Restraining Orders

For the purposes of getting an order of protection, “domestic or family violence” is when a family or household member does any of the following things to you:

• recklessly or intentionally injures you physically;
• tries to injure you physically;
• places you in fear of injury;
• forces, threatens, or intimidates you into sexual activity against your will;
• tries to force, threaten, or intimidate you into sexual activity against your will; or
• harasses you.¹

Domestic or family violence does not include acts of self-defense.¹

“Harassment” is when someone repeatedly says or does things that seriously upset or annoy you. The person must be doing these things specifically to you, on purpose, and there must not be any good (“legitimate”) reason for doing these things.²

Note: A petition for an order of protection cannot be dismissed or denied based only on the fact that the incident(s) you wrote about in your petition happened a while before you applied for the order.³ 

¹ 8 CMC § 1902(a)
² 8 CMC § 1902(c)
³ 8 CMC § 1919