“I just wanted to alert you regarding the amazing ease of obtaining a restraining order against someone.

“I am a landlord, and on Jan. 22, I had the sheriff issue a tenant/roommate a ‘notice to quit’ by the end of the month. The tenant, in retaliation the very next day, requested from the courts that I be slapped with a restraining order and be ordered to stay 100 yards away from her. I guess, lucky for me, the judge did not grant her the 100 yards, which would have gotten me out of my own house.

“This is absolutely outrageous, because the document says the court finds that I ‘constitute a credible threat, that an imminent danger exists to the life and health of the protected persons named in this action.’

“So…if the judge believed the stuff my tenant wrote in her request, why in the world would I be allowed to stay at the house? Now I have to wait two weeks for my hearing to present my side of the story and bring my witnesses.

“I’ve even been advised by my lawyer to leave the house, even though I don’t have to, because who knows what the tenant might claim next?

“How does any landlord in Durango evict a tenant when all the tenant has to do is claim harassment, and the judge will slap a restraining order on the landlord? Something is very wrong here!”

—Letter to the Editor (Durango Herald)

Take a guess when this letter to the editor was published.

It could be 20 years ago. It could be yesterday. The outrage, in either case, would be the same, and its source would be the same. Probably even the phrasing on the injunction would be the same. And possibly the same judge could have issued it.

“I just wanted to alert you regarding the amazing ease of obtaining a restraining order against someone”: The writer’s earnestness is almost heartbreaking. Think any journalists will follow up? That he’ll inspire a series of editorials or investigative exposés?  What’s impressive is that he believes he’s saying something new or that what he’s saying only applies to Durango, Colorado. Why it’s impressive is that what he’s saying isn’t common knowledge and of course should be, because it’s been said over and over and over for decades.

The proofreader will have corrected the writer’s grammar without really having appreciated what it is he’s said or its implications. The desk editor will have run his letter, because it’s marginally interesting and maybe not the kind of complaint s/he gets every day. Some readers will have assimilated the letter and registered an instance of crookedness. Some will nod the nod of those who’ve heard it all before.

The letter was published two weeks ago, and whatever limited impression it made will have already faded.

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