If you are afraid of someone you live with, used to live with, or share a child with, Florida law lets you ask a judge for an injunction for protection, which most people call a restraining order. In Hillsborough County you file at the George Edgecomb Courthouse, 800 E. Twiggs Street in Tampa, or at the Plant City Courthouse, 301 North Michigan Avenue. There is no fee to file the petition, and clerk's office staff can help you complete the paperwork.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911 first. The National Domestic Violence Hotline answers at any hour at 1-800-799-7233, and in Hillsborough County The Spring of Tampa Bay runs a local 24-hour line at (813) 247-7233. A court order is one part of staying safe, and it works alongside a safety plan rather than in place of one. No order can promise a particular result.
Where to go and when
The Edgecomb Courthouse takes injunction filings weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Staff are also available there from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. on weekends and holidays, because these petitions do not wait for a business day. The Plant City Courthouse takes filings on weekdays only, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
You may file in the county where you live, the county where the other person lives, or the county where the incident happened. Bring a state-issued photo ID. The petition is a Florida Supreme Court approved family law form, 12.980(a), and you sign it in front of a notary or in front of the clerk, so do not sign it in advance at home.
What the petition asks you for
The form is written for people without lawyers, and the questions are plain. Gather what you can before you go:
- The other person's full name, date of birth, physical description, and where he or she lives or can be found, so the sheriff can serve the papers.
- Specific facts with dates: what happened, where it happened, and what was said or done. Judges act on particulars rather than on a general statement that you are afraid.
- Any earlier or pending injunction cases between you and that person, in this circuit or any other, with case numbers if you have them.
- The places you want covered: your home, your job, your children's school or daycare, and other places you regularly go.
- Whether you know of firearms or ammunition in the other person's possession.
The petition is sworn under penalty of perjury. Write what you can support. Careful, specific, verifiable statements do more for you than strong language does, and they hold up better once the other side responds.
Florida has five kinds of injunction for protection
Filing under the wrong one costs time, so it helps to know which fits. Florida provides separate injunctions for protection against domestic violence, dating violence, repeat violence, sexual violence, and stalking.
The domestic violence injunction is the one that requires a family or household relationship: spouses and former spouses, people related by blood or marriage, people who live together or have lived together as a family, and parents of a child in common whether or not they were ever married. If your relationship with the other person does not fit that definition, one of the other four may still be available to you. The clerk's intake staff can point you to the right form, and our domestic violence and injunctions page explains how these cases tend to run alongside a divorce or paternity matter.
The temporary injunction, and what it does not do
After you file, a judge reads the petition, usually the same day, without the other person present. That is what "ex parte" means. If the sworn statements show an immediate and present danger of domestic violence, the judge may enter a temporary injunction. A temporary injunction is effective for up to 15 days, and the clerk sets your full hearing before it expires. A court can extend it for good cause, including the time needed to complete service.
Two practical points. First, the temporary injunction generally binds the other person once the sheriff serves it, so service matters, and delays in service are a common reason hearings get reset. Second, a judge may decline temporary relief and still set your hearing. That is not a ruling that you were not believed. It usually means the papers as written did not show immediate danger, which is one more reason to be concrete on the form.
What happens at the full hearing
The full hearing is where the case is actually decided, and both people have a right to be there. You present your testimony and whatever supports it: messages, photographs, medical or police records, and witnesses who saw or heard something firsthand. The other person may do the same, may be represented by counsel, and may question your account.
The judge decides whether you are a victim of domestic violence or have reasonable cause to believe you are in imminent danger of becoming one. If the judge grants a final injunction, it commonly remains in effect until a court modifies or dissolves it, though a judge can set an end date. Depending on the facts, a final injunction can order no contact, give one party exclusive use of a shared home, address temporary support, set a temporary time-sharing arrangement, refer the respondent to a batterers' intervention program, and require the surrender of firearms and ammunition. If the petition is denied, the case ends and the temporary injunction expires.
These hearings are short, and the rules of evidence still apply. Many people go through them without a lawyer, and the courthouse is set up for that. Many others decide they want someone to organize the exhibits, prepare the witnesses, and do the talking, particularly where children, a shared home, or a pending divorce are involved.
If you have children with the other person
You may also need a financial affidavit, a Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act affidavit, and a proposed parenting plan, so the judge can address temporary support and a temporary schedule within the injunction case. Those decisions are temporary by design and can be revisited in a family law case. How they interact with an existing or future time-sharing and parenting plan matters more than most people expect at the time, because a temporary arrangement often sets the shape of the argument that follows.
If you are the one who was served
Being named as a respondent is not a finding that you did anything. Petitions are sometimes filed on accurate accounts, sometimes on incomplete ones, and sometimes in the middle of a dispute about children. The hearing exists to sort that out, and this firm represents people on both sides of these cases.
If you have been served, follow the order exactly, even if you believe it is wrong. No contact means none: not through a friend, not through social media, not to arrange a handoff of belongings. Ask the court, not the other party. Appear at the hearing, because if you do not appear the judge may proceed without hearing your side. Understand also that a final injunction carries consequences outside the courtroom, including restrictions on possessing firearms and ammunition under both Florida and federal law. Either party may later ask the court to modify or dissolve an injunction, but the far easier moment to be heard is the first hearing.
What to do this week
Write down dates and details while they are fresh. Save messages and photographs somewhere the other person cannot reach, and print copies, because phones get lost and accounts get locked. Ask the clerk about local advocacy services when you file, because Hillsborough County has them and they cost you nothing. Keep the hotline numbers somewhere you can find them quickly.
If the situation also involves a marriage, a shared home, or children, the injunction is usually one piece of a larger matter. Speaking with a family law attorney about how the injunction and the family case fit together, before the full hearing rather than after it, is generally the better sequence. Rechel & Associates has served Tampa Bay families since 1992 and can be reached at (813) 931-8111.