Domestic Violence Injunctions in Florida's 14th Judicial Circuit: What Both Sides Should Know
By Justin Andersson, Esq. | Justin Andersson, P.A., Panama City
Your safety comes first. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. To talk with someone about your options, call the Florida Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-500-1119. If someone may be checking your phone or computer, read this on a device they can’t access.
For people in Bay, Calhoun, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson and Washington Counties who are asking for protection, or who have been served with an injunction
If you’re reading this, one of two things has probably happened. Someone in your home or family has hurt or frightened you, and you want to know whether a court can help. Or a deputy just handed you papers telling you to stay away from your own home, and maybe your kids, until a hearing.
Both are frightening. This guide is for both of you, and I won’t assume who’s right. In Florida, a judge decides that at a hearing where both sides are heard.
The person asking for protection is the petitioner. The person the petition is filed against is the respondent.
What counts as domestic violence
Florida defines domestic violence as one of a list of crimes, such as assault, battery, sexual assault, stalking, kidnapping or false imprisonment, or any criminal offense resulting in physical injury or death, committed by one family or household member against another.
You can file if you’ve been a victim of domestic violence, or if you have reasonable cause to believe you’re in imminent danger of becoming one. There doesn’t have to be a bruise. But there must be an act the law counts as domestic violence (the list includes threats that amount to assault, and stalking), or reasonable cause to believe one is about to happen.
Family or household members are spouses and former spouses, people related by blood or marriage, people who live or have lived together as a family, and parents of a child in common. Except for parents who share a child, the two people must live, or have lived, together in the same home. Florida’s appeals courts have held that once the respondent challenges this, the petitioner needs real evidence of living together as a family. Checking a box isn’t enough.
You don’t have to be married to file, leaving home to escape violence doesn’t take away your right to file, and you can file while a divorce or other case between you is pending, but the petition must say so.
Pro Tip: If you’re the respondent and believe the two of you aren’t family or household members, say so at the hearing. Florida’s appeals courts have held that this challenge must be raised before the injunction is entered.
Four related kinds of injunctions
Florida law also provides four related injunctions for protection: repeat violence, dating violence, sexual violence and stalking. None requires a family or household relationship, and each has its own requirements and forms. If you dated someone but never lived together and don’t share a child, a dating violence injunction may be the better fit.
Asking for protection: filing the petition
A case starts with a sworn petition filed with the Clerk of Court. Our circuit’s courthouses are in Panama City (Bay), Blountstown (Calhoun), Port St. Joe (Gulf), Bonifay (Holmes), Marianna (Jackson) and Chipley (Washington), and the Clerk in your county can explain the local steps.
Florida law guarantees:
- No filing fee and no bond.
- No lawyer required for either side.
- Help from the Clerk, including simplified forms with instructions.
- A choice of where to file: the circuit where you live (even temporarily), where the respondent lives, or where the violence happened.
The petition is signed under penalty of perjury and must state specific facts. For safety, you can give your address to the court in a separate confidential filing.
Pro Tip: Petitioners, put every incident you plan to describe in the petition, with dates. Some Florida appeals courts have reversed injunctions based on incidents that were left out. And ask in the petition for what you need, such as temporary time-sharing, support or the home. Florida’s Domestic Violence Benchbook advises judges not to award temporary time-sharing or support unless the petition requests it or the respondent is present at the final hearing and waives notice.
The temporary (ex parte) injunction
If the petition shows an “immediate and present danger” of domestic violence, a judge may grant a temporary injunction ex parte, meaning without the respondent present, based only on the sworn petition and any affidavits.
It can bar acts of domestic violence, give the petitioner temporary use of a shared home, give the petitioner up to 100 percent of temporary time-sharing, require safe child exchanges and protect a family pet. The standard form also generally bars contact and can require firearm surrender. Support isn’t on the statute’s list of temporary relief; the law addresses temporary child support and support for the petitioner at the full hearing.
A temporary injunction lasts no more than 15 days, and the full hearing must be set for a date no later than the day it expires. Either side can ask for a continuance (a postponement) for good cause, and the temporary injunction stays in effect meanwhile. If the judge denies a temporary injunction only because no immediate danger appeared, the judge must still set a full hearing.
Service
Law enforcement must personally serve the respondent with the petition, the notice of hearing and any temporary injunction, on any day and at any hour. The petitioner gets at least two certified copies of any injunction order. If the petitioner spots a respondent who hasn’t been served, an officer handed a certified copy must serve it immediately.
If you’ve just been served: read every page today and note the hearing date, time and place. Then follow the order exactly, even if you believe the petition is false. The hearing is your chance to say so.
What happens at the full hearing
A final injunction requires notice and a full hearing where both sides can testify, call witnesses and cross-examine. Florida’s appeals courts have reversed injunctions entered without letting the respondent present evidence. These hearings are recorded.
Florida’s Domestic Violence Benchbook suggests that the judge ask early on whether the respondent agrees to the injunction. If not, there’s an evidentiary hearing, and the petitioner has the burden of proof on the grounds described above.
Florida’s appeals courts have held that if the petitioner is already a victim, a separate finding of fear isn’t needed. When a case rests on fear alone, the danger must be imminent and the fear objectively reasonable, given the current allegations and the parties’ history. Those courts have also held that rude or upsetting behavior, or unwanted calls, letters or gifts, without more, don’t create the reasonable fear of imminent violence that a fear-based case requires. Repeated harassment that rises to the level of stalking is different, because stalking is itself domestic violence under Florida law.
What the judge will want to know. In deciding whether a petitioner has reasonable cause to fear imminent domestic violence, the judge must consider factors Florida law lists, including whether the respondent has made threats, used or threatened to use a weapon, intentionally hurt or killed a family pet, has a criminal history involving violence or threats, has had a prior protective order (including a military protective order), destroyed property such as a phone, or shown a pattern of abusive, threatening, intimidating or controlling behavior.
Respondents facing criminal charges: you don’t have to answer questions about the facts, and anything you say under oath can be used in the criminal case. Talk to a criminal defense lawyer first.
If the petitioner doesn’t appear, the case may be dismissed. If a served respondent doesn’t appear, the judge may go forward anyway.
How to prepare (both sides)
Florida’s appeals courts give heavy weight to the trial judge’s view of who is believable, so the hearing is the main event. The Florida Evidence Code applies, so secondhand statements (hearsay) are generally kept out unless an exception applies. Bring witnesses who saw or heard things firsthand, not letters. Either side may also ask to have a domestic violence advocate sit with them in court.
DO:
- Arrive early with every paper you filed or were served with
- Print texts, emails, photos and call logs in date order, with copies for the judge and the other side
- Be specific: dates, places, exact words
DON’T:
- Contact the other side about the case, or have someone else do it (for a respondent, that can be a crime)
- Bring your children to testify (a child can't be a witness without an earlier court order)
- Exaggerate or guess. Everything is under oath.
What a final injunction can include
After the hearing, a final injunction can:
- Bar acts of domestic violence
- Give the petitioner exclusive use of the shared home, even if the petitioner had left (this doesn't change who owns it)
- Set a temporary parenting plan. The law allows the judge to give the petitioner all of the time-sharing, and the judge also decides whether the respondent gets temporary time-sharing and whether it's supervised.
- Order temporary child support and temporary support for the petitioner, under the same standards used in a divorce
- Order the respondent into counseling or a batterers' intervention program, at the respondent's expense
- Give the petitioner care of a family pet
The standard form also lets the judge bar contact and keep the respondent away from the petitioner’s work, school and places the petitioner or the children regularly go. The judge decides whether any contact is allowed and, if so, on what conditions, so read your order carefully. An unmarried father can’t receive time-sharing in an injunction case unless paternity has been legally established; our Paternity page explains how.
Firearms. Every final injunction says the respondent may not have any firearm or ammunition in his or her care, custody, possession or control. (There is a narrow exception for a certified law enforcement officer’s duty weapons, if the officer’s agency allows it.) A gun in a locked safe at your house that you can open is still in your possession or control. Violating the firearm ban is a first-degree misdemeanor. When ordered, the respondent must surrender firearms and ammunition to law enforcement, get a receipt and file it with the court, and refusing is a separate crime. Federal law adds its own restrictions for people under certain protective orders, so get advice on your situation.
A final injunction is valid statewide and lasts for a fixed period or until further order.
If you've been served: what you must and must not do
Until a judge changes the order:
- No contact, direct or indirect, including messages passed through friends or family, unless your order specifically allows some contact, and then only in the way it allows.
- Keep your distance. Going within 500 feet of the petitioner's home, school or work, or within 100 feet of the petitioner's car, can be a violation.
- Not even if invited. If the petitioner says, "Come over, let's talk," don't. Florida law says the parties can't change an injunction verbally, in writing or by invitation.
Many violations are crimes. Willfully violating an injunction in the ways the statute lists, such as contacting the petitioner, going to or near the petitioner’s home, school or work, refusing to leave a shared home, or refusing to surrender firearms when ordered, is a first-degree misdemeanor. And since July 1, 2026, someone who already has at least one prior conviction for a domestic violence crime or for violating an injunction, and who then violates an injunction or a protection order from another state against the same victim, commits a third-degree felony. A prior plea or finding of guilt counts even if adjudication was withheld. Violations can also be punished as contempt. Prosecutors decide whether to charge, even over the petitioner’s objection. A final injunction can also affect jobs, professional licenses and military enlistment, and violating one can affect a noncitizen’s immigration status.
For petitioners: if the respondent violates the injunction and isn’t arrested, contact the Clerk in the county where it happened. The Clerk will help you with a sworn affidavit or point you to the right office.
How an injunction affects a divorce or time-sharing case
Time-sharing and support in an injunction are temporary. If a divorce or paternity case is filed or already pending, the orders entered there on time-sharing, support and the home take priority over inconsistent injunction terms on those issues. The injunction’s other protections stay in place unless a judge changes them. Florida’s appeals courts have held that once an injunction is dissolved or denied, its temporary parenting plan can’t stay in place.
In the family case, domestic violence matters:
- The court must consider evidence of domestic violence in deciding shared parental responsibility (the major decisions about a child), with or without a conviction or injunction.
- A domestic violence conviction (a first-degree misdemeanor or higher) creates a rebuttable presumption, meaning an assumption that can be overcome, that shared parental responsibility would harm the child. That presumption is tied to a conviction, not to an injunction alone.
- Domestic violence is a time-sharing factor, and so is knowingly giving the court false information about domestic violence.
Florida law starts with a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing is in a child’s best interests. How that presumption applies when there’s an injunction, rather than a conviction, is not settled. Get advice on your facts; our time-sharing guide explains the presumption.
Changing, extending or ending an injunction
Either side can ask the court to modify or dissolve an injunction at any time. When a party doesn’t have a lawyer, a motion to modify generally must be formally served, or the court file must show that the other side personally received it.
To dissolve one, courts generally require a showing of changed circumstances, so that the injunction no longer serves a valid purpose. The case law on this isn’t entirely consistent, so get advice and bring evidence. To extend one, the petitioner must ask before it expires. Neither side can change the order informally, and once a judge dissolves it, the respondent no longer has to comply.
Mediation when there's domestic violence
Mediation, where a neutral mediator helps both sides try to agree, is limited and screened when there’s domestic violence, not automatically banned:
- In the injunction case, the judge decides safety issues first. Only then, and only if both sides consent, can remaining details go to a certified family mediator.
- By statute, if a party asks, a court may not refer a case to mediation when it finds a history of domestic violence that would compromise the process.
- In a divorce or custody case, the parties must tell the court about any domestic violence injunction, and the court can waive mediation or order safety protections.
- Our circuit's family law administrative order requires mediation in family cases, but the notice attached to it says that when there's a history of domestic violence, whether to use mediation is up to the parties' mutual decision. Raise any safety concern with the court early.
Our Mediation page explains the process.
Frequently asked questions
No, for either side. But the final hearing is a full evidentiary hearing, and the result can affect your home, your children and your firearms.
Not unless you share a child. A dating violence injunction may be the better fit.
No. An invitation doesn't change the injunction. Only a judge can.
No. Prosecutors decide, even over the petitioner's objection.
Not in one order. Mutual injunctions are prohibited. A respondent who wants protection must file a separate petition.
No. Its time-sharing and support are temporary, and a divorce or paternity order on those issues takes priority.
Final Thought
Nobody plans to end up in court over someone they’ve shared a home or a child with. Whichever side you’re on, the hearing matters most.
If you’re asking for protection, put safety first, then preparation. If you’ve been served, follow the order to the letter and tell your side the right way: in court, under oath, with evidence. Either way, you don’t have to do it alone. Let’s talk.
You’ve got this. And I’ve got your back.
Justin Andersson, Esq.
Your 850 Divorce Lawyer
Justin Andersson, P.A. | 435 W. Oak Avenue, Panama City, FL 32401
Serving Bay, Calhoun, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson and Washington Counties, in person or by video.
Questions? Call (850) 871-7397 or visit www.850divorcelawyer.com.
This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes about Florida law and 14th Judicial Circuit procedures as of October 2026. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every injunction case turns on its own facts. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
Florida law referenced: Sections 44.102, 61.13, 741.28, 741.2901, 741.2902, 741.30, 741.31, 784.046 and 784.0485, and Chapter 90 (Florida Evidence Code), Florida Statutes; Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure 12.407, 12.610 and 12.740; Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Administrative Order 2022-00-07.
Federal law referenced: 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(8).