Court Opinion

ID: 9756677
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:47:00.417927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:27.829686
License: Public Domain

DUGGAN, J.
The defendant, Madaline Minichiello, appeals a stalking final order, see RSA 633:3-a (Supp. 2006), issued against her by the Hampton District Court (Frasier, J.). We affirm.
The following facts were adduced at the district court hearing on the stalking petition. The plaintiff, Renee Fisher, is the administrator of The Partridge House Assisted Living in Hampton. The defendant’s parents were residents there for approximately two years.
When her parents were admitted to The Partridge House, the defendant had a power of attorney for healthcare for each of them. Consequently, the staff of The Partridge House communicated with her concerning the care her parents were receiving. Fisher testified that it was “difficult to *189communicate with [the defendant] for healthcare issues. She started to be very threatening to the staff,... and it started to interfere with the caregiving of her mother.” Fisher said the defendant made “threatening phone calls” and that “she would keep the nurses on the phone for hours and hours at a time.” In addition, the defendant complained to Fisher about the care of her parents. After Fisher investigated these complaints, the defendant accused her of lying. On several occasions when the defendant threatened staff, the police were called.
On July 5, 2005, Fisher sent the defendant a letter prohibiting her from accessing The Partridge House. The letter was precipitated by an incident in which the defendant “walked into the kitchen and was very loud and abusive towards the kitchen staff, waving her fists in the air, punching her finger directly in the kitchen staff’s face, and threatening.” In response to the letter, the defendant left Fisher a forty-five minute voice mail message stating “she planned to retaliate.” On July 8, Fisher petitioned the district court for a protective order.
The defendant, however, returned to The Partridge House on July 10 with her attorney, his wife and his daughter, at which time she was discovered in her mother’s room packing her mother’s clothes. The police were called and the defendant fled.
Fisher also testified that sometime in 2005, she reported to the New Hampshire Division of Elderly Services “an allegation of physical abuse in the dining room of The Partridge House.” The alleged perpetrator was the defendant and the victim was her mother. There was “a finding of abuse.”
At some point, a new guardian was appointed for the defendant’s mother. He sent the defendant a letter telling her she could no longer visit her mother. In October 2005, a week before the hearing on the stalking petition, the defendant’s mother was moved from The Partridge House to another facility. Fisher testified that she nonetheless still fears for her personal safety because in various phone conversations the defendant “brings up things that have happened so many years ago that she still holds grudges and she still holds people accountable for things for years to come ....”
During the hearing on the stalking petition, the defendant also testified. She denied, sometimes at length, both ever yelling at or threatening the staff and telling Fisher she would retaliate against her.
After the hearing, the district court issued a protective order barring the defendant from being within “500 feet of [the] plaintiff or any of her property.” The court’s written order stated:
In a close case the court finds plaintiff proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the conduct of the defendant *190well exceeded a concern for the care of her mother and entered an area of activity which threatened the well being of the plaintiff and was in its result a pattern of intimidation to plaintiff -and her staff.
This appeal followed.
Here, the defendant raises two issues. First, she challenges the sufficiency of the evidence. Second, she argues that the trial court’s decision contravenes RSA 633:3-a and RSA chapter 173-B and therefore is erroneous as a matter of law and public policy. We address each issue in turn.
On appeal, we review sufficiency of the evidence claims as a matter of law and uphold the findings and rulings of the trial court unless they are lacking in evidential support or tainted by error of law. Fichtner v. Pittsley, 146 N.H. 512, 515 (2001). We accord considerable weight to the trial court’s judgments on the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given testimony. Id. We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Cf. State v. Gubitosi, 152 N.H. 673, 681 (2005).
The defendant’s arguments on the sufficiency of the evidence are closely intertwined with questions of statutory interpretation. For example, the defendant contends that there was insufficient evidence that the defendant stalked the plaintiff because the text of the statute does not permit the court to consider, as evidence of stalking, events or conduct not directly involving the person seeking the stalking petition. The defendant also argues that there was insufficient evidence that the defendant engaged in a course of conduct as defined in RSA 633:3-a, 11(a).
We begin our analysis by outlining the pertinent portions of the statutory scheme. Under RSA 633:3-a, Ill-a, a person who has been the victim of stalking may file a civil petition in either district or superior court seeking the relief available under RSA chapter 173-B, including a protective order. The person must prove “stalking” by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. The definition of stalking has three variants. See RSA 633:3-a, 1(a), (b), (c). For purposes of this appeal, two variants arguably apply. Both subsections (a) and (b) require proof of a “course of conduct targeted at a specific” individual or person.
Course of conduct is defined in RSA 633:3-a, 11(a) to include, but not be limited to, any of the following acts or a combination thereof:
(1) Threatening the safety of the targeted person or an immediate family member.
(2) Following, approaching, or confronting that person, or a member of that person’s immediate family.
*191(3) Appearing in close proximity to, or entering the person’s residence, place of employment, school, or other place where the person can be found, or the residence, place of employment or school of a member of that person’s immediate family.
(4) Causing damage to the person’s residence or property or that of a member of the person’s immediate family.
(5) Placing an object on the person’s property, either directly or through a third person, or that of an immediate family member.
(6) Causing injury to that person’s pet, or to a pet belonging to a member of that person’s immediate family.
(7) Any act of communication, as defined in RSA 644:4, II.
In matters of statutory interpretation, we are the final arbiters of the legislature’s intent as expressed in the words of the statute considered as a whole. Town of Hinsdale v. Town of Chesterfield, 153 N.H. 70, 72 (2005). When examining the language of the statute, we ascribe the plain and ordinary meaning to the words used. Appeal of Town of Bethlehem, 154 N.H. 314, 319 (2006). We interpret legislative intent from the statute as written and will not consider what the legislature might have said or add language that the legislature did not see fit to include. Id. We do not construe statutes in isolation; instead, we attempt to do so in harmony with the overall statutory scheme. Soraghan v. Mt. Cranmore Ski Resort, 152 N.H. 399, 405 (2005). When interpreting two or more statutes that deal with a similar subject matter, we construe them so that they do not contradict each other, and so that they will lead to reasonable results and effectuate the legislative purpose of the statutes. Id.
We first consider whether the language of RSA 633:3(a) and (b) requires the conduct at issue to directly involve the targeted person or individual. Since the district court found that the defendant engaged in a “pattern of intimidation,” we agree with the defendant that it appears the court considered conduct that did not involve Fisher directly, such as that directed towards other staff members. Although it is unclear from the record exactly what other acts the court considered, we do not agree with the defendant that it was error for the district court to have looked to these acts in determining whether the statutory requirements were satisfied.
While the defendant correctly points out that there must be proof of a course of conduct targeted at a specific person or individual, the acts that constitute a course of conduct, as defined in section II, are not limited to acts against the targeted person directly. Subsection (a)(1), for example, *192includes threats against the targeted person’s “immediate family.” Subsection (a)(6) includes injury to the targeted person’s pet or a pet belonging to that person’s immediate family. Indeed, subsection (a)(3) expressly includes the act of merely “appearing” at or in “close proximity to” the targeted person’s place of employment. Moreover, the statute, through its use of the phrase “may include, but not be limited to,” provides that the enumerated acts do not constitute an exhaustive list. When a statute sets forth a nonexhaustive list of acts, we have held that other acts which are similar may be considered. Conservation Law Found. v. N.H. Wetlands Council, 150 N.H. 1, 5-6 (2003). Thus, we conclude that threats directed at the targeted person’s co-workers may be considered as acts constituting a course of conduct under section II.
This conclusion finds support in State v. Gubitosi. There, one of the acts alleged in the indictment was that the defendant attempted to telephone the victim after being told by the police not to contact her. Gubitosi, 152 N.H. at 681. The defendant argued that a telephone call during which he spoke to the victim’s friend — not to the victim herself — was merely an attempt to telephone the victim and could not be considered part of the course of conduct. Id. at 682. We held that under RSA 633:3-a, 11(a)(7), a course of conduct may include any act of communication as defined in RSA 644:4, II (Supp. 2004) and that that statute “does not require that the act of communication take place between the defendant and the intended victim.” Id. We thus concluded that the act of telephoning the victim’s friend could be considered one of the two acts required to prove a course of conduct. Id. at 682-83. Similarly, here we conclude that the district court correctly considered the acts against the other staff members in deciding whether the plaintiff met her burden.
The defendant’s other sufficiency argument is that the plaintiff did not prove “2 or more acts.” RSA 633:3-a, 11(a) defines a course of conduct as involving “2 or more acts,” and we acknowledge that the district court, in finding a “pattern of intimidation,” did not specify the two acts that constituted the “pattern.” However, the defendant appears to concede that her threat to retaliate constitutés one act for purposes of subsection (a). We agree that the threat falls within (a)(1). As to a second act, the defendant argues that there is insufficient evidence, especially since the court did not make a specific finding in this regard. We disagree. In the first part of this opinion we held that the acts the defendant perpetrated against the plaintiff’s coworkers fall within the definition of course of conduct. Thus, any one of these several acts — all of which are within the definition of course of conduct — satisfies the statutory requirements.
*193However, the defendant’s argument raises an important question: whether trial courts are required to make specific findings as to precisely which two acts constitute the course of conduct required by the statute. We have not yet had occasion to decide whether such a requirement exists under RSA 633:3-a.
RSA 633:3-a, Ill-a specifically provides, “The types of relief that may be granted, the procedures and burdens of proof to be applied in such proceedings, the methods of notice, service, and enforcement of such orders, and the penalties for violation thereof shall be the same as those set forth in RSA 173-B.” Thus, RSA 633:3-a, Ill-a arguably mandates the applicability of our interpretation of RSA chapter 173-B to orders on civil stalking petitions.
In Fillmore v. Fillmore, 147 N.H. 283, 284 (2001), we vacated a protective order issued under RSA chapter 173-B. We stated: “Because RSA 173-B:1 contains an enumerated list of prohibited conduct, we read RSA 173-B:5 to require that a trial court must make a specific finding of criminal conduct in order to issue a final restraining order against a defendant.” Id. at 285 (emphasis added). Our holding in Fillmore was based upon the statutory language of RSA 173-B:5 and thus became a procedural requirement for all protective orders issued under RSA chapter 173-B. This procedural requirement exists in addition to the requirement of RSA 173-B:3, I, that the facts alleged against the defendant be included within the petition for the protective order. We acknowledge that by operation of RSA 633:3-a, Ill-a, the requirements of RSA 173-B:3, I, would also be applicable to petitions for civil stalking orders. However, in order to be consistent with our interpretation of RSA 173-B:5 in Fillmore, we must conclude that RSA 633:3-a, 11(a), which also contains an enumerated list of prohibited conduct, likewise requires specific findings of the course of conduct, which is defined as two or more acts. See RSA 633:3-a, 11(a).
Thus, in light of the reasoning articulated above, and in the interest of prospectively avoiding similar confusion concerning which acts were established to constitute the course of conduct, we take this opportunity to exercise our supervisory authority and provide instructions to trial courts in their issuance of civil stalking orders under RSA 633:3~a, Ill-a. See N.H. Const, pt. II, art. 78-a. We hold that when issuing a stalking order in response to a civil petition filed pursuant to RSA 633:3-a, Ill-a, the trial court must make findings on the record that a defendant engaged in two or more specific acts “over a period of time, however short, which evidences a continuity of purpose.” See RSA 638:3-a, 11(a).
*194Aside from her sufficiency arguments, the defendant also contends that because RSA 633:3-a specifically references and incorporates RSA chapter 173-B, RSA 633:3-a is limited in scope by RSA chapter 173-B. In particular, the defendant argues that RSA 173-B:1, X limits who may file a stalking petition to those who meet the definition of “family or household member.” In that vein, the defendant claims that “disruption of a place of business is not a matter for a stalking petition.” The defendant’s narrow interpretation of RSA 633:3-a is inconsistent with its plain language. RSA 633:3-a, 111(a) allows “[a] person who has been the victim of stalking” to seek a protective order. The plain language of the statute does not limit the availability of a protective order or other relief to a family or household member. See Soraghan, 152 N.H. at 405; Bethlehem, 154 N.H. at 319.
Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we affirm the order of the district cou,rt.

Affirmed.

Galway, and Hicks, JJ., concurred; Dalianis, J., concurred specially; Broderick, C.J., dissented.