State court broadens domestic abuse protections to include economic harm
Updated: Aug. 16, 2023, 8:23 p.m.
Bob Egelko
Judges have long been able to order perpetrators of domestic violence to halt the abuse and stay away from the spouse or partner they were abusing. Now a state appeals court says the same rules can apply to those who inflict economic harm, such as depriving a partner of their credit card, car or job.
California’s domestic-violence law defines “abuse” broadly to include acts that “destroy the mental or emotional calm of the other party,” the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Riverside said in a
ruling published Wednesday as a precedent for future cases. Those include not only physical assault but also actions intended to “control, regulate, and monitor a spouse’s finances, economic resources, movements, and access to communications,” the court said.
The justices understood that the law’s definition of domestic abuse “includes physical abuse or injury, as well as acts that destroy the mental or emotional calm of the other party,” said Benjamin Shatz, attorney for the California Women’s Law Center.
Nearly every state has a law allowing judges to issue restraining orders against someone who abused, harassed or threatened a partner or close family member. California’s 1993 law also applies to abuse of dating partners. The order forbids further abuse and often requires the abuser to avoid all contact with the victim and leave the home.
Subjects of the restraining orders can also be prohibited from possessing firearms. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review that issue after a federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that a firearms ban in the federal domestic violence law violated the constitutional right to bear arms.
In the California case, Jennifer Ann Hatley sought a restraining order against her estranged husband, James Southard. She said he had abused her physically, smothering her with a pillow on one occasion until she lost consciousness, but most of the abuse she alleged was financial.
Hatley said Southard canceled her ATM cards and required her to ask permission to use any of the couple’s funds, for purchases as small as a cup of coffee. After they separated and he moved to Kentucky, she said, he took the car she had been paying for with her own funds, effectively cutting off her visits with her daughter, who lived with another man, the child’s father, and eventually causing her to lose her job. Hatley said Southard also told her he would stop paying for her cellphone, which she used to speak with her daughter.
When she sought a restraining order, however, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Zimel asked Hatley if Southard had ever hit her. She said no, and the judge replied, “I don’t want to hear all the problems of your marriage and your relationship. … I understand that you’re upset, Ms. Hatley, but what you’re telling me does not rise to meeting the definition of domestic violence or abuse.”
The appeals court disagreed, though it stopped short of ordering a restraining order and instead told Zimel to hold another hearing and use a broader definition of abuse. Quoting another state appeals court ruling in 2009, the court said abuse includes acts that “destroy the mental or emotional calm of the other party.”
In Hatley’s allegations, Justice Michael Raphael wrote in the 3-0 ruling, Southard “used a variety of methods to control her and limit her freedom” by seeking to monitor and restrict “her movements,
communications, and finances.” If proven, that may meet the law’s definition of domestic abuse, Raphael said, but Zimel should make the assessment after hearing from both sides. Southard was not represented by a lawyer in the appeals court proceedings. He could appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Reach Bob Egelko: begelko@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @BobEgelko