Marriage of Lerman CA6

── Marriage of Lerman CA6 ── Court: California Court of Appeal Date: April 17, 2026 Category: General Filed 4/17/26 Marriage of Lerman CA6 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT In re the Marriage of CELINE and H053267 MIKHAEL Y. LERMAN. (Santa Clara County Super. Ct. No. 22FL000408) CELINE E. LERMAN, Respondent, v. MIKHAEL Y. LERMAN, Appellant. Appellant Mikhael Y. Lerman appeals from a final judgment of dissolution of marriage to respondent Celine E. Lerman, arguing that the trial court committed multiple errors in its adjudication of property issues and violated his due process rights. Ms. Lerman moves to dismiss the appeal based on Mr. Lerman’s noncompliance with the California Rules of Court1 and separately seeks sanctions on the same grounds and for pursuing a frivolous appeal. We deny the motion to dismiss and request for sanctions, but we affirm the judgment. 1 Subsequent undesignated references to rules of court are to the California Rules of Court.  I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND A. The Trial Court Proceedings Mr. Lerman elected to proceed with an appendix pursuant to rule 8.124. The record on appeal is limited to the judgment of dissolution of marriage filed May 22, 2025, the court’s minute order dated April 3, 2025, various documents submitted to the trial court, and the register of actions.2 Our recitation of the factual and procedural background is drawn primarily from the parties’ 45-page judgment. Mr. Lerman and Ms. Lerman were married in October 1990 and separated in February 2023. Ms. Lerman filed her petition for dissolution of marriage without minor children in February 2022, and Mr. Lerman filed his response shortly thereafter. Mr. Lerman represented himself throughout the trial proceedings, and Ms. Lerman was represented by counsel. Based on the register of actions, Mr. Lerman filed multiple requests for orders in the trial court throughout 2022 and 2023, including two requests seeking to hold Ms. Lerman in contempt of court. None of these filings appear in the appendix. 2 We do not consider the vast majority of documents in Mr. Lerman’s 210-page appendix because they were not presented at trial or are dated after the notice of appeal was filed. Although Mr. Lerman appears to have filed various documents as part of “declarations” in the trial court, there is no indication that these declarations were a part of any of the trial proceedings at issue. Indeed, Ms. Lerman argues that none of the documents in Mr. Lerman’s appendix were presented at trial, and Mr. Lerman has not shown otherwise. (Pulver v. Avco Fin. Servs. (1986) 182 Cal.App.3d 622, 632 (Pulver) [“documents not before the trial court cannot be included as part of the record on appeal and thus must be disregarded as beyond the scope of appellate review”].) This includes Exhibit HA, discussed at the oral argument on this appeal, which is attached to a freestanding declaration filed in the trial court, but which we are unable to determine was actually offered for consideration by the trial court. (See In re Marriage of Shimkus (2016) 244 Cal.App.4th 1262, 1265 [trial court “did not err when it refused to consider . . . declarations that were never offered into evidence”].) Filed declarations are “not automatically in evidence.” (Id. at p. 1271.) We also do not consider Mr. Lerman’s hyperlinks to additiona