Domestic Violence Injunctions

Domestic Violence Injunctions

Often someone has an abusive spouse, partner, or significant other that they are scared will commit domestic violence against them or has committed domestic violence against them. An attorney can assist you with the goal of obtaining an Injunction Against Domestic Violence against that abusive person, and represent you at a hearing with the goal to obtain an injunction.

• Obtaining Injunctions Against Domestic Violence
• Defending Injunctions Against Domestic Violence

Obtaining Injunctions Against Domestic Violence

Often someone has an abusive spouse, partner, or significant other that they are scared will commit domestic violence against them or has committed domestic violence against them. An attorney can assist you with the goal of obtaining an Injunction Against Domestic Violence against that abusive person, and represent you at a hearing with the goal to obtain an injunction.

Defending Injunctions Against Domestic Violence

Sometimes a spouse, partner, or significant other accuses you of domestic violence and files for an injunction for protection against you. An attorney can assist you in defending yourself at the injunction hearing with the goal of preventing an injunction from being issued against you.

What you need to know

In order to obtain an injunction against domestic violence you must show that you are the victim of domestic violence as defined in F. S. 741.28, or you have a reasonable cause to believe you are in imminent danger of becoming the victim of any act of domestic violence.

F. S. 741.28(2). Domestic violence means any assault, aggravated assault, battery, aggravated battery, sexual assault, sexual battery, stalking, aggravated stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment, or any criminal offense resulting in physical injury or death of one family or household member by another family or household member.

FS 741.28(3). Family or household member means spouses, former spouses, persons related by blood or marriage, persons who are presently residing together as if a family or who have resided together in the past as if a family, and persons who are parents of a child in common regardless of whether they have been married. With exception of persons who have a child in common, the family or household members must be currently residing or have in the past resided together in the same single dwelling unit.

Stalking is the offense of willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly following, harassing, or cyberstalking another person.

Harass means to engage in a course of conduct directed at a specific person which causes substantial emotional distress to that person and serves no legitimate purpose. In order to be entitled to an injunction for stalking, the petitioner must allege and prove 2 separate instances of stalking. Each incident of stalking must be proven by competent, substantial evidence to support an injunction against stalking. When considering the sufficiency of the evidence, courts apply a reasonable person standard, not a subjective standard, to determine whether an incident causes substantial emotional distress.