Napa judge won’t vacate Napa County supervisor’s temporary restraining order against wine exec

A temporary restraining order that Napa County Supervisor Belia Ramos secured against a Napa winery executive in late June won’t be overturned, according to a tentative ruling Tuesday from Napa Superior Court Judge Cynthia P. Smith.

That will maintain the status quo on the restraining order for about a week. The temporary order is set to expire July 15, the date another court hearing on the matter is scheduled.

The order is against Debra Dommen, the vice president for government and industry affairs at Treasury Wine Estates in Napa. Ramos alleged in a 17-page petition that Dommen had distributed a confidential document connected to a child welfare investigation case that involved Ramos and her oldest daughter, in an effort to convince people not to vote for her in the March county supervisors race.

Napa Superior Court Judge Joseph J. Solga granted the temporary restraining order June 28.

Dommen’s attorney, Kevin Block, has contended that the document was not confidential at the time Dommen discovered it in December. Block sought to overturn the order, arguing in a court filing that it was issued without proper notice.

But Smith said Tuesday that she would defer to Solga’s decision that the petition had satisfied legal requirements allowing the court to issue the restraining order without standard notice.

“It appears to the court that there’s nothing in the record I can see that reflects Judge Solga’s decision making when he was issuing the temporary restraining order other than the fact that he issued it,” Smith said. “The court needs to presume and be deferential to his decision making and not replace his thought process.”

Smith also tentatively ordered that the child welfare investigation letter should be deemed confidential as a matter of law. Block will be required to refile court filings that included the letter, and those original filings will become inaccessible to the public.

Block argued that confidentiality can be lost; he argued that the letter in question was in the public domain. But Smith said she believed it was the court’s obligation to deem the document confidential, given the attorney representing Ramos, Stephen Montagna, had made the court aware of where the letter had come from.

“The court's ruling and order make it very clear that this document should have never been included, it’s statutorily protected, it includes minor children,” Montagna said.

Ramos requests change of venue

Montagna also filed Tuesday an emergency motion to change venue in a family law court case related to Ramos’ divorce, in connection to the events surrounding the civil case.

Ramos, in a petition supporting the motion, outlines that her reasoning for the request is connected to concerns around the court’s impartiality, its role in making the letter publicly available and the lack of available Napa judges — given that every judge but Solga have recused themselves from the case because of Ramos’ position, the petition states.

Ramos notes that Montagna on July 3 filed an emergency motion to remove the contested letter from the public record and seal it, after being contacted by the Napa Valley Register newspaper, which had indicated intent to publish that information.

But the court didn’t consider the motion to show “exceptional circumstances” to justify shorter notice, and so moved a hearing of the motion to July 5. The filing wasn’t reviewed then either, according to the petition, because no Napa judge was available to review the motion and the court was trying to find an outside county judge to review it by July 8.

“The court’s failure to timely review and consider my ex parte motion has prejudicially impacted my rights as a family law litigant and ultimately has allowed my children’s information to be published,” Ramos wrote. “That bell cannot be unstrung.”

Ramos also contends the court didn’t properly seal the letter, despite an April 11, 2023, order from Judge Francisca Tisher that “all Records/Letters from Child Welfare Services (CWS) shall be sealed and kept in the confidential portion of the file and shall not be shared absent a court order,” according to the petition.

“Despite Judge Tisher’s order, the CWS letter was never removed from the public file, nor was it sealed and kept in the confidential portion of the file as required under California statute,” Ramos wrote.

Along with a venue transfer, Ramos is seeking an order that shortens the time for a hearing on the venue change.

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281 or edward.booth@pressdemocrat.com .