Senate panel debates letting courts order shared-bill payments and expanding protection orders to defendants under supervision

The Senate Judiciary committee examined changes to final protection orders that would expand the kinds of financial relief a court may grant and broaden the circumstances under which a court may issue a protection order.

Michelle House of the Office of Legislative Council presented the proposal, saying the statute currently allows the court, when it finds a duty to support, to order a defendant to pay a plaintiff's living expenses for a fixed period not to exceed three months. The proposed subsection (f) would let a court order the defendant to continue paying household bills that were the defendant's responsibility before the plaintiff filed the request for protection, without requiring a separate finding of a duty to support.

Charlie Lusserman, policy director at Vermont Network and domestic and ****** violence, testified the change reflects what legal clinics are seeing. "We are often seeing ... people have existing financial arrangements to split bills, that then when an RFA is filed ... the defendant says, 'I'm not paying those bills anymore. You're on your own,'" Lusserman said, describing the effect on plaintiffs and their children.

Committee members debated whether subsection (f) is materially different from the existing subdivision (e). Several members noted e includes a clear three-month time limit; f as drafted would not. One committee member asked whether the same relief could be achieved by the court under e or by pursuing family-court remedies for longer-term child or spousal support if needed. Michelle House said the provision is intended as a discretion-based tool for courts to address short-term, immediate harms that can arise when shared bills are abruptly stopped after a protection request.

Lawmakers also discussed a separate change to broaden the statutory trigger allowing issuance of a protection order: current law treats a defendant who is incarcerated at the time of order issuance as satisfying a second criterion; the proposed language would include defendants "under supervision," thereby covering individuals serving part of their sentence in the community. Ms. House explained that "under supervision" would capture probationary or community-based supervision and is meant to give courts additional authority to protect plaintiffs when the defendant is not physically incarcerated but remains subject to correctional oversight.

The committee did not adopt final language. Members asked advocates and counsel to refine the drafting (including whether to impose a three-month limit in f) and to reconcile overlap between e and f; the panel agreed to pause that portion of the miscellaneous bill and return to it at a later meeting.