Thursday, August 25, 2011

Asking for a petitioner's address in an injunction case

I recently had a discerning experience during a domestic abuse injunction hearing in which I was providing service representation to the petitioner.  After the petitioner took the stand, the Commissioner asked her what her address was.  This was on the record with the respondent sitting in the room.  Fortunately, this client was together enough to respectfully evade a real answer even after the Commissioner pushed her but not all clients will be in a state of mind to do that.

So after I got back to the office and had some time to process it, I pulled out the statutes to see if the statutes prohibit the court from asking for that information beyond the confidential address form that is filed with the clerk and sealed.  813.12(5M) addresses the confidentiality of the petitioner's address in that it can not be on any court orders or the petition but makes no comment about asking for it during the hearing.  I believe the intent of the law was to keep the petitioner's address confidential completely but unfortunately that is not how it is written.  And I spoke with an attorney that represents petitioners in injunction hearings all the time who after reading the statute confirmed that nothing prohibits the court from asking for the petitioner's address.

So I have been trying to think of the best way to educate this commissioner on the importance of keeping a DV victim's address confidential.  If anyone has some thoughts, I would love to hear them.

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