Restraining Orders, Protective Orders and Injunctive Relief

Legal Services At

Stange Law Firm

  • Family Law
  • Support
  • Military Divorce
  • Child Custody
  • Divorce | Separation
  • Family Violence
  • Alternative Dispute Resolution
  • Property Division
  • High Net Worth Divorce
Restraining Orders, Protective Orders and Injunctive Relief

Restraining orders, protective orders and injunctive relief can be an important component of child custody cases in situations where abuse and neglect is alleged. In some instances, obtaining this kind of relief in certain states can be problematic when there is an existing custody order that is in place. In many of these instances, a parties’ best option might be to file a motion to modify and/or make a hotline call.

Regardless, below is a description of restraining orders, protective orders and injunctive relief:

1. Restraining orders: A temporary court order issued to prohibit an individual from carrying out a particular action, especially approaching or contacting a specified person. Restraining orders (or “orders of protection” or “protection orders” as they are called in some states) are most often used to protect an adult from abuse, threats of abuse, harassment or stalking.

2. Protective orders: As referenced above, a protection order is a court order instructing a person to desist from abusing or harassing the petitioner for a fixed period. Some states issue protective orders in an emergency situation without having a hearing. “The exercise of parens patriae jurisdiction should be limited to those cases where there is substantial evidence of a grave emergency affecting the immediate welfare of the child… Generally, judicial relief in such cases should not extend beyond the issuance of temporary protective orders pending the application to the court of the rendering state for appropriate modification of the custody decree.”[1]

3. Injunctive Relief: Injunctive Relief is often only granted in emergency cases to prevent an injury while the child custody case is ongoing. It involves the discretionary power of the court in which the court, upon deciding that the plaintiff’s rights are being violated, balances the irreparability of injuries and inadequacy of damages if an injunction were not granted against the damages that granting an injunction would cause. In a child custody case, the court may grant injunctive relief against a parent who has refused to comply with a child custody order or some other aspect of a parenting plan. It can also be used as a tool to prevent one parent from alienating the other or taking a child away from one parent permanently.

Some examples of current case law around the country includes:

In re Marriage of Slomka & Lenehan-Slomka: Husband was not entitled to injunctive relief to enjoin wife from taking children to psychologist for therapy.[2]

In Re Marriage of DeRoque: Child’s maternal grandparents, who moved to strike allegedly false and defamatory documents filed by father in response to mother’s motion for modification of child custody and visitation, could not obtain injunctive relief against father, where they did not specifically ask court to grant such remedy, and nothing suggested that father planned a recurrence.[3]

State ex rel. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., Office of Family Support ex rel. Chesser v. Brunette: Putative father, who was adjudicated by default judgment to be father of minor child and who was ordered to pay child support, failed to show that he would suffer irreparable injury in the absence of injunctive relief, and thus he was not entitled to preliminary injunction prohibiting states from collecting child support and defaming him by suggesting he was the child’s father.[4]


[1] Christopher Blakesley, Child Custody – Jurisdiction and Procedure, 35 Emory L.J. 291, 370 (1986).

[2] In re Marriage of Slomka & Lenehan-Slomka, 397 Ill. App. 3d 137 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009).

[3] In Re Marriage of DeRoque, 74 Cal. App. 4th 1090 (Cal. Ct. App. 1999).

[4] State ex rel. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., Office of Family Support ex rel. Chesser v. Brunette, 876 So. 2d 244 (La. Ct. App. 2004).

book-prenup-1

Prenuptial Agreements Line by Line

Aspatore Books from Thomson Reuters Westlaw
book-military-1

Strategies For Family Law Illinois

Aspatore Books from Thomson Reuters Westlaw
book-family-1

Strategies For Military Family Law

Aspatore Books from Thomson Reuters Westlaw

Protect Yourself By Understanding Your Options and Knowing Your Rights

GET HELP NOW

SLF Icon

MAIN OFFICE LOCATION

Stange Law Firm, PC

120 S. Central Avenue, Suite 450

St. Louis (Clayton), Missouri 63105

Toll Free: 855-805-0595
Fax: 314-963-9191
Group 144

DIVORCE HEADQUATERS APP

Contact Our Team

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Family Law Legal Services At Your Fingertips

FEATURED ARTICLES FROM THE STANGE LAW TEAM

When you choose us, you don’t have to sacrifice quality or service. You get the resources of a large family law firm AND the attentive service of a local attorney.

Should I Text My Lawyer?

Text messages (also known as SMS, short message service) are a common way of communicating. Instead of picking up the phone or drafting an email,

Read More
The Collaborative Divorce Process

•pull quote from Kirk out of video •other call outs •graph, table or other chart The Collaborative Divorce Process-Overview Collaborative divorce is a voluntary, contractually

Read More