Restraining Orders

Often times, when someone goes to file a petition for a restraining order, the clerk may tell them that they can only file if they know the person’s address. However, if that happens, often times some advocacy or raising the issue with a supervising clerk, the petitioner may be able to convince the clerk to let them file a petition even without knowing the exact address. The reason why lack of an address should not preclude someone from filing a petition is that when law enforcement is looking to serve a defendant in a protection order case, they could serve the person at another location aside from their home address. For example, it may be possible to serve someone at work, at a family member’s house, or somewhere they “hang out” or go to regularly (like a tattoo shop, bar, etc.). Additionally, if the petitioner has friends in common with the respondent, or is in touch with any of the respondent’s relatives, the petitioner may decide to ask if they know how to find the respondent if that would be safe for the petitioner to do. Also, if the respondent is on probation or parole, their probation/parole officer may know where the respondent is or may agree to serve them with the order at their next appointment, or perhaps the police may wait at the appointment to serve them.

If the respondent is not served by the next court date, generally a person may be able to ask the judge to extend the time to serve the respondent. However, in asking for more time, a person may generally have to give a detailed account of what the person has done so far to serve the respondent. For example, the person trying to serve the respondent (such as the sheriff) may write down the time, date, and actions he/she took each time he/she tried to serve the person.

In some situations, a petitioner may be able to ask the judge to allow them to serve the respondent in some alternative way, such as through Facebook Messenger, text, or email. The exact options for alternative service will depend on the state and the particular situation. You may want to ask a lawyer in your state if this is an option. You can find legal resources, some free or low cost if you qualify, on our Finding a Lawyer page.

If none of those things work, sometimes a petitioner may be able to keep the order and copies of the order with them in case they run into the respondent in public. In that case, they could call law enforcement and tell the police that they have a restraining order that needs to be served and that they just saw the abuser and ask if an officer can come to that location to serve it – I don’t know whether law enforcement in your state would do this or not but it may be something to try to find out from them in advance.

In the meantime, while trying to get an order served, we have some safety tips for staying safe on our website that you may want to look at.