Domestic Violence & Harassment Restraining Orders
Physical and verbal abuse is not tolerated by the Courts whether committed by a spouse, significant other, family member, or friend. If your spouse or significant other has abused you physically or verbally such as pushing you, grabbing parts of your body, shoving you, or has made verbal threats of inflicting physical harm to you or your children, you may be a victim of domestic violence. Under these circumstances, it is important to call the police and report the incident. If you sustained any type of physical injury, it is important to go to the hospital, emergency, or urgent care to seek examination and treatment of your injury.
The next step is to retain an attorney to file a domestic violence restraining order against the perpetrator. This may be done within 24 hours through what we call an ex-parte application so you can get instant protection from the perpetrator. The Court will set a hearing for you or your attorney to present evidence such as testimony from you and other witnesses to the incident.
If you have children and fear that your children may be at risk of injury, you may also seek protection for your children against the perpetrator. If these are your children with the perpetrator, you may seek sole physical custody of the children and child support.
Retraining Order protection may also be obtained by Victims of harassment. If another person has committed the following:
- Unlawful violence.
- A credible threat of violence or
- A knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person that seriously alarms, annoys, or harasses the person and that serves no legitimate purpose.
The course of conduct must be such as would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress and must actually cause substantial emotional distress to the victim.
The restraining order can include restraints on personal conduct by the batterer, order the batterer to stay away from the victim's home/work and/or children's school, and other miscellaneous orders. There is no requirement that there be a relationship between the victim and a batterer in order to obtain the protective order. The Court usually gives more credibility to incidents which occurred recently.