Altafulla

Defendant and appellant John Ervin challenges a restraining order issued against him under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (Fam. Code, § 6200 et seq.; DVPA). He also argues the trial court erred in failing to issue an order restraining his former domestic partner, plaintiff and respondent Carolina Altafulla.

The trial court’s orders arise out of Ervin’s discovery that Altafulla had been unfaithful. In response to the discovery of Altafulla’s unfaithfulness, Ervin sent e-mails to Altafulla’s employer and their mutual friends and attached a surveillance report that he believed established the unfaithfulness. More importantly, at the home he shared with Altafulla, and in fairly graphic terms, Ervin described oral copulation to Altafulla’s 17-year-old and nine-year-old daughters, stated his belief Altafulla had engaged in oral copulation with another man, and then warned the girls about what he believed was a risk they could contract sexually transmitted diseases from towels their mother might use. In an apparent further effort to traumatize the children, Ervin began dismantling their bedroom furniture. Altafulla’s 17-year-old daughter was in fact so traumatized by…