Santa Clara County has emerged on the judicial scene as one of the greatest civil rights abusers of self-represented litigants in divorce proceedings. CJBN.com, a media outlet that has been exposing family law issues in Marin, Sacramento and San Diego for years, is turning their attention to the Santa Clara family courts where judges like Grilli, Towery and temporary judges like Nat Hales, are abusing their power and attempting to silence family law litigants with vexatious litigant labels. On December 8, 2015 , Arch Cunningham argued the misuse of the vexatious litigant label in family law proceedings before the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco. The matter is under submission and the multiple litigants in that case and hundreds of others await the decision. Vexatious litigant labels are a designation the judicial system uses to brand a litigant from abusing the court system, the label was never intended to make dissolution proceedings more difficult or unfair, where the state has jurisdiction and a monopoly on property and custody issues for decades. Judges like Towery and Grilli have been reportedly allowing certain lawyers to file these frivolous motions against self represented parties, mainly to silence them and conceal fraud or make discovery vastly more difficult. It is believed the Judge Grilli and Towery may be allowing these motions in Santa Clara County at a rate higher than anywhere else in the state . Pro Temp Judge Nat Hales and Bradford Baugh have also been reported to be misusing vexatious filings, mainly in what appears to appease wealthy clients intent on abusing the judicial process in their own divorce matters.