6.5 Interstate Issues

The Violence against Women Act requires that states give full faith and credit to orders of protection entered in other states.1  Safety considerations should guide the decision about whether to register a foreign order.

The police may enforce foreign protective orders that have not been made executory in Louisiana and can arrest for violation of a foreign protective order.2  La. R.S. 13:4248 provides that a foreign protective order may be made executory in Louisiana by filing an ex parte petition.3  The petitioner’s address may remain confidential with the court.4

The petitioner can keep her address confidential.5  However, the party subject to the protective order will be sent notice of the filing of the petition to register the order, which may provide the abusive party information about the victim’s new state or parish of residence.

The petitioner can file the ex parte petition by mail or through counsel. There is no need for the petitioner to travel to Louisiana to file the ex parte petition. She should not be charged any filing fees for the petition since it involves a protective order. The advantages to an executory Louisiana order are that police will be more likely to enforce the order and can verify the order through the Louisiana Protective Order Registry. The police may be reluctant to enforce a foreign protective order if it does not indicate on its face that the abusive party was served.6  In addition, once the order becomes executory in Louisiana, a defendant is subject to contempt proceedings in a Louisiana civil court. The victim’s refuge state should have jurisdiction to enter a prohibitory injunction even if personal jurisdiction over the defendant does not exist in the refuge state.7 A Louisiana court should have personal jurisdiction over a non-resident abuser for any type of injunction, affirmative or prohibitory, if the non-resident has minimum contacts with Louisiana, e.g., making threatening phone calls or sending letters to victim in Louisiana.8

It is a federal crime to cross a state line to commit domestic violence or to violate a protective order.9  The Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Office should be contacted if an interstate violation of a protective order occurs.

• 118 U.S.C. § 2265. A child custody provision within a protective order must comply with the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act and the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act in order to be entitled to full faith and credit. However, an order prohibiting the abuser from going near a child is not a custody order and is entitled to full faith and credit under the Violence against Women Act.
• 2La. R.S.14:79(A)(2).
• 3See Louisiana Protective Order Registry Form E, La. Sup. Ct.
• 4La. R.S. 13:4248(A).
• 5Id.
• 6La. R.S. 14:79(A)(1)(a). To arrest for a violation, a party must have been served with a TRO. But a protective order, if issued after a hearing for which the defendant had notice, need not be served. Id. For this reason, law enforcement will have to examine a foreign order for indications that either a TRO was served, or that the defendant had notice of the protective order hearing.
• 7See, e.g., Spencer v. Spencer, 191 S.W.3d 14 (Ky. Ct. App. 2006), Bartsch v. Bartsch, 636 N.W.2d 3 (La. 2001).
• 8Brown v. Bumb, 2003-1563, p. 6 (La. App. 4 Cir. 3/21/04), 871 So. 2d 1201, 1205.
• 918 U.S.C. §§ 2261–2262.