Cal Poly Humboldt v. Ahmed CA1/5

── Cal Poly Humboldt v. Ahmed CA1/5 ── Court: California Court of Appeal Date: April 24, 2026 Category: General Filed 4/24/26 Cal Poly Humboldt v. Ahmed CA1/5 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION FIVE CAL POLY HUMBOLDT, A171713 Plaintiff and Respondent, v. (Humboldt County Super. Ct. No. CV2300486) FAREED ATIQ AHMED, Defendant and Appellant. Fareed Atiq Ahmed (Appellant) appeals from the trial court’s order granting the petition of respondent Cal Poly Humboldt (Cal Poly) for a workplace violence restraining order against Appellant (Code Civ. Proc., § 527.8).1 We affirm. BACKGROUND In early 2020, Appellant was a student at Cal Poly. He filed an administrative complaint alleging certain individuals were harassing and discriminating against him on multiple protected grounds, including religion and ethnicity. The complaint was assigned to Cal Poly’s Title IX coordinator, 1 All undesignated statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure. 1 David H. David investigated the complaint and, in May, sent Appellant an email informing him that the facts as alleged did not establish harassment or discrimination based on a protected category. A few hours later, Appellant responded with a lengthy email disagreeing with David’s conclusion. The following day, David replied and reiterated his position. After this May 2020 email exchange, David did not hear from Appellant until October 2022. At that time, Appellant sent David an email attaching a nearly 200-page document authored by Appellant and titled, “Tome Of Knowledge: Non-Violent Communication 101 - Decoding Covert Passive- Aggressive Communication Tactics.” The trial court described the document in its ruling as “an exhaustive, 199-page recounting of how [Appellant] believes he has been ignored and wronged by members of the student body (known and unknown) and by the University in the investigation and conclusions reached related to his complaints. He details how, when he received the email in May of 2020 from [David], [Appellant] states: ‘felt like my life was in great and imminent danger and felt highly threatened; so much so that I felt the need to kill them before they killed me.’ And how he was out of options. He goes on to write that he called his therapist and that helped him not feel that way anymore. Nonetheless, he continues to stand firm in his belief that [David] is part of a satanic cult and the cult’s direct harm on not only [Appellant] but the community at large.” In the document, Appellant’s description of his reaction to receiving David’s 2020 email also includes the following: “I felt a lot of violence and hostility in the atmosphere. I felt murderous energy around me and trying to flow into me to kill me and make me kill others. I felt like I needed to do something to make sure the situation is still being handled properly and I take a course of action that is serving the mutual interests of all.” Appellant 2 claimed, “I feel very certain that David H[.] is actually one of the leaders of the Secret Satanic Cults in this region and is at the center of this Investigation,” and “I feel very certain that . . . David H[.] is a serial killer rapist.”