Restraining orders are court orders which are designed when immediate protection from an abuser who poses an immediate or future danger is necessary. Violations of restraining orders can result in arrests and criminal prosecution.
Unfortunately, oftentimes, spouses of a deteriorating marriage file for a restraining order simply to attempt to their former spouse criminally charged by alleging they violated the restraining order.
The New Jersey Appellate Division just gave a huge N-O to such practices, making it clear that such actions are harassment and can result in a restraining order against the harasser.
The parties are referenced in court records by their initials only, R.M.K., the Plaintiff-husband, and S.S.L., the Defendant-wife.
The parties, both residents of Ocean County, were in a relationship for over twenty years. They separated a few years ago. In 2022, she obtained a Final Restraining Order (FRO) against him.
Since that time she has repeatedly called the police claiming that he violated her FRO - allegations, which, if true, would get him arrested.
Fearing she would continue to use her FRO to try to get him arrested, he subsequently applied for an FRO against her.
The trial court found his testimony to be credible and her testimony to be incredible. The judge then found that she had no valid justification for contacting the police on any of the three occasions and that she made the contacts with the purpose of harassing her former husband.
The trial court also found that he needed an FRO to protect him against future acts of harassment. In that regard, the trial court determined that she had engaged in a series of prior misuses of her FRO and that she was using that FRO to harass him. Finally, the court found that she had engaged in a series of actions that demonstrated that she was trying to coercively control him. The court’s based this finding on grounds that her reports to the police were her attempts to try to control him by setting him up so that it appeared he was violating her FRO.
The woman appealed the ruling, arguing that the trial court made erroneous findings and abused its discretion.
In a written decision just released, Appellate Division Judges Gilson and Perez Friscia were not impressed in the slightest.
"Having reviewed the record, we conclude that there was sufficient credible evidence supporting the trial court's determination that defendant committed the predicate act of harassment under subsection (a). The trial court found that defendant had contacted the police three times in a relatively short period of time and that there was no good reason why defendant was contacting the police to claim that plaintiff was violating her FRO. In that regard, the trial court expressly rejected defendant's claim that she reasonably believed that plaintiff was violating her FRO. Instead, the trial court found that defendant was contacting the police without justification and with the purpose of harassing plaintiff. Those findings are supported by the substantial credible evidence presented at the trial. Moreover, those findings satisfy the elements of harassment under subsection (a). See N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4(a).
"We are also satisfied that there was credible evidence supporting the trial court's finding that plaintiff needed a restraining order. The court credited plaintiff's testimony concerning several prior instances where defendant had misused her FRO in an improper attempt to set up plaintiff and to coercively control him. Accordingly, the record demonstrates that the FRO in favor of plaintiff was necessary to protect him from further abuses by defendant and there was sufficient evidence in the record supporting both prongs needed for an FRO. See Silver, 387 N.J. Super. at 125-27. Defendant's arguments to the contrary are not persuasive," the justices wrote.
This ruling comes following additional rulings (here and here) making it clear that restraining orders can only be granted for "acts that cross the line into domestic violence" and not for "ordinary disputes and disagreements between family members," and more pertinently, that restraining orders are not to used as leverage in beginning a divorce process, such as to force the spouse to vacate the marital home.
Additionally, as previously reported here on FAA News, the Appellate Division last year gave a huge N-O to seek restraining orders as an attempt to alienate parents from their children.
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