2024-CA-0731-ME
Kentucky Court of Appeals
Opinion by Judge McNeill
Date Rendered: February 21, 2025
Issue: Whether coercive control can be considered although the words “coercive control” do not appear in the Kentucky domestic violence statute.
Husband flipped over sofa while child was laying on it injuring Wife. Wife initiated a divorce proceeding assigned to Division 5 of Kenton Family Court. Husband later had a private investigator follow Wife and sent text messages to child to ascertain Wife’s location. Wife petitioned for a protective order which was assigned to Division 6 of Kenton Family Court. The Family Court denied Husband’s request for a transfer to Division 5 and after a hearing entered a DVO. Husband appealed.
Husband first argues there “was insufficient evidence to support the entry of the DVO.” The Court of Appeals affirms the Family Court finding no clear error where the Family Court found Wife was credible, found that the sofa flipping was an act of domestic violence, and Husband’s location tracking of Wife was a means of “coercive control that [was] proof that domestic violence could occur again.”
The Court of Appeals, citing United States v. Castleman, clarifies that while the words “coercive control” do not appear in the Kentucky domestic violence statute,
“the United States Supreme Court has recognized that ‘DOMESTIC Violence’ is not merely a type of ‘violence’; it is a term of art encompassing acts that one might not characterize as ‘violent’ in a nondomestic context . . . . Minor uses of force may not constitute ‘violence’ in the generic sense. . . . But an act of this nature is easy to describe as ‘domestic violence,’ when the accumulation of such acts over time can subject one intimate partner to the other’s control.”
572 U.S. 157 (2014).
The Court of Appeals also cites Pettingill v. Pettingill, noting the Kentucky Supreme Court has held that a court can use
“its judicial knowledge of common risk factors to evaluate whether domestic abuse may occur in the future, as required by the statutory standard. The predictive nature of the standard requires the family court to consider the totality of the circumstances and weigh the risk of future violence against issuing a protective order.”
480 S.W.3d 920, 925 (Ky. 2015).
Thus, the Family Court properly considered Husband’s cumulative acts as a means of coercive control in its analysis.
Husband also argues that the Family Court “erred by not transferring the matter to Division 5” where the divorce was pending. The Court of Appeals finds no abuse of discretion as the Family Court followed the local rules and “no fractionalization of jurisdiction occurred.”
Digested by Elizabeth M. Howell