Marriage of Hutchins CA4/1

I.

INTRODUCTION

Appellant Dana Hutchins1 appeals an order entered by the trial court after a bifurcated evidentiary hearing at which the court considered Dana’s request for a domestic violence restraining order and respondent Jared Hutchins’s request for an order regarding custody of the couple’s two young children. After finding that Jared had perpetrated domestic violence through “harassment” in the form of his frequent complaints to Dana’s superior

officers in the United States Navy 2 as a means to “control” Dana, the court determined that it would not issue a restraining order against him. In the court’s estimation, Dana’s safety “would no longer be endangered if the court failed to make the orders.” In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that the temporary restraining order that had been in place “has served its purpose” in that Jared appeared to have stopped his harassing conduct. The court further noted that, at the time of the hearing, the parties were separated and living in the United States. Despite having found that Jared had engaged in harassment that met the definition of domestic violence sufficient to support the issuance of a

Dana was identified in…