New Jersey’s Coercive Control Law – A Broader Understanding of Domestic Violence

Domestic violence may seem like physical assault or deadly threats of bodily harm to most. However, New Jersey has recently made a pattern of coercive control a form of domestic violence supporting a restraining order. Coercive control can be physical and social isolation when an abuser keeps their victim housebound and unable to have other relationships outside the home. A litany of other coercive control examples exist since control is at the heart of domestic violence. New Jersey has now recognized the means of coercive control as domestic violence.

Coercive Control Law: Insights into New Jersey’s Recent Legislation

Senate Bill Number 1809, dated June 12, 2023, requires courts to consider “any pattern of coercive control” when deciding whether a final restraining order is necessary to protect a victim of domestic violence. The bill clarifies coercive control as behavior that intends to infringe on another’s “liberty, freedom, bodily integrity, or human rights.”

Isolation: Cutting someone off from friends, family, or support systems.

Coercive control examples include isolating an individual from outside contact with the world, depriving them of essentials, excessive surveillance, and threatening their physical, mental, or emotional well-being in various ways. Controlling another by isolating them from their friends, relatives, and other support people and services is one form of coercive control. When an intimate partner deprives another of medical care, finances, and transportation, they mean to control contacts with the outside world, essentially imprisoning the victim in a specific location without any means of escape.

Deprivation: Controlling access to necessities like food, money, or medical care.

Depriving someone of necessities, such as food, money, clothing, or other essentials, is another way of controlling someone. Keeping a victim dependent on their abuser for mere survival creates an indelible emotional and physical dependency.

Surveillance: Excessive monitoring of someone’s movements, finances, or communications.

Coercive control patterns also include excessive surveillance, such as tracking someone’s movements, finances, daily actions, communications, access to services, or economic means. For example, tracking someone’s movements with a smartphone app, monitoring their banking activity, or incessantly calling them at work can deprive them of independence.

Threats & Intimidation: Using threats to force compliance, such as threats to harm loved ones, report someone to authorities, or interfere with child custody.

The bill notes other actions that support a determination of coercive control, such as threats, intimidation, and other coercive means to control someone. For instance, threatening to report a victim to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for violating immigration laws, whether true or false, jeopardizes an immigrant victim’s status and causes compliance with demanded behavior. Similarly, threats to report the victim to the police for committing a crime (whether true or false), child protective services for child abuse or neglect, and the courts to interfere with court proceedings are meant to force compliant behavior and control over them.

Additionally, extortion-type threats to harm or murder a victim’s loved ones, such as relatives, pets, or children, are meant to terrorize another to obey and remain under the control of the abuser. Finally, threatening a person’s custodial time with their children or denying access to them is yet another form of control and emotional blackmail to enforce compliance. An abuser may threaten their victim by depriving them of access to their children despite the victim’s having a valid custody court order or custodial arrangement for specific custodial time.

The law also has a catchall provision that allows a court to review other considerations and circumstances that favor a final protection order.

Strengthening Protection for Domestic Violence Victims With NJ Coercive Control Law

For those needing protection from an abuser, this law helps victims prove the necessity for a restraining order for less clear-cut forms of abuse, such as forced isolation. Without a definitive prohibition against this behavior and a statute that recognizes subtler forms of abuse by excessive control as domestic violence, many courts had insufficient guidance to issue a final restraining order on a “gray area” of what constitutes domestic violence.

Now, domestic violence victims petitioning the court for a restraining order have a stronger case with evidence of abusive behavior calculated to deprive someone of freedoms most enjoy, like socializing and managing their finances. The odds are greater for judges granting protection orders on these grounds.

Securing a Restraining Order for Coercive Control in New Jersey

Coercive control is now an act of domestic violence among the predicate acts listed in the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, as amended by Bill 1809. As such, the many actions constituting coercive control can be used as grounds to file a temporary restraining order, and to satisfy some of the critical elements that must be met for a final restraining order to be issued.

The classification of coercive control as domestic violence makes it easier for those seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO) for emergency relief. The first step to protection for a domestic violence victim is filing paperwork for a TRO. The TRO petitioner must include facts supporting the need for the TRO, which now contains facts evidencing coercive behavior rising to the level of domestic violence. Courts typically grant TROs on the plaintiff’s allegations. The FRO requires a hearing and convincing evidence.

In order to secure a final restraining order, a petitioner must prove in court a recent occurrence of an act of domestic violence defined in New Jersey’s Prevention of Domestic Violence Act. Furthermore, they must demonstrate that the Domestic Violence Act exists as part of a history of domestic violence, and that court protection is necessary for the petitioner’s safety against an eligible defendant, which can include a current or former intimate partner, spouse, dating companion; a person with whom the petitioner shares or is expecting a child; a member of their household; or a family relation.

An experienced lawyer at The Tormey Law Firm can assist you with getting the protection you need by presenting evidence to support a valid case of coercive control at your FRO hearing. For example, testimony from family members or friends who witnessed the plaintiff’s fear and isolation can verify assertions of excessive control.

Proving the Truth Behind False Claims of Coercive Control in NJ

Like all domestic violence restraining order cases, a victim may falsely claim abusive acts against a spouse or former lover for revenge or other malicious motives, including allegations of coercive control. A valid defense to domestic violence allegations is the falsity of the accuser’s claims of abuse. With the help of an experienced domestic violence defense attorney at The Tormey Law Firm, a defendant may be able to prove the absence of coercion or control with evidence of the alleged victim’s behaviors contradicting incidents of isolation, threats, and confinement. Combined with proof of the unlawful intention to use the judicial system as a revenge tool, as well as the witness’s lack of credibility or inconsistencies in their statements and testimony, a talented restraining order lawyer such as those on our team may defeat an FRO.

Speak to an Attorney about Your Restraining Order Case in the Era of Coercive Control in New Jersey

Since our restraining order attorneys are constantly appearing in courts in Somerset, Monmouth, Mercer, Essex, Cumberland, Ocean, Burlington, Bergen, Union, Middlesex, Passaic, Atlantic, Hunterdon, and other New Jersey counties handling restraining orders and domestic violence cases for defendants and plaintiffs, this affords us a unique advantage. We have the benefit of knowing and anticipating each side’s evidence to prove or disprove the need for a restraining order, such as police reports, witness statements, text messages, calls, voicemails, emails, social media messages, medical records, and psychological histories. Talk to one of our attorneys today by contacting us at (908)-336-5008 to go over the unique aspects of coercive control restraining order litigation and ways we can assist with your domestic violence case. The consultation is free, confidential, and available 24/7.