Walk It Through: The Ex
Contact after actual notice, an order that restrains any contact, and a gross misdemeanor to break it.
After a breakup, the partner a nurse used to live with keeps calling and messaging at all hours and waits outside the hospital after shifts.
Two things a person in this spot might do. Picking one shows what the law says about it.
One nurse and one former partner. Extreme risk orders, sexual assault orders, and threats to kill are not worked through here.
A practice walkthrough, not a prediction of how any real one will go. Legal information, not legal advice.
Words this turns on
Terms with a legal meaning that is narrower than the everyday one. Each links to the definition and the authority behind it.
- Gross misdemeanorThe crime level between a misdemeanor and a felony, punishable by up to three hundred sixty four days in jail, a fine up to five thousand dollars, or both.
- HarassmentKnowingly threatening, without lawful authority, to cause bodily injury, damage property, or confine someone, where the words or conduct place the person in reasonable fear the threat will be carried out.
- StalkingIntentionally and repeatedly harassing or following someone, or contacting, following, tracking or monitoring them after actual notice that they do not want it, causing fear a reasonable person would feel.
- Protection orderAn order of one of the kinds the statute lists, among them domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, vulnerable adult and extreme risk protection orders.