It's an unfortunate fact of life, but ending a marriage can sometimes be nasty business. No doubt you've heard stories about someone who's been through a bitter divorce. Often, raw emotion can lead people to do things you may never have thought they were capable of. There are certain legal tools available to help prevent a distressed or vindictive spouse from doing something harmful: An injunction is one of them, and it can play a crucial role in protecting your interests.
What Is an Injunction?
An injunction is a court order (meaning it's issued by a judge), which forces someone to stop doing something (stop taking money out of the community accounts), or start doing something (bring the kids back on time after your visitation).
There are basically three types of injunctions; a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, and a permanent injunction.
If you need immediate or emergency relief, either to protect property or person, you can apply for a temporary restraining order, which will be in place for somewhere between 5-10 days, or until the court holds a hearing on whether to issue a longer injunction.
A preliminary injunction is often seen where there's potential harm, but it could be down the road a bit. Still, you'd rather not take any chances, and you'd like a judge to keep everything as is until the issue gets sorted out.
Although a permanent injunction isn't something you see too often in a divorce matter, you'll usually find it at the end of a lawsuit, as part of a final judgment.
How Do Injunctions Apply to a Divorce?
By far, the most common injunction sought in a divorce case (other than in domestic violence incidents) is a temporary restraining order (TRO). Attorneys typically ask for TROs at the beginning of divorce cases, frequently at the same time they file their clients' divorce petitions.
As mentioned in the introduction, a vindictive spouse can do some pretty terrible things, which can be emotionally and financially harmful. So you might ask a judge to issue a TRO to prevent a spouse from:
- packing up the children and moving them out of state
- canceling a health insurance or auto policy
- taking out a loan that uses marital assets as collateral
- cleaning out and closing bank accounts or retirement accounts, and
- removing you as the beneficiary on a life insurance policy.
The purpose of a TRO request is to maintain the status quo until you and your spouse have either settled your case, or a judge has decided the issues after a trial. Courts typically grant these requests, because they want to prevent these types of dilemmas before they arise.
Avoiding these types of problems is of such paramount importance to family courts that some states, such as California, have passed laws that actually put TRO's in effect as soon as one of the spouses files the divorce petition, whether that spouse asked for it or not: These are known as Automatic Temporary Restraining Orders, or ATROs.
The other type of injunction that you'll often find in divorce matters is a domestic violence TRO. In these cases, a judge will usually order the abusive spouse to stay away from the other spouse (and the children, if the court thinks it's appropriate) until there's a special trial on whether to extend the restraining order. This hearing normally takes place within one to two weeks, to determine if the alleged offending spouse is guilty.
If there's a guilty verdict, the court will sign a final restraining order that will control how much contact, if any, there will be between the spouses and will also list any other conditions it determines are warranted, such as supervised visitation with the children. A final restraining order can stay in effect after the divorce is over.
The above are the most common examples of situations in which a court will order an injunction in a divorce case. However, divorce law is complicated, and there may be other scenarios which could call for an injunction. In order to protect your rights, it's important that you consult a reputable and knowledgeable divorce lawyer.