Hon. James L. Radda [1] District Court Judge Ninth Judicial District
Long-Arm Jurisdiction Under the Domestic Violence Protection Act
The Domestic Violence Protection Act (DVPA)[2] authorizes a victim of domestic abuse to petition a Wyoming court for an order of protection in the county where the victim “resides or is found[.]”[3] The statutory language suggests that a person victimized by domestic abuse in another state may escape from that state, fee to Wyoming, and qualify for relief under the DVPA. Such a case raises an issue of jurisdiction—what contacts, if any, must a non-resident respondent have with Wyoming in order for a court to issue a protection order? More specifically, can a Wyoming court enter a protection order against a non-resident respondent where the domestic abuse occurred exclusively outside Wyoming and where the respondent has no contacts with Wyoming other than respondent’s household-member relationship to the victim?
Although the Wyoming Supreme Court has not yet addressed this issue, courts across the United States have done so with differing results. Some courts hold a final protection order may issue against a non-resident respondent without minimum contacts as long as the protection order does not impose any affirmative obligations on the respondent. For these courts, the necessity of protecting residents or those sheltering within the state from domestic abuse outweighs any inconvenience to a non-resident respondent having to defend in the victim’s domiciliary state.
Other courts hold a final protection order may never issue against a non-resident respondent without minimum contacts. These courts conclude it challenges “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice” to require a respondent to choose between traveling to defend against domestic violence charges in another state and accepting the consequences of a protection order issued in that state, simply because an alleged victim of domestic violence chooses to relocate.
Protection Orders Permitted Without Minimum Contacts
In Bartsch v. Bartsch,[4] husband and wife were born in Iowa, lived there most of their lives, were married there, and moved to Utah in 1994 immediately after their marriage. They lived outside Iowa for the next five years, but in October 1999, the wife and the couples’ child returned to Iowa. The wife fled an application for a protection order alleging that her husband abused her before her move to Iowa. The application was served upon the husband in Colorado, where he moved after the wife returned to Iowa.
The husband moved to dismiss the application, but the court issued a protection order that ordered the husband to “stay away from the...
