N.V. v. M.C.M.

── N.V. v. M.C.M. ── Court: Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama Date: May 15, 2026 Author: Matt Fridy Category: General Rel: May 15, 2026 Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter. ALABAMA COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS OCTOBER TERM, 2025-2026 _________________________ CL-2025-0846 _________________________ N.V. v. M.C.M. Appeal from Russell Circuit Court (DR-24-183) FRIDY, Judge. N.V. ("the former wife") appeals from a judgment of the Russell Circuit Court ("the trial court") that dismissed her petition for a protection-from-abuse order ("the PFA petition") against M.C.M. ("the former husband") but included a mutual no-contact provision. For the CL-2025-0846 reasons set forth herein, we affirm the judgment in part and reverse it in part. Background The parties divorced in February 2005. At that time, they had two minor children ("the children"). In November 2008, the trial court entered an order mutually enjoining the parties from threatening to commit or committing any of the acts of abuse defined in the Protection from Abuse Act ("the PFA Act"), § 30-5-1 et seq. Ala. Code 1975, and mutually prohibiting them from contacting each other, except for legitimate communication regarding the children. On March 30, 2011, the trial court entered a custody-modification order, pursuant to which it awarded the former wife "primary physical custody" of the children and awarded the former husband unsupervised visitation with the children during the day but required him to exercise his overnight visitation at the children's paternal grandparents' home. On November 19, 2024, the former wife commenced the underlying action against the former husband ("the PFA action") by filing the PFA petition. In the PFA petition, the former wife alleged that the former husband had been harassing her, threatening her, and coming onto her 2 CL-2025-0846 property. On November 25, 2024, the trial court entered an ex parte protection order that, among other things, restrained the former husband from having any contact with the former wife; from threatening to commit or committing any acts of abuse against the former wife; and from harassing, annoying, stalking, threatening, or engaging in conduct that would place the former wife in reasonable fear of physical bodily injury or emotional apprehension. The trial court also directed the former husband to stay at least 750 feet away from the former wife. On December 9, 2024, the former husband wrote a letter to the trial court complaining that the former wife had misrepresented what he said was his right to unsupervised visitation with the parties' sixteen-year- old son ("the son"). In the letter, the former husband asserted that the former wife had used a false warrant to have him arrested on charges of domestic violence and criminal trespass and that she had used those charges to interfere with his visitation with the son. (The parties' older child had reached the age of majority when the former wife filed the PFA petition.) The trial court construed the letter as a motion for a protective order. 3 CL-2025-0846 In response, the former wife wrote a letter to the trial court on December 12, 2024, asking that it "put something in place" regarding the