In Re Marriage of Nadkarni

I. INTRODUCTION

The marriage of appellant Darshana Varia Nadkarni (hereafter Darshana) and respondent Dattaprasanna G. Nadkarni (hereafter Datta) ended in May 2005. Since then, the parties have been involved in a child custody dispute regarding their two teenaged children. In April 2007, Datta, who is Darshana’s former husband, accessed an e-mail account used by Darshana and obtained copies of e-mails between his former wife and third persons, including her attorney. According to Datta, the parties used the e-mail account to communicate about their children, and he accessed the account after discovering that Darshana had left the children alone while she traveled to India. Datta attached copies of Darshana’s e-mails to documents he filed in the trial court in their child custody matter.

Darshana, on the other hand, asserts that the e-mail account belonged to her and was used for her personal and professional business. She applied for and received a temporary restraining order and order to show cause under the Domestic Violence Protection Act (DVPA) (Fam. Code, § 6200 et seq.) that ordered Datta to, among other things, “not engage in any behavior that has been or could…