that it is improper or unlawful for a court, in the exercise of its independent judgment, to adopt the custody and visitation recommendations of a counselor who is removed or reassigned from a case before its completion. Therefore, Father’s claim fails. Third, Father argues the family court erred because it disregarded Mother’s violation of prior visitation orders while determining the custody and visitation arrangement that was in the best interests of the children. To support this argument, Father emphasizes that the court did not discuss Mother’s violations in the custody and visitation order. We are not persuaded. Section 3048 specifies the required contents for custody and visitation orders. It does not obligate a court to expressly state each factor it considers when determining the custody and visitation arrangement that is in the best interests of a child. Further, the absence of a reporter’s transcript for the RFO hearing and family resolution conference precludes us from assessing whether the court in fact contemplated Mother’s violations during the hearing. As the appellant, Father bears the burden of providing us with an adequate appellate record. (Osgood, supra, 127 Cal.App.4th at p. 435.)

8 Applying the presumption of correctness, we infer the court considered all appropriate factors during the unreported hearing. Fourth, Father contends the family court erred by failing to specify in its custody and visitation order that his completion of the 52-week domestic violence training program overcame the “rebuttable presumption that an award of sole or joint physical or legal custody of a child to a person who has perpetrated domestic violence is detrimental to the best interest of the child.” (§ 3044, subd. (a).) Father’s argument is without merit. A court need only specify the reasons for its decision “[i]f the court determines that the presumption in subdivision (a) has been overcome ….” (Id., subd. (f)(2); see Jaime G. v. H.L. (2018) 25 Cal.App.5th 794, 805 [“When a trial court decides the evidence does indeed rebut [the] presumption, the statute requires the court to state the reasons for this decision.”].) Here, Father has not directed us to any court finding that Father overcame the rebuttable presumption; absent such a finding, the court was not required to make findings specific to each factor under section 3044. Further, even if the court had made such a finding, a court may “state its reasons in writing or on the record ….” (§ 3044, subd. (f)(2), italics added.) Because Father has not provided a reporter’s transcript from the RFO hearing and family resolution conference, we must infer the court stated any necessary findings during the unreported hearing. Finally, insofar as Father implies that his completion of a domestic violence training program necessarily compelled the court to find that he overcame the rebuttable presumption in section 3044, subdivision (a), he is mistaken. To overcome the presumption, a court must find it is in the best interest of the child to give physical or legal custody to the domestic violence perpetrator. (§ 3044, subd. (b)(1).) The court must also find that seven enumerated factors, on balance, support the legislative findings of 9 section 3020. (Id., subd. (b).) One such factor is the domestic violence perpetrator’s successful completion of “a batterer’s treatment program” satisfying certain statutory criteria. (Id., subd. (b)(2)(A).) Thus, Father’s completion of a 52-week domestic violence training program, while commendable, is just one factor among many others to be considered. Standing alone, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to overcome the rebuttable presumption set forth in section 3044, subdivision (a). (See Jason P. v. Danielle S. (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 1000, 1028 [“one of the factors the court must consider in determining whether the presumption is rebutted is whether the domestic violence perpetrator has successfully completed a batterer’s treatment program”], italics added.) IV DISPOSITION The order is affirmed. Respondent Massara Naworah is awarded her appellate costs.

McCONNELL, P. J.

WE CONCUR:

DATO, J.

KELETY, J.