Restraining Orders

This section defines domestic violence for the purposes of getting a domestic relationship personal protection order (“PPO”).

A judge can issue a domestic relationship PPO when the judge believes that a current or former spouse, someone with whom you have a child in common, someone you are/were dating, or someone who lives/lived in the same household as you may commit any of the following acts:

• entering unlawfully onto property (premises);
• assaulting, attacking, beating, molesting, or wounding you;
• threatening to kill or physically injure you;
• unlawfully removing minor children from you when you have legal custody of them and removing them is not permitted in the custody or parenting time order;
• purchasing or possessing a firearm;
• interfering with your efforts to remove your children or personal property from premises that are solely owned or leased by the abuser;
• interfering with you at your job or school or acting in a way that harms your job or school relationship or environment;
• having access to information in records concerning a minor child of both you and the abuser that will tell the abuser about the address or telephone number of you/your child or about your work address;
• committing stalking or aggravated stalking against you even if s/he is not arrested for those crimes;
• injuring, killing, torturing, neglecting, or threatening to do so to an animal in which you have an ownership interest, with the intent to cause you mental distress or to exert control over you; or
• any other specific act or behavior that interferes with your personal liberty or that causes a reasonable fear of violence.¹

¹ MCL § 600.2950(1), (4)