Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Domestic Violence Injunctions
How many incidents of stalking must be proven to support a Florida stalking injunction? In the recent case of Klein v. Manville, 6D23-50 (Fla. 6th DCA April 6, 2023), the parties disagreed about the number and types of incidents that needed to be proven.
The parties dated for approximately ten months before the girlfriend broke up with the boyfriend. Thereafter, the boyfriend created a website using personal acronyms relevant to their former relationship. The boyfriend monitored the website to see if the girlfriend visited it, and then he would contact her when she did. He was also aware that she was constantly searching her name on the internet to see what he had done next. He posted personal photos of her on the website and then created various social media accounts, tagging her and featuring her full name.
The girlfriend filed her first stalking petition. This was resolved by an agreement entered between the parties in which the boyfriend agreed not to disparage her. Despite this agreement, he went on to register three more domain names and posted their agreement among other matters online. He also emailed and mailed her about their relationship proposing that they jointly create a relationship website. The girlfriend learned the boyfriend service marked her nickname and registered a website under it when she went to start a business using that name. The boyfriend told her to propose an agreement for her to use her name in connection with the service mark, otherwise he would contest her service mark application. The girlfriend attended therapy and testified that she felt terrorized and unsafe. The trial court entered an injunction, stating this was exactly the type of behavior the stalking statutes were designed to prohibit. The boyfriend appealed.
Addressing the number of incidents needed to support a stalking injunction, the appellate court held “The parties disagree about how many acts of following, harassment, or cyberstalking [the girlfriend] needed to prove in order for the trial court to issue a permanent stalking injunction in her favor. [The boyfriend] suggests [the girlfriend] had to prove two separate acts of stalking itself. [The girlfriend] claims that she only had to establish two separate acts of following, harassment, or cyberstalking. The difference between the parties’ positions is important, because by its definition, ‘stalking’ requires more than one action. See § 784.048(2) (defining stalking as something done ‘repeatedly’). If [the girlfriend] is correct, then she needed to prove two separate acts of following, harassment, or cyberstalking to prevail. If, on the other hand, [the boyfriend] is right, then [the girlfriend] had to demonstrate two separate acts of stalking, each of which would have required two separate predicate acts. The stalking statute’s plain language demonstrates that [the girlfriend] is correct. When interpreting a statute, we ‘follow the ‘supremacy-of-text principle’—namely, the principle that ‘[t]he words of a governing text are of paramount concern, and what they convey, in their context, is what the text means.’’ [internal citations omitted]. Here, the statutory definition of stalking plainly answers the question, and we agree with the First District’s analysis on this issue. [internal citation omitted]. The definition states that stalking occurs when someone ‘willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows, harasses, or cyberstalks another person.’ § 784.048(2). It does not require that a petitioner prove that a respondent has ‘repeatedly stalked’ them, just that the respondent has followed, harassed, or cyberstalked them ‘repeatedly.’ Stated differently, ‘nowhere in the definitions of section 784.048 is stalking defined as a multiple of itself.’ [internal citation omitted].”
The appellate court ultimately found there was no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s ruling and upheld the stalking injunction. It also affirmed the trial court’s order for the boyfriend to complete a batterer’s intervention program, holding “The stalking statute specifically allows trial courts to ‘grant such relief as the court deems proper’ when issuing a permanent stalking injunction, including ordering a respondent ‘to participate in treatment, intervention, or counseling services to be paid for by the respondent’ upon issuing a permanent stalking injunction. See § 784.0485(6)(a)2.”
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