DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

JONATHAN CHISCUL,

Appellant,

v.

MICHELLE GOMEZ HERNANDEZ,

Appellee.

No. 4D20-287

[February 10, 2021]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, 

Broward County; Susan L. Alspector, Judge; L.T. Case No. 

DVCE 19-008957 (63).

Joseph A. Costello of Costello Law, LLC, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

No appearance for appellee.

DAMOORGIAN, J.

Jonathan Chiscul (“the husband”) appeals the permanent injunction

for protection against domestic violence entered against him on behalf of 

his estranged wife, Michelle Gomez Hernandez (“the wife”). We reverse 

because the evidence was insufficient to support entry of the injunction. 

It is uncontested that the parties had only known each other for a 

period of six months. During that time, they married and separated. The 

wife filed a petition for injunction against domestic violence almost two 

months after their separation. In the petition, she alleged the following: 

if the wife refused to have sex, the husband would throw her against the 

wall, shake her and yell at her, and threaten to call police and immigration 

officials on her; when the wife would leave the house to go to work or to 

the store, the husband would get upset, call her vulgar names, and follow 

her; and when the wife left him for good, the husband called and texted 

her “nonstop” and followed her to a chiropractor’s appointment and 

threatened her.

At the hearing on the petition, the wife generally testified that, during 

the course of the marriage, she was fearful of the husband because he 
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threatened to call immigration, “would stand in the doorway” to prevent 

her from leaving, accused her of cheating, and was jealous and controlling. 

Regarding the allegation of forced sex, the wife testified “he forced me to 

have sexual relations with him, I did not have sexual relations . . . but he 

manipulate[d] me by saying that I have three partners, that he was going 

to send me to immigration.” When asked by the court if the husband threw 

her against the wall as alleged in the petition, the wife testified that the 

husband did not throw her but that “he would grab me” and “shake me.” 

The wife did not testify when this incident occurred. 

Regarding recent threats or violence by the husband since the filing of 

the petition, the wife testified that the husband called her on two 

occasions, but she did not answer the phone and the husband did not 

leave a message. When asked by the court for proof that the husband 

called her, the wife admitted the husband did not call her and that “it was 

a relative of his.” She then stated the husband wrote her “a few days

before” on Instagram or Facebook. The wife failed to provide any details

as to the contents of the message; the husband however, testified that he 

wrote the wife to tell her that he was still going forward with the divorce. 

The wife also testified that on one occasion, the husband followed her to a

chiropractor’s appointment. Notably, the wife did not allege the husband 

was violent or threatened violence during either of those instances. 

The husband, in turn, testified the wife threatened him, that she had 

mood issues, was allegedly bi-polar, and that her petition was filed in 

retaliation for the husband “starting the papers to get the divorce.” The 

husband further testified the wife was the aggressor and that he never 

touched her. The husband also alleged that he had no contact with the 

wife in the two months since she left the marital home. After hearing both 

parties’ evidence, the trial court granted a permanent domestic violence 

injunction against the husband.

On appeal, the husband argues the trial court erred in entering the 

permanent injunction because the wife’s allegations were either 

insufficient as a matter of law or too remote in time for purposes of showing 

that she was in imminent danger of becoming a victim of domestic 

violence. We agree.

An order granting an injunction in the domestic violence context is 

reviewed for abuse of discretion. Selph v. Selph, 144 So. 3d 676, 677 

(Fla. 4th DCA 2014). “A trial court abuses its discretion by entering a 

domestic violence injunction when the ruling is not supported by 

competent, substantial evidence.” Id. at 677–78. “When evaluating 

whether a trial court’s order granting an injunction is supported by 
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competent, substantial evidence, ‘legal sufficiency . . . as opposed to 

evidentiary weight, is the appropriate concern of an appellate tribunal.’” 

Id. at 678 (quoting Stone v. Stone, 128 So. 3d 239, 240 (Fla. 4th DCA 

2013)).

A trial court may issue a domestic violence injunction to protect a 

petitioner who demonstrates that he or she has an objectively reasonable 

apprehension that he or she is in “imminent danger of becoming the victim 

of any act of domestic violence.” Randolph v. Rich, 58 So. 3d 290, 291 

(Fla. 1st DCA 2011) (quoting § 741.30(1)(a), Fla. Stat. (2010)). “Domestic 

violence” is defined as “any assault, aggravated assault, battery, 

aggravated battery, sexual assault, sexual battery, stalking, aggravated 

stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment, or any criminal offense resulting 

in physical injury or death of one family or household member by another 

family or household member.” § 741.28(2), Fla. Stat. (2019).

In determining whether a petitioner has reasonable cause to believe 

that he or she is in imminent danger of becoming a victim of any act of 

domestic violence, the trial court “must consider the current allegations, 

the parties’ behavior within the relationship, and the history of the 

relationship as a whole.” Zarudny v. Zarudny, 241 So. 3d 258, 262

(Fla. 3d DCA 2018) (citation omitted). “[T]he law requires more than 

general relationship problems and uncivil behavior to support the 

issuance of an injunction.” Randolph, 58 So. 3d at 292 (emphasizing that 

the law requires the party seeking the injunction to “present sufficient 

evidence to establish the objective reasonableness of his or her fear that 

the danger of violence is ‘imminent’”). 

In the present case, the wife’s testimony largely described incidents that 

occurred before the parties’ separation. Since their separation, the only 

contact between the parties was the wife’s allegation that the husband 

followed her to a chiropractor’s appointment once and left her a message 

informing her he was going forward with the divorce. These later acts were 

simply insufficient, as a matter of law, to establish a fear of imminent 

danger. 

Turning to the one possible act of violence, as previously pointed out,

of particular importance is when or how frequently this occurred. The 

parties were separated several months before the permanent injunction 

was issued. Thus, the shaking incident could have occurred between two

to six months prior to the filing of the petition. The wife’s testimony of an 

isolated incident, absent additional evidence, was insufficient to warrant 

a permanent domestic violence injunction. See Selph, 144 So. 3d at 678–

79 (the wife’s allegation that the husband ordered his dog to attack her 
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was insufficient to support entry of a domestic violence injunction because 

the incident occurred five months prior, there was no medical or police 

reports, and the parties had not been in contact with each other during 

the three months before the filing of the petition); Phillips v. Phillips, 151 

So. 3d 58, 59 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014) (finding evidence legally insufficient to 

support a domestic violence injunction where, despite the allegations in 

her petition, the wife acknowledged in her testimony that there had been

no violence or threats of violence from the husband since their separation 

four months before filing the injunction).

Based on the record before us, the post-separation incidents do not 

constitute acts or threats of violence by the husband. As for the 

pre-separation shaking incident, the wife’s testimony failed to establish 

when it occurred. Therefore, the court lacked competent, substantial 

evidence from which to conclude the wife was “in imminent danger of 

becoming the victim of any act of domestic violence.” § 741.30(1)(a), 

Fla. Stat. (2019). Accordingly, the permanent domestic violence injunction 

is reversed.

Reversed and remanded.

CIKLIN and KLINGENSMITH, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.