“I think action would be better than just mere words. How do you think same-sex marriages were passed? We all need to come together and file a class action lawsuit. These laws plainly violate our constitutional rights as U.S. citizens. There is no due process of law for these allegations, and the cause-and-effect deprives an individual of life, liberty, and property.”
—Michael K. from Alamogordo, New Mexico
The man makes a good point.
Cursory reading on class actions suggests, too, that a lawsuit like the one he proposes is feasible. According to Wikipedia, “Nationwide plaintiff classes are possible [if] such suits…have a commonality of issues across state lines.”
Controlling statutes and procedures concerning domestic violence and restraining order prosecutions, as well as “child welfare” interventions, vary state to state, but a “commonality of issues” vis-à-vis civil rights violations and unjust privations definitely does exist—and certainly class actions within states’ lines are at least as worthy of consideration.
Wikipedia again: “The procedure for filing a class action is to file suit with one or several named plaintiffs on behalf of a proposed class. The proposed class must consist of a group of individuals [who] have suffered a common injury or injuries.”
The most sympathetic candidates for a class action are probably those who’ve unjustly been deprived of property, employment, and/or access to children.
A recent NPR story reports that dozens of students who’ve been accused of rape are suing their universities. They allege they were denied due process and fair treatment by college investigative committees, that is, that they were “railroaded” (and publicly humiliated and reviled). The basis for a suit alleging civil rights violations, then, might also exist (that is, independent of claims of material privation). Certainly most or all restraining order defendants and many domestic violence defendants are “railroaded” and subjected to public shaming and social rejection unjustly.
“How to Start a Class Action Lawsuit,” a primer authored by Linda Jo Martin, creator of FightCPS.com, explains the basics of the procedure. (Ms. Martin advocates for the filing of class actions against Child Protective Services in all 50 states.)
Getting a class action going of the sort this post concerns requires self-starters with good networking skills and a great deal of perseverance, because inducing people who’ve been abused by state process to come forward with complaints is tough. They’re scathed, distrustful, and afraid.
Names of willing participants have to be gathered and a law firm enlisted. Attorney fees aren’t a hindrance, because they’re collected from the reward. But a law firm would have to be confident of a win.
A firm that represent class actions is Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann, and Bernstein. Its website offer further information about class actions. Alternatively or additionally, see Stanford Law Professor Janet Cooper Alexander’s “An Introduction to Class Action Procedure in the United States.”
Undertaking a venture like coordinating a class action is beyond the resources of this writer, but anyone with the gumption to try and transform words into action is welcome to post a notice here.
Placing a notice on an e-petition like “Stop False Allegations of Domestic Violence” would be of limited value, because it would recede into the archives in a couple of days. Mining the petition for names, however, could be rewarding, because some respondents include their telephone numbers and email addresses along with their stories. Using Facebook and Twitter would be the most potentially profitable tacks.
The intrepid social activist would besides do well to contact the likes of A Voice for Men, and put out the word. Any group or hub that represents the interests of people with similar complaints should be notified.
Professors who’ve written about the particular rights abuses a class action would seek to redress, particularly law professors, might also be recruited to provide amicus briefs to the court (authoritative opinions that lend support).
Abuses of the sorts this blog and related sites concern have persisted without check for decades. Even prompts for others to take action are still just words.
Someone has to step forward and attempt to translate thought into action. Is that person you?
Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com
TALKING BACK to restraining orders 
i know this is a older post , but why has there not been a class action ?
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It requires organizers, activists, response, commitment.
This action (not a class but a complaint) may have gone forward:
https://restrainingorderabuse.com/2015/04/12/report-family-court-fraud-to-the-federal-trade-commission-says-fclu/
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I was thinking today, “Why are plenary restraining order hearings allowed after the ex parte hearing has occurred?”
I mean, if an ex parte hearing occurs, then doesn’t res judicata apply to what happened in the ex parte hearing?
Page 122 of this book goes into it: http://books.google.com/books?id=8oIsAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover
Quite an old book. Curious, though, if the plenary restraining order hearings are purely unconstitutiona.
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The previous book is:
“Res Judicata: A Treatise on the Law of Former Adjudication”
John McKee Van Fleet
Here is another book that I found: http://books.google.com/books?id=xho-AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover
“The law of collateral attack on judicial proceedings”
By John McKee Van Fleet
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An ex parte judgment is a de facto “final judgment” in many or most cases, I think, but the phrase the court applies to ex parte restraining orders is “preliminary judgments.”
Your question makes me wonder about a loophole in my own state’s laws. In Arizona, a follow-up hearing isn’t automatically scheduled. So if a “preliminary judgment” (ex parte injunction) isn’t appealed, then there is no final judgment, which means res judicata couldn’t be invoked if the defendant decided to sue later on (or immediately). The ex parte (“preliminary”) judgment never becomes final.
Res judicata depends absolutely on a final judgment having been formed.
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I don’t have any personal knowledge about the case you had. But if an “ex parte” hearing for a restraining order is preliminary and yet no discussion on the merits is made in another hearing, then the case is dismissed. Your state might be different if “res judicata” doesn’t apply unless someone has filed an appeal. Regardless, I believe “res judicata” still applies once the dismissal occurs. Also, there are no such things as loopholes.
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Loopholes:
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Fair enough. Loopholes are a kind of knot / rope configuration.
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At root, loophole means a breach in a fortification: a way in or vulnerability. You’re right that there are none in these procedures. Judges have pat answers for everything, and they’re never called on them.
From what the book you sent the link to suggests, once the availability of the chance to challenge an ex parte judgment expires, it becomes final, even if the allegations got no more than two-minutes’ consideration.
Is that what you understood?
I mentioned Arizona, because an ex parte order can be appealed at any time during its effectiveness: next day, two weeks later, six months later. An order that was issued, say, for two years could be appealed any any time during those two years.
Similarly (presumably) a lawsuit could be filed instead, and the ex parte allegations could be attacked over months in a real adversarial to-and-fro (in a different court) instead of in a 10-minute sham hearing presided over by the same guy (or a peer of the same guy) who swallowed the allegations in the first place.
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