Restraining Orders

Since restraining orders vary from state to state and enforced differently from county to county, it is difficult to provide you with a clear answer on who is required to leave in the event both parties are in the same place. All of the terms in the order generally applies to the respondent’s behavior, not the petitioner’s behavior. So, if a respondent is ordered to stay a certain amount of feet away from the victim/petitioner, generally, this requirement may not change just because they are in a public place. I am not sure if the police would consider who was at the location first when deciding who “should” leave the location when both parties are there. This is something that a local lawyer may know regarding how police in your area usually interpret this type of scenario. However, if there is a repeated pattern of the respondent showing up where the victim is located, this could indicate some sort of tracking of the victim’s movements or even stalking, which could be its own crime. You can see the definition of stalking on our website [GO TO THE CRIMES PAGE, CLICK ON ‘STALKING’ AND THEN LINK HER TO THE STATUTE ITSELF]

However, if both parties can be at the same place while still maintaining the certain distance required, I do not know whether or not there may still be any sort of violation if the abuser doesn’t leave once they see the victim is at that same place.

Here is a link for lawyers, free and paid, if you want to try to get legal advice. {HYPERLINK} Another way to see how the police would interpret the respondent showing up at a location where the victim is would be to report it to the police and see if they make an arrest.

YOU CAN ADD THIS IF APPROPRIATE - IT TALKS ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT RUNNING INTO EACH OTHER IS A VIOLATION:
Regarding whether or not the act of running into each other would be a violation of a restraining order, the respondent/abuser has to intentionally act in some way to violate it. So, for example, in a state that requires this type of intentional conduct, if two people literally bump into each other in public and nothing more is said/done, this may not be considered a violation since the fact that the parties saw each other was accidental. We have the law on our website that defines violation of a restraining order in STATE here: LINK As you can see, the language in the STATE statute says the person has to [FILL IN WORD - INTENTIONAL, WILLFUL, ETC] violate the order. For clarification, you may want to talk to an attorney in STATE who is familiar with restraining orders - we have legal referrals here: LINK

And here is some more information from our website on STATE orders of protection in case that is useful: LINK