Fathers Defending Again False Restraining Orders

This section helps you lot respond to (answer) a request for a domestic violence restraining order. Read the introduction to the Domestic Violence department to get more information about domestic violence restraining orders and the restraining order courtroom process.

What Is a Restraining Order?

A domestic violence restraining lodge is a court order that helps protect people from abuse or threats of abuse.

Information technology can order you to:

• Not contact or get nigh the protected person(south);
• Non take a gun or firearm while the guild is in effect;
• Motility out of the firm;
• Follow child custody and visitation orders;
• Pay kid support;
• Pay spousal or partner support (if yous are married or domestic partners);
• Stay away from pets;
• Transfer the rights to a jail cell phone number and account to the protected person;
• Pay sure bills;
• Non make any changes to insurance policies;
• Not incur large expenses or do anything significant to affect your or the other person'south property if you are married or domestic partners;
• Release or render certain property;
• Complete a 52-week batterer intervention plan and show proof to the court that y'all completed information technology; and
• Plough in or sell any guns or firearms and ammunition you lot accept, as long as the lodge is in effect.

If There Is a Restraining Order Against Y'all

1. Read the order carefully. If you disobey the order, you lot tin go to jail or be fined.

• Form DV-110 has all the details of your order. Read it carefully. Make sure you stay abroad from all the people and places in the order.
• If y'all are ordered to move out, have the wearing apparel and belongings you will need until the courtroom date and motion out.
• You CANNOT own, possess, or accept a gun or firearm while the order is in effect. If you lot accept a gun now, you lot accept to turn information technology in to the constabulary or sell it to a gun dealer. Read How Do I Turn In, Sell, or Store My Firearms? (Course DV-800-INFO).

2. Read How Tin can I Respond to a Request for Domestic Violence Restraining Order? (Form DV-120-INFO).

3. Go to the courtroom hearing on the restraining order. The hearing date is on the Discover of Court Hearing (Grade DV-109).

• If you practice not go to courtroom, the guess tin brand the restraining order without hearing your side of the story. And the lodge can final up to 5 years.
• The judge can also brand orders about your children, child support, and other things without your input.

4. If you lot want to tell your side of the story, file an answer Earlier your court date.

• You can fill out and file an answer (the Response, Form DV-120) where you tell the estimate your side of the story about what happened.
• In your answer, you can also tell the approximate what orders you want almost child custody and visitation (if you have children with the protected person).
• Even if you exercise not file an answer, Get TO YOUR HEARING!

v. If yous need protectionfrom the person who filed a restraining lodge against you lot, yous can ask for a restraining gild against them (fifty-fifty if they asked for i against you first). But yous cannot ask for your social club in your response to their restraining order. You lot have to fill out your own request. Follow the instructions for Ask for a Restraining Order.

You lot practice not need a lawyer to respond to a restraining lodge. BUT it is a skillful idea to take a lawyer, especially if you have children. And having a restraining guild issued against you can have very serious consequences, so by having a lawyer you can protect your rights every bit best every bit possible. Click for aid finding a lawyer. If yous desire to inquire for the other side to pay your lawyer's fees, read the instructions to inquire for lawyer's fees in domestic violence cases.

Your courtroom'southward family law facilitator or cocky-assistance center may likewise exist able to assistance y'all respond to the restraining order, or at least help you with any child support or spousal/partner support issues you lot may have.

IMPORTANT! If you too have a criminal case related to the abuse or   violence in this case, it is very important yous talk to a lawyer. Annihilation you lot say or write in the domestic violence restraining lodge case can exist used against you in your criminal case.

Responding to the Restraining Order

If you make up one's mind to answer to (answer) the request for the restraining order, follow these steps:

STEP i. Fill up Out Your Response and Prepare to File

Pace 2. File and Serve Your Response

Stride 3. Get Set and Go to Your Courtroom Hearing

Stride 4. After the Court Hearing

---

Stride 1. Fill Out Your Response and Prepare to File

1. Fill out your response forms
Make full out:

• Response to Request for Domestic Violence Restraining Social club (Class DV-120);
  and
• Additional Page (Class MC-020), if you need more than space to write.

2. Other forms you may need to make full out
If the protected person asked for child support, make full out:

Read Which Financial Form — FL-155 or FL-150? (Class DV-570) to find out if y'all can utilise the simpler Class FL-155.

If the protected person asked for spousal, partner, or family unit support, fill out:

• Income and Expense Declaration (Form FL-150 | video instructions ).

3. Fill out your court's local forms (if any)
Enquire your local court clerk if there are local forms y'all have to fill out. Some courts also take forms on their website. Find your local court's website.

four. Take your forms reviewed
If your court'south family police facilitator or cocky-help centre  helps people with restraining orders, ask them to review your paperwork. They can brand sure yous filled out yourResponse properly. Even if they cannot help you with the restraining order response form, they can help you with the kid support and spousal/partner support forms.

five. Make at least 2 copies of all your forms
1 re-create will be for y'all; another copy will be for the protected person. The original is for the court.

Footstep 2. File and Serve Your Response

Once you accept filled out all your forms, y'all have to file them with the court and "serve" (give a re-create to) the protected persons. Both filing your Response and "serving" it have to be done earlier your deadline.

i. File yourResponse and other forms in court
Accept the original and two copies of your forms to the court clerk to file them. The court clerk will keep the original and return both copies to you, stamped "Filed." There is NO FEE for you to do this.

• If you lot do not speak English language well, inquire the clerk for an interpreter for your hearing engagement. Exercise this as soon as you lot know when your court engagement will be. Click to detect out more about court interpreters.
• If y'all are deaf or hard-of-hearing or have another disability, ask for an interpreter or other adaptation. Get more data for persons with disabilities and a form to ask for an adaptation.

2. Serve the protected person with a copy of your forms

Try our new step-past-footstep format!

Nosotros're improving online instructions for serving courtroom papers!

Requite information technology a try!

You must go someone 18 or older (NOT YOU) to mail a copy of yourResponse and other papers to the protected person. The person who does this is called the "server" or "process server."

• For more assistance with service, read our section on Service of Process.

3. File your proof of service
Have your server make full out a Proof of Service by Postal service (CLETS) (Course DV-250) and give it to yous. Then, y'all file it with the court and go on a copy for yourself. This form tells the estimate that the protected person got a copy of your Response.

STEP 3. Become Ready and Go to Your Court Hearing

Get Gear up for Your Hearing

This section volition tell you lot how to become ready for your hearing. Read Get Fix for the Restraining Order Courtroom Hearing (Form DV-520-INFO) for more information.

Be prepared:

• Take 2 copies of all documents and filed forms, including the Proof of Service. If in that location are any documents that help your case (trying to disprove what the protected person says happened), bring those with you.

• You can take a witness to help your case. Witnesses may or may not be allowed to speak. Merely you tin can bring a written statement of what the witness saw or heard. You lot must file and serve witness statements at the same fourth dimension that yous filed your Response (Form DV-120). If you did not take fourth dimension to file them ahead of fourth dimension, so bring the original plus two copies to your court hearing.
• If you lot do not speak English well, enquire the courtroom to give y'all an interpreter to help you. Y'all should do this as shortly every bit you know when your court date will be, simply even if you did not do information technology earlier, ask at your court date. Click to detect out more about court interpreters.
• Most courtrooms practise not let children. Ask if there is a children'southward waiting room in the courthouse before your hearing engagement.

Exercise non miss your hearing!
If yous miss it, the guess can brand the orders without hearing from you lot.

Get there 30 minutes early:

• Find the courtroom.
• When the courtroom opens, get in and tell the clerk or officer that you are nowadays.
• If the person who asked for the society is nowadays, exercise NOT sit near or attempt to talk to him or her.
• Spotter the other cases so you will know what to do.
• When your name is called, go to the front of the courtroom.
• Your hearing may terminal just a few minutes or up to an hr.

Exercise what you want to say in response to what the protected person said in the asking:

• Brand a listing of the orders you disagree with and do maxim why you disagree. Do not take more than iii minutes to say why you disagree and what you want.
• If you go nervous at the hearing, just read from your list. Use that list to make sure y'all tell the gauge nearly everything you disagree with.

Your courtroom hearing

During your hearing, the approximate may ask questions

• Tell the truth. Speak slowly. You lot tin read from your list.
• The other person or his or her lawyer may too ask yous questions.
• Give consummate answers.
• If you do not understand, say "I don't empathise the question."
• If the other side lies in court, wait until he or she finishes talking. Then tell the judge.
• Speak only to the judge. Do not talk to the other person unless it is your plow to inquire questions.
• When people are talking to the judge, look for them to stop. Then you lot can inquire them questions about what they said.
• Do not sit near or talk to the other person.

If there are child custody and visitation bug in your case:

• The judge will probably send you to mediation. Mediation helps parents agree on a plan for custody and visitation that is best for the children.
• If you are sent to mediation, the estimate may brand your temporary custody and visitation orders last until the next hearing or until some other courtroom order.
• Either parent tin ask to come across with the mediator separately.
• If parentage (paternity) of your child with the protected person has not been legally determined, and y'all and the protected person agree to parentage of your kid and agree to the court entering a judgment about parentage, you can both use the Agreement and Judgment of Parentage (Grade DV-180) to establish parentage of your child without having to start a separate parentage case.

The judge's conclusion

At the stop of the hearing, the judge will say what the orders are. The gauge may:

• Give the protected person the orders he or she asked for.
• Give the protected person some of the orders he or she asked for and not others.
• Non give the protected person any of the orders he or she asked for.
• Postpone your case and give you a new court appointment. This ways you have to come back another twenty-four hour period. The judge tin can do this if:

  • You lot need more time to get a lawyer or set an respond.
  • The judge wants more information.
  • Your hearing is taking longer than planned.

• If the guess postpones ("continues") your case, the approximate may brand orders that final until the new hearing date.

See Going to Courtroom to read more than data about how to prepare for your courtroom hearing.

STEP 4. After the Courtroom Hearing

If the judge issues a restraining order against you at the hearing, or any type of orders, you MUST follow them. If you lot do not, you tin can exist arrested.

Y'all volition be served with the Restraining Order Later Hearing (Order of Protection) (CLETS — OAH) (Form DV-130) inside a few days of your court date, by mail or in person. If annihilation on the DV-130 grade is different from what the judge ordered, talk to the court clerk correct away to see what you can exercise. If the clerk cannot help you, talk to a lawyer right away. Or talk to your courtroom's family unit law facilitator or self-aid center  to meet if there is annihilation they can help yous with.

• If you lot were at the hearing, the protected person can serve you with a copy of Form DV-130 past post.
• If y'all were not at the hearing, but the approximate'southward orders are the same as the temporary lodge, the protected person can also serve y'all with a copy of Class DV-130 by post.
• If you were non at the hearing, and the judge'due south orders are different from the temporary guild, the protected person must accept someone serve yous with Form DV-130 in person, non past mail.

If a restraining order was issued against you and you were ordered to complete a 52-week batterer intervention program, you have to fill out Proof of Enrollment for Batterer Intervention Plan (Form DV-805) and file it with the court. Y'all must do this past the date the judge orders on Form DV-130 or, if no specific engagement, no later than thirty days after the approximate made the guild. Once y'all starting time your program, you tin can apply the Batterer Intervention Program Progress Report (Course DV-815) to provide updates to the court on your program participation.

And remember, if the restraining order was issued, y'all CANNOT own, possess, or have a gun or firearm while the society is in effect. If you lot accept a gun now, you have to plow it in to the police or sell it to a gun dealer. Read How Practice I Turn In, Sell, or Shop My Firearms? (Course DV-800-INFO).

Getting Assistance

It can be difficult to find complimentary or depression-price legal help if you are responding to a request for a domestic violence restraining social club. Just you should all the same try since legal assist agencies accept different guidelines, and your local bar clan may accept a volunteer lawyer plan that can help you. Click for aid finding a lawyer.

Your court'south family police facilitator or cocky-help center may also be able to help you respond to the restraining order. If they cannot help with the restraining society, they can at least assist you with whatever child support or spousal/partner support issues yous may have.

Batterer Intervention Plan Information

You can find batterer intervention programs in your expanse at: California Department of Public Wellness Violence Prevention Resource Directory which lists help by county.

If you demand a court-approved batterer intervention program, contact your county probation section.

collinsraveld.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.courts.ca.gov/1265.htm

Share this post