Opinion ID: 2799296
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Facts Supporting the Court’s Judgment

Text: [¶8] Because Chad did not, after the court entered its judgment, “request additional findings of fact pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 52, we assume that the trial court made all of the necessary subsidiary findings that can be supported by competent record evidence to support its decision.” Sullivan v. Doe, 2014 ME 109, ¶ 19, 100 A.3d 171. The evidence supporting the court’s decision is as follows. [¶9] Jana met Chad when she was twenty-two years old and already had two daughters, ages two and five. Chad had a four-year-old child but had only supervised contact with that child and was required to attend an anger management program. After Jana had been with Chad for about a year, he began to break and throw things, and to push her. When she was pregnant with one of their children, he made a threat through a friend that he was going to “take a coat hanger to [Jana] and deliver[] that baby dead.” [¶10] Chad once tackled Jana’s oldest daughter in a neighbor’s yard, and in 2009, he hit one of their boys when the boy did not want to wear the shirt his mother had chosen. When one of Jana’s daughters attempted to intercede, Chad hit 1 Although Chad argues that this statement by the court evidenced a misunderstanding on the part of the court that it lacked discretion, the court’s words, viewed in context, can only be understood to indicate that the facts that the court found met the legal standard for extending the order of protection and were so compelling that a substantial extension was necessary to protect Jana and the boys. 5 her. Jana began to accommodate Chad’s every request in an effort to prevent him from hurting her children. The parties’ oldest son witnessed Chad’s intrusive and humiliating actions in challenging Jana’s fidelity. Chad threw a lit cigarette at Jana when her younger daughter and one of the boys were in the car. He pushed Jana down the stairs in front of the children. He went to Jana’s workplace, which resulted in an emergency room visit for Jana and the loss of her job. He also went to the home of the children’s maternal grandmother late at night to take the children, which led to his arrest. [¶11] Significantly, Chad once told Jana, while holding a gun and in possession of knives, and in the presence of the boys, that he was going to end it all that night and she would never have to worry about him and the boys again. He told Jana he “had five bullets and [he was] going to end it all and it was going to be done.” He made similar threats to kill them all many times. [¶12] The children have been traumatized. The youngest, nine years old at the time of trial, could not sleep by himself because he was scared that someone would break into the house. All of the children feel guilty because of things that they witnessed Chad do to Jana. One of Jana’s daughters dropped out of high school because things got so bad. The boys have been in counseling, and Jana thinks that it is too early to trust that Chad is doing what he must to make it safe for the children to see him. Chad often used his visitation with his children to try to 6 find out what Jana was doing, who Jana was talking to, who Jana was dating, and when Jana got out of work. He has repeatedly violated court orders, as demonstrated by a series of probation revocations and convictions entered upon guilty pleas for violating protective orders or conditions of release.2 [¶13] After his most recent release from jail in September 2013, Chad contacted Jana by email; blew her a kiss from across the street at a child’s sporting event; showed up at a sporting event disguised in a wig, which upset the children because they thought that he might kidnap them; and asked a friend of Jana’s if Chad could put his paycheck in the friend’s mailbox to go toward child support. [¶14] Chad now appeals from the trial court’s extension of the order of protection from abuse. See 14 M.R.S. § 1901 (2014); M.R. App. P. 2.