## Facts

- Quatarsha Williams and Curtis Jones were unmarried, lived in the same household, and had an infant child.
- Williams petitioned under Georgia’s Family Violence Act for a protective order, alleging Jones verbally and physically abused her recently and on prior occasions, and noting his arrest record.
- Williams acknowledged that on at least one occasion she damaged Jones’s property in response to his serious physical abuse.
- Jones was served with the petition, filed no responsive pleadings, and appeared pro se at an unreported hearing.
- The superior court found Jones committed acts of family violence that placed Williams in reasonable fear and posed a credible threat to her physical safety.
- The court entered a protective order that included provisions binding both parties, including mutual no-abuse language, mutual no-contact and stay-away requirements, mandatory programs/evaluations for both, and mutual firearms surrender.
- The order also granted Williams temporary custody and required Jones to pay child support.
- Williams obtained discretionary appellate review.

## Issues

1. Whether the Family Violence Act authorizes a protective order to impose “mutually binding” restraints and requirements on the petitioner when the court finds family violence only by the respondent.
2. Whether mutual provisions requiring no contact/stay-away, batterer’s intervention and substance-abuse evaluation, and firearms surrender are valid absent findings that the petitioner committed family violence.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals held the superior court lacked authority under the Family Violence Act to impose certain mutually binding provisions on Williams.
- The court reversed the order in part, affirmed it in part, and remanded for entry of a new order consistent with the Act.
- The court left intact provisions properly directed at Jones based on the finding that he committed family violence, including relief tied to protecting Williams and addressing custody/support.

## Legal Principles

- Relief under the Family Violence Act is keyed to a judicial finding that family violence occurred and may occur in the future, and the authorized restraints and conditions are directed to the respondent/perpetrator.
- A court may not impose family-violence restraints and remedial requirements on a petitioner absent findings that the petitioner committed “family violence” as defined by statute.
- Mutual no-contact/stay-away terms, counseling or intervention mandates, and firearms surrender provisions are unauthorized as to a petitioner where only the respondent has been adjudicated the perpetrator.

## Conclusion

The appellate court required family-violence protective orders to track the statute’s perpetrator-focused remedies, rejecting “mutual” restrictions imposed on a petitioner without a finding that the petitioner committed family violence, and remanding for a revised order limited to authorized relief.


Williams v. Jones, 291 Ga. App. 395, 662 S.E.2d 195 (Ga. Ct. App. 2008)