His Answer included personal attacks and he alleged that there was no domestic violence, of course, even though he was arrested for it! In my final Reply Brief, I countered him on this issue again.
I. The trial court
erred in denying a domestic violence victim’s protective order in regards to
her home and work addresses.
Summary
Florida legislature has specifically amended its laws to protect domestic violence victims from ongoing abuse at the hands of their abusers. While separating from and/or divorcing an abuser, a victim is in even more danger of homicide than while she lived with him. Abusers will go to any length, including using the legal system, to find their victims. Address Confidentiality Programs and Florida and federal statutes exist so that domestic victims can live safely, even during court proceedings, by maintaining their new addresses confidential from their abusers.
Ordering Wife to disclose her home and work address denied her statutory and constitutional rights to defend her life and liberty and to enjoy happiness, and was clearly an abuse of discretion and a departure from the essential requirements of the law.
Summary
Florida legislature has specifically amended its laws to protect domestic violence victims from ongoing abuse at the hands of their abusers. While separating from and/or divorcing an abuser, a victim is in even more danger of homicide than while she lived with him. Abusers will go to any length, including using the legal system, to find their victims. Address Confidentiality Programs and Florida and federal statutes exist so that domestic victims can live safely, even during court proceedings, by maintaining their new addresses confidential from their abusers.
Ordering Wife to disclose her home and work address denied her statutory and constitutional rights to defend her life and liberty and to enjoy happiness, and was clearly an abuse of discretion and a departure from the essential requirements of the law.
Argument
Several sections of Florida legislature have been specifically amended with the interest of keeping domestic violence victims’ addresses confidential. In amending Sections 741.30 and 784.046 of the Florida Statutes in regards to domestic violence, the Governor signed into effect on April 27, 2012, a bill which refers at Section 3 to the confidentiality of a domestic violence victim’s address:
“[I]f such
information were publicly available, it could be used by the partner or former
partner of the victim of domestic violence, … to determine the location of the
victim, thus placing the victim in jeopardy.”
Committee Substitute for House Bill No. 1193, Chapter 2012-154, Section 3 (http://laws.flrules.org/files/Ch_2012-154.pdf accessed on 9/23/2012)
Committee Substitute for House Bill No. 1193, Chapter 2012-154, Section 3 (http://laws.flrules.org/files/Ch_2012-154.pdf accessed on 9/23/2012)
Wife motioned the trial court for a protective order on May 15, 2012 (2 R. 208-218). As a victim of domestic violence, she was entitled, under Florida laws, to confidentiality of her home and work address.
The trial court was not versed in the Florida Statutes, nor familiar with any articles and statistics regarding domestic violence published over the past fifteen years – not even with those specifically aimed at Judges and the Florida legal community. The trial court apparently did not recognize that, in separating from her abusive husband, Wife faced even more danger than while she lived with him, and that, if Husband gained access to her new address, she would be placed in jeopardy of future abuse and/or homicide.[1],[2]. By gaining access to her work address and/or the domestic violence agency at which she receives counseling, Husband could easily have followed her home on public transportation and thereby, discovered her home address.
Like many victims before her[3], Wife had taken extraordinary measures (including relocating across country) to prevent her abusive Husband from finding and further abusing (or even killing) her. Wife believes that if her address is disclosed to him, Husband will cause her further harm, and he may well murder her.
Like many victims before her[3], Wife had taken extraordinary measures (including relocating across country) to prevent her abusive Husband from finding and further abusing (or even killing) her. Wife believes that if her address is disclosed to him, Husband will cause her further harm, and he may well murder her.
Moreover, in ordering Wife to disclose her work address to Husband, the trial court did not understand that batterers commonly abuse their victims at work[4]. Had Wife disclosed her work address to her abuser, she may have inadvertently placed her coworkers in jeopardy of attack. Husband’s conduct in disparaging Wife when receiving calls for her employment verification (1 R. 69) reveals a pattern of harassment which may well result in him disrupting her employment in the future, should he learn where she works. This is not uncommon behavior, by any means, for abusers to engage in[5].
While there is no Florida case law directly on point in regards to a challenge to the confidentiality of a domestic violence victim’s home and work address, in 1998, the Supreme Court of Florida clarified in Amendments to the Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure 723 So. 2d 208, 209 (Fla.1998) that under Rule 2.051, a trial court had discretion to seal financial records in a family law case if it was shown that "third parties are likely to use this information in an abusive manner." Certainly, disclosing Wife’s home and/or work addresses to her husband, a man who had committed multiple acts of domestic violence against her, would have allowed him to use this information in an abusive manner.
The trial court departed from the essential requirements of law and, had Wife complied with the trial court’s order to disclose her home and work addresses, it could have resulted in material harm that could not be remedied on appeal. Had Husband harmed his Wife further – or even worse, murdered her – it would have been very much of a “cat out of bag” situation that once disclosed, could not have been reversed, similar to Nucci v. Nucci, 987 So. 2d 135 (Fla. 2nd DCA 2008).
While there is no Florida case law directly on point in regards to a challenge to the confidentiality of a domestic violence victim’s home and work address, in 1998, the Supreme Court of Florida clarified in Amendments to the Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure 723 So. 2d 208, 209 (Fla.1998) that under Rule 2.051, a trial court had discretion to seal financial records in a family law case if it was shown that "third parties are likely to use this information in an abusive manner." Certainly, disclosing Wife’s home and/or work addresses to her husband, a man who had committed multiple acts of domestic violence against her, would have allowed him to use this information in an abusive manner.
The trial court departed from the essential requirements of law and, had Wife complied with the trial court’s order to disclose her home and work addresses, it could have resulted in material harm that could not be remedied on appeal. Had Husband harmed his Wife further – or even worse, murdered her – it would have been very much of a “cat out of bag” situation that once disclosed, could not have been reversed, similar to Nucci v. Nucci, 987 So. 2d 135 (Fla. 2nd DCA 2008).
One case of potential relevance is found in the Supreme Court of New Jersey, Sacharow v. Sacharow, 826 A. 2nd 710 (NJ Supreme Court 2003). In that case, the Wife had not been granted an order of protection, but had enrolled in New Jersey’s Address Confidentiality Program. The parties had a minor child and Husband alleged that he had a right to know the living conditions of his child. However, of potential interest to this court is the footnote No. 3 authored by Justice Long:
“We do not anticipate a challenge to address confidentiality
generally or to ACP status in particular in cases that do not involve children.
It is hard to imagine why a party without children would need to know his
spouse or former spouse's address. To be sure, there might be residual
financial entanglements between them, but those easily could be overseen by the
Probation Department or another intermediary without the need for personal
contact.”
It is also hard in the instant case to imagine why Husband was so determined to know his Wife’s address that he persevered through numerous motions and court orders to obtain it. Husband’s counsel stated there was “absolutely no real fear” [emphasis added] that Husband was going to go after her (1 Tr. 5, lines 1-3). The trial court did not ask him to define what he meant by “real fear”. Does it mean there was “some” fear? Wife believes so, and the nation’s domestic violence statistics confirm. One need only read a newspaper to learn about recent cases of homicide where domestic violence was involved.Ordering Wife to disclose her home addresses to her Husband’s counsel – while Husband could access the file by simply requesting a copy – and her work address to her Husband directly, denied her statutory and constitutional rights to defend her life and liberty and to enjoy happiness, and was an abuse of discretion. In the interest of Wife’s personal safety in the instant case, the trial court could have conducted an “in camera” review of Wife’s address and work addresses; or, in the alternative, appointed an intermediary to review and authenticate the disclosures.
The lower tribunal continues to disregard Wife’s need for confidential address which places her life in jeopardy. Wife filed a second Request for Confidential Filing of Address on June 28, after her pleadings were stricken (2 R. 255). The clerk informed Wife during compilation of the Record on Appeal, that this request would continue to be part of the public record, accessible to anyone, showing her address, until the judge rules differently. As of the date of filing, that has not occurred.
[1] “Separated women are three times more likely than divorced women and twenty-five times more likely than married women still living with their husbands to be victimized by a batterer.”
[2] “Between 67 percent and 80 percent of female intimate partner homicide victims have been previously battered by their murderer.”
The Florida Bar Journal, March 2004, Volume LXXVIII, No. 3, “A Lawyer’s Guide to Assessing Dangerousness for Domestic Violence” (http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/JN/JNJournal01.nsf/4f0361bef4af101e85256f4e004d0fef/a064c543ab7e7d3785256e43004fcb02?OpenDocument accessed 9/23/12)
[3] “The Legislature finds that persons attempting to escape from actual or threatened domestic violence frequently establish new addresses in order to prevent their assailants or probable assailants from finding them.”
Section 741.401, Florida Statutes.
American Bar Association, “The Domestic Violence Safety Plan” (http://apps.americanbar.org/tips/publicservice/dvsafety.html accessed 9/23/2012)
[5] “More dramatically, albeit relatively rarely, perpetrators attack victims or their coworkers at work. … Batterers can be extremely creative and dogged in their efforts to disrupt victims’ employment. … For example, one of my clients, a social worker, was fired after her ex-husband called her employer … (Significantly, this occurred after my client had left her husband; he began harassing her at work when he no longer knew where she lived.)” Florida State University Law Review, Vol. 35-669 “Domestic Violence and the Workplace: The Explosion of State Legislation and the Need for a Comprehensive Strategy,”, (http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/353/widiss.pdf accessed 9/23/2012.)
