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Appeals court reviews harassment prevention order after three confrontations in public and near home
Summary
An appeals panel considered whether a judge properly issued a harassment prevention order after the plaintiff described three incidents — at a post office, at a CVS pharmacy, and a scooter approach near the plaintiff's home — and whether the conduct, combined with language used, met the statutory standard for intimidation or harassment.
The panel heard PH v. GS, docket no. 24P1078, a contested appeal of a civil harassment prevention order. The trial judge found the defendant engaged in a series of three willful and malicious incidents aimed at the plaintiff; the defendant contends the conduct was protected expression and did not meet the statute’s threshold for harassment or intimidation.
Why it matters: Harassment prevention statutes balance free‑speech protections against public safety and personal security. Courts must decide when repeated confrontations and abusive language become unlawful intimidation rather than constitutionally protected expression.
Defense counsel Dana Kerhan argued the three incidents described in the record — an encounter at a post office in June 2022, a confrontation at a CVS in spring 2024, and a scooter approach in April 2024 — do not, individually or together, establish the level of true threat or intimidation the statute requires. Kerhan emphasized there were no explicit threats of physical harm in the transcript and argued the behavior, while perhaps offensive, amounted to protected expression.
Counsel for the petitioner, Allison O’Neil, urged the panel to view the incidents in context. O’Neil characterized the post‑office episode as an episode in which the petitioner felt he could not freely leave and said the conduct was sufficiently alarming that a third‑party bystander suggested calling police. O’Neil also stressed that the CVS encounter occurred in a narrow aisle where the petitioner testified he felt threatened and that the scooter incident included an intentional turnaround toward the petitioner’s residence.
The panel pressed both sides on the line between words and conduct. Justices questioned whether approaching a person in a confined space, blocking egress, or repeatedly returning to a residence could be inferred by a factfinder to be intimidating even when explicit physical threats are absent. Defense counsel replied the record did not contain the audio‑visual evidence the judge had apparently reviewed (counsel said the provided thumb drive would not play), and argued the order improperly curtailed protected speech.
Court action: The panel took the case under advisement.
