Court Opinion

ID: 9729249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:29:59.543268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:56.437195
License: Public Domain

FERREN, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
There can be no doubt that the trial court dismissed this petition for a “civil protection order with respect to an intrafamily offense”1 for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.2 Specifically, the judge ruled that she did not “have jurisdiction to issue a civil protection order” because a statutory prerequisite for an “intrafamily offense” had not been met: although Ms. Sandoval and Mr. Mendez shared a “mutual residence,” they did not — as the statute requires — have an “intimate relationship.”3 As I read the transcript, the judge construed “intimate relationship” to mean an amorous relationship. Of apparently critical significance, the judge asked, “[W]as Mr. Mendez ever Ms. Sandoval’s boyfriend?” Upon discerning that Sandoval and Mendez were not lovers, the court ruled as a matter of law that no intrafamily offense could have taken place.
The majority, therefore, is plainly wrong in concluding the trial court merely “found as a fact there was no showing of an ‘intimate relationship,’ ” ante at 1169, and then in premising affirmance on deference to the trial court’s perception of the evidence pursuant to D.C.Code § 17-305(a) (1981). That analysis is faulty, more specifically, for three reasons: (1) it assumes, *1173without deciding, trial court jurisdiction (which the trial judge herself expressly eschewed and my colleagues do not even discuss); (2) it sustains the trial court’s ruling on the merits (an exercise the trial judge never undertook) after incorrectly characterizing the issue as fact-finding, whereas the existence of an “intimate relationship” sufficient to permit a civil protection order is, ultimately, a question of law; and (3) whether the issue, fundamentally, is one of jurisdiction or the merits, the majority’s analysis does not give a clue as to what an “intimate relationship” is for purposes of adjudicating the Sandoval-Mendez dispute.
Contrary to the majority’s approach, this court is squarely presented with a question of law: whether persons who share “a mutual residence” but do not have an amorous relationship can ever be said to have an “intimate relationship” within the meaning of D.C.Code § 16-1001(5)(B), such that the trial court has jurisdiction to issue a civil protection order in the exercise of sound discretion. I believe the answer is yes. Because the trial court, as I read the record, concluded otherwise, we cannot affirm.
In the first place, the word “intimate,” as commonly defined, is not limited to amorous or sexual connotations. Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1970) defines “intimate” as, for example, “marked by very close association, contact, or familiarity”; “marked by a warm friendship developing through long association”; “suggesting informal warmth or privacy.” Black’s Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979), defines “intimate” as “close friendship or acquaintance, familiar, near, confidential.” More significantly, the legislative history of § 16-1001(5)(B) supplies a broad definition of “intimate relationship” that clearly covers this case. According to the Report of the Committee on the Judiciary of the Council of the District of Columbia, Bill 4-195, Proceedings Regarding Intrafamily Offenses Amendment Act of 1982 (May 12, 1982) at 9:
Consistent with the philosophy of domestic violence statutes around the country, the special civil protections of the intra-family statute become available under the bill to persons with whom the offender “maintains or maintained an intimate relationship” rendering application of the intrafamily offenses statute appropriate —i.e. the offender and the complainant must have or have had bonds of a genuine familial *, devoted, or homemaking nature; the substance of the relationship, not its form, being the key. [Emphasis added.]
Given the breadth of these definitions in contrast with the trial court’s understanding — and especially given the legislative history’s reference to distinct relationships of a “devoted” and a “homemaking” nature — I conclude that, on this record, Sandoval and Mendez appear to have had an intimate relationship. The trial court too narrowly construed its jurisdiction, and my colleagues in the majority too superficially sustain the court’s ruling on an alternative ground that blatantly ignores the threshold, legal issue presented.
I would reverse and remand for further proceedings, including, at the outset, appointment of counsel for Mendez. Respectfully, therefore, I dissent.

. D.C.Code § 16-1003(a) (1986 Supp.) provides:
Upon referral by the United States attorney, or upon application of any person or agency for a civil protection order with respect to an intrafamily offense committed or threatened, the Corporation Counsel may file a petition for civil protection in the Family Division. In the alternative to referral to the Corporation Counsel, a complainant on his or her own initiative may file a petition for civil protection in the Family Division.

. The majority’s alternative holding in the second paragraph of its second footnote is therefore irrelevant. The trial court never purported to exercise discretion. In any event, a determination as to whether there is an "intimate relationship” (in contrast with the question whether a civil protection order should issue) is not a matter committed to trial court discretion; that determination ultimately is correct, or not, as a matter of law.

.D.C.Code § 16-1001(5) (1986 Supp.) provides:
The term "intrafamily offense” means an act punishable as a criminal offense committed by an offender upon a person:
(A) to whom the offender is related by blood, legal custody, marriage, having a child in common, or with whom the offender shares or has shared, within the last year, a mutual residence; and
(B) with whom the offender maintains or maintained an intimate relationship rendering the application of this chapter appropriate.

 This includes parentage.