Recent Family Law Cases

Family Law (Through 10/22/25)
By:  Andrew Botros, CFLS, CALS

The precise holdings in a given case are bolded. Auther’s note is italicized.

People v. Alvarez
10/2/2025 CA 4/1: D084581
https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/D084581.PDF

The Court of Appeal sanctioned defense counsel $1,500 and referred him to the State Bar for submitting a brief containing fabricated case citations generated by artificial intelligence. He cited to a non-existent case and misrepresented quotations from actual cases.

 The Court of Appeal held that the use of AI-generated false citations in criminal appeals is particularly egregious because it involves the rights of a criminal defendant, who is entitled to due process and representation by competent counsel. The court emphasized that “When criminal defense attorneys fail to comply with their ethical obligations, their conduct undermines the integrity of the judicial system. It also damages their credibility and potentially impugns the validity of the arguments they make on behalf of their clients.”

This is the second case in as many months involving counsel providing hallucinated citations to the Court of Appeal. Attorneys throughout the state are on notice that this is not going to be tolerated.

“Trust but Verify” is Insufficient – Attorneys Must Actually Verify

Counsel stated he would “trust but verify” AI research in the future, but the Court made clear that attorneys have a non-delegable duty to personally verify every citation before filing any court document. The court cited Business and Professions Code section 6068(d), requiring attorneys to “employ… those means only as are consistent with truth, and never to seek to mislead the judge or any judicial officer by an artifice or false statement of fact or law.”

This reinforces that verification is not optional or aspirational – it is a fundamental professional duty that cannot be delegated to staff, technology, or any other source.

In re Marriage of Kouvabina & Veltman
10/16/2025 CA 1/3: A171807— Rodríguez, J.
https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A171807.PDF

The Court of Appeal declared Mother, an attorney, a vexatious litigant and imposed a prefiling order after she filed nine combined failed writs and appeals in five years while representing herself in her own dissolution proceedings.

Appeals by Self-Represented Defendants Count as “Litigation” Under Vexatious Litigant Statute

 The Court of Appeal held that appeals filed by a party who was nominally the respondent in the underlying dissolution proceeding constitute “litigation” under Code of Civil Procedure section 391(b)(1) when the appeals arise from proceedings where that party sought affirmative relief. The court rejected Mother’s argument that her appeals did not count because she was technically the respondent in the dissolution, finding that she had initiated numerous motions for disqualification, spousal support modification, child support modification, and attorney fees.

Author’s Note: This clarifies that courts will look beyond formal party designations to the substance of who is seeking relief when determining vexatious litigant status.

Family Law Proceedings Are Not Exempt from Vexatious Litigant Statutes

The Court explicitly held that Family Code section 210 makes vexatious litigant statutes fully applicable to family law proceedings, with no special exemptions or different standards. The court noted: “The Legislature could have exempted family law matters — as it exempted small claims actions in section 391(b)(1) — but it did not.”

Author’s Note: This is significant because family law cases often involve multiple orders and appeals over time, yet the court made clear this does not insulate litigants from vexatious litigant designations.

Modifiable Nature of Support Orders Does Not Prevent “Final Determination” for Vexatious Litigant Purposes

The Court held that appeals from support orders can be “finally determined adversely” under section 391(b)(1) even though support orders remain modifiable based on changed circumstances. The court explained that once an appeal has been decided and “avenues for direct review (appeal) have been exhausted or the time for appeal has expired,” the litigation is finally determined for vexatious litigant purposes, regardless of potential future modification requests.

Writ Petitions Challenging Judicial Disqualification Orders Count Toward Vexatious Litigant Threshold

The Court held that summary denials of writ petitions challenging judicial disqualification orders constitute final adverse determinations for vexatious litigant purposes because these particular statutory writs are the only means of reviewing such orders. In such cases, “an appellate court must judge the petition on its procedural and substantive merits, and a summary denial of the petition is necessarily on the merits.” Four of Mother’s nine unsuccessful matters were writ petitions seeking to disqualify trial court judges, and the court counted all of them toward the litigation threshold.