J.F., Appellant-Respondent v. R.S., Appellee-Petitioner (2026)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] In January 2026, R.S. (Mother) filed a petition for a protective order on behalf of her daughter (Child) against J.F., Mother's ex-boyfriend. The trial court issued an ex parte protective order and held an evidentiary hearing on Mother's petition on March 9. The court ultimately granted the petition, finding J.F. had engaged in repeated acts of harassment and posed a credible threat to Child's safety. J.F. appeals, arguing (1) there was insufficient evidence to support the protective order and (2) the ex parte order was erroneously entered, and a reversal of the final protective order is warranted. We affirm.

Facts & Procedural History

[2] J.F. and Mother started dating when Child was two years old. They never married and ended their eight-year relationship in 2023. For the next two years, Mother and J.F. shared equal time with Child. Then, in July 2025, J.F. read Child's diary and discovered entries related to “sex, self-harm [and], anger for both [J.F. and Mother],” as well as a reference to suicide. Transcript at 13. Child was twelve years old at the time. J.F. informed Mother about these diary entries and expressed his belief that Child should start therapy. Mother talked to Child about the diary entries and believed Child was not going to hurt herself. However, Mother felt it was an invasion of Child's privacy for J.F. to read Child's diary. Mother allowed J.F. to see Child two more times but then decided to cut off his contact with Child completely.

[3] When J.F. could no longer text or call Child, they started communicating on a social media platform called Discord. Child was still twelve years old, and Discord requires its users to be at least thirteen. Between September 2025 and January 2026, J.F. and Child exchanged approximately 750 messages through Discord. On September 15, they had the following conversation:

[J.F.:] I was worried about you today. I didn't hear from you hardly at all ☹

[Child:] oh sorry!! I forgot to message you at lunch-

[J.F.:] You forgot about me ☹

[Child]: IM SORRYYY ☹

[J.F.:] I messaged your mom asking to see you or talk to you, but she didn't respond ․

[Child:] awh

[J.F.:] Have you said anything to her lately

[Child:] not yet

[J.F.:] I thought you said you asked every day

Appellant's Appendix Vol. 2 at 38-39 (sic throughout). Just four days later, they had another conversation:

[J.F.:] I wish you were here.

[Child:] me too.

[J.F.:] You mean that?

[Child:] of course i do

[J.F.:] I wasn't sure since you have such a busy life now

Id. at 40 (sic throughout).

[4] In late September, J.F. sent Child a package to her house, and when Child asked what she should tell her grandmother (Grandmother)  ¹ and Mother when they asked who it was from, J.F. told her to “[b]e honest.” Id. at 34. But when Child noted that Mother and Grandmother would ask her how she knew the package was from J.F., J.F. said, “You just say you got a random package [and] you assume it's from me.” Id. He also suggested that Child schedule a sleepover at her friend's house so he could go there and see her without Mother knowing. At one point, J.F. asked Child, “Do you ever wake up and feel like your life isn't right because we don't see each other[?]” Id. at 26. And in November, after J.F. hadn't heard from Child for almost a day, they exchanged the following messages:

[J.F.:] Are you alive

[Child:] yes

[Child:] are you alive

[J.F.:] i was worried about you

[J.F.:] i didn't hear from you last night, or this morning, and you didn't call me today

[Child:] i'm sorry D: i thought you were at work so i didn't ask to call

[Child:] also last night i hadn't really been on my phone much so i didn't notice your message

[J.F.:] when i don't hear from you I get worried. will you please check in with me before bed and in the mornings?

[Child:] yes i will

Id. at 66-67 (sic throughout). J.F. also messaged Child in December about possibly adopting her when she turned eighteen, noting that by then, “that decision w[ould] ONLY be up to [her].” Id. at 29.

[5] On January 14, 2026, Mother filed a petition for a protective order against J.F. on Child's behalf, alleging J.F. had “committed repeated acts of harassment against” Child. Id. at 16. Mother attached screenshots of the Discord messages to the petition. She also included a written statement indicating she had “serious concerns about [J.F.’s] intentions and the potential risk of physical and emotional harm” to Child. Id. at 23. Mother characterized J.F.’s behavior as “harassment and stalking of a minor child ․” Id. Two days later, the trial court entered an ex parte order of protection based on the allegations in the petition. The court found “that stalking ha[d] occurred” and J.F. “represent[ed] a credible threat to” Child. Id. at 73.

[6] An evidentiary hearing on the petition was held on March 9. Mother, Grandmother, and J.F. testified to the facts above. The Discord messages were also admitted into evidence. Mother admitted that Child initiated some of the contact with J.F. and that she misses him, but she nonetheless explained that Child is “happier and less stressed” since their contact ended. Tr. at 9. Mother said Child was “constantly worried about making [J.F.] angry” and was “stressed out worrying about his feelings ․” Id. Grandmother testified similarly, explaining that J.F. “said things in such a way as to cause [Child] to be very worried about him being disappointed.” Id. at 32.

[7] J.F. testified that Mother “never” told him he could not talk to Child. Id. at 35. He explained it wasn't unusual for Mother not to respond to him “for months,” so he did not interpret her silence to his texts about seeing Child as definitive answers. Id. at 52. However, J.F. confirmed that once he “could no longer communicate with [Child] on her phone ․ [he] had to find other mechanisms,” like Discord. Id. at 35-36. He testified he didn't believe he'd done “anything intentionally to undermine” Mother and that it “was not [his] intention” to try to manipulate Child. Id. at 45, 48. The trial court took the matter under advisement.

[8] On March 17, the trial court entered an order granting Mother's petition for a protective order. The court found that J.F. had engaged in “repeated acts of harassment” and “represent[ed] a credible threat to the safety of” Child. Appellant's App. Vol. 2 at 11. J.F. was therefore “prohibited from harassing, annoying, telephoning, contacting, or directly or indirectly communicating with” Child. Id. The court also entered a three-page supplemental order in which it explained its reasoning in more detail, including that J.F.’s messages “were attempts to be manipulative” and constituted “impermissible contact” with Child. Id. at 9. J.F. now appeals.

Discussion and Decision

Standard of Review

[9] “When reviewing a trial court's issuance of a protective order, we apply a two-tiered standard of review.” J.T. v. A.H., 255 N.E.3d 512, 517 (Ind. Ct. App. 2025) (citing S.D. v. G.D., 211 N.E.3d 494, 497 (Ind. 2023)), trans. denied. We will determine “whether the evidence supports the trial court's findings and, if so, whether the findings support the judgment.” Id. In our review, we consider only the probative evidence and reasonable inferences supporting the court's judgment, and we will not reweigh evidence or judge witness credibility. Maurer v. Cobb-Maurer, 994 N.E.2d 753, 755 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013).

[10] The Indiana Civil Protection Order Act (ICPOA) permits “[a] parent ․ [to] file a petition for an order for protection on behalf of a child against a ․ person who has committed repeated acts of harassment against the child[.]” Ind. Code § 34-26-5-2(c)(3) (2021). Harassment is “conduct directed toward a victim that includes, but is not limited to, repeated or continuing impermissible contact: (1) that would cause a reasonable person to suffer emotional distress; and (2) that actually causes the victim to suffer emotional distress.” Ind. Code § 34-6-2.1-80 (2025). “Impermissible contact” includes “[c]ommunicating with the victim.” Ind. Code § 35-45-10-3(a)(2) (2022).

[11] Additionally, “the harassment must objectively include a present and credible threat.” J.T., 255 N.E.3d at 517. A threat is credible if it's “plausible or believable.” F.P. v. D.R., 277 N.E.3d 107, 112 (Ind. Ct. App. 2026) (quoting E.W. v. J.K., 253 N.E.3d 1111, 1113 (Ind. Ct. App. 2025), trans. denied). There must be “reasonable grounds to believe that the respondent presently intends to harm the petitioner or the petitioner's family.” L.R. b/n/f H.R. v. M.H. b/n/f N.H., 223 N.E.3d 675, 681 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023). Mother had to prove these elements by a preponderance of the evidence. Id.

[12] J.F. presents several arguments on appeal. First, he argues there was insufficient evidence to support the issuance of a protective order. Specifically, he contends Mother failed to prove that: (1) his communications with Child were impermissible; (2) the communication would cause a reasonable person to suffer emotional distress and actually caused Child to suffer emotional distress; and (3) he presented a credible threat to Child's safety. Second, he argues the court erroneously entered the ex parte order and did not hold a hearing within thirty days as required by statute. We address each issue in turn.

1. There was sufficient evidence to support the protective order.

1.1. Impermissible Contact

[13] J.F. argues there was insufficient evidence that his contact with Child was impermissible because “he was never told that he could not contact” Child. Appellant's Brief at 14. However, viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the judgment, the trial court could infer that J.F. knew Mother intended to stop him from contacting Child.² First, J.F. testified that he knew he wasn't supposed to be contacting Child when he could not reach her by phone. See Tr. at 36. Second, the evidence showed that Mother consistently ignored J.F.’s requests to see or contact Child, and she testified that she intended “to cut off all communication” between J.F. and Child. Tr. at 18.

[14] The content of the Discord messages also evidenced J.F.’s knowledge that Mother had prohibited Child from contacting him. For example, J.F. sent Child a package in September 2025. When Child asked J.F. what to “do if [Mother and Grandmother] ask where it's from,” J.F. told her to say she “got a random package” and “assume[d] it's from [him].” Appellant's App. Vol. 2 at 34. He also suggested Child spend the night at her friend's house so he could go there and see her without Mother knowing. It's clear from these exchanges that J.F. encouraged Child to lie about the fact that she was communicating with him, implying he knew they should not be communicating. As J.F. concedes later in his brief, “the evidence favorable to the order established that [he] sent numerous messages[ ] [and] knew Mother was restricting contact” with Child. Appellant's Br. at 18. J.F. has therefore failed to prove there was insufficient evidence of impermissible contact.

1.2. Emotional Distress 3

[15] J.F. argues that Mother's testimony that Child is “happier and less stressed” or worried about protecting his feelings does “not show[ ] what effect [his] communications had on” Child. Appellant's Br. at 16. He claims Child's “own actions and Mother's testimony clearly establish that [Child] wanted to talk to him.” Id. at 17. However, this is nothing more than a request to reweigh the evidence. Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the trial court's decision, J.F. engaged in a months-long series of inappropriate Discord messages with a twelve-year-old girl, in which he pestered her for attention and encouraged her to disregard Mother's instructions not to contact him. Moreover, Mother and Grandmother's testimony, demonstrated that Child was constantly worried and stressed about making J.F. angry, and that stress ceased once Child's communication with J.F. stopped. We find that evidence sufficient to support the emotional distress element of harassment.

1.3. Credible Threat

[16] J.F. argues the evidence “did not objectively establish that [he] presently threatened ․ Child's safety,” claiming his “messages contained no express threat” and that “neither Mother nor Grandmother identified a history of [him] harming or threatening to harm ․ Child.” Id. at 19. First, to the extent J.F. contends there had to be a threat to Child's physical safety, that argument does not find support in the law. See F.P., 277 N.E.3d at 112 n.8 (“Clearly, harassment is a form of emotional violence, which the [ICPOA] is intended to protect against.”).

[17] Second, despite Mother's attempts to prevent J.F. from contacting Child, J.F. and Child exchanged approximately 750 messages in a four-month period. The trial court found many of J.F.’s messages attempts to manipulate Child and encouragement to lie to Mother. That determination is supported by the evidence most favorable to the judgment, and we cannot say it was unreasonable to conclude that this manipulation and undermining of Mother's authority threatened to harm Child's well-being. Moreover, as J.F. notes, “the respondent must pose a threat to a protected person's safety when the petitioner seeks relief.” S.H. v. D.W., 139 N.E.3d 214, 219 (Ind. 2020) (emphasis added). Mother petitioned for the protective order only one month after the four-month messaging spree between J.F. and Child. Thus, at that time, it was reasonable to believe that J.F. posed a credible threat in terms of continuing to impermissibly contact and manipulate Child.

2. Even if the trial court erroneously entered the ex parte protective order, such error was harmless.

[18] J.F. argues “[t]he trial court erred by issuing ex parte relief when the petition only pled harassment and by failing to hold a hearing within [thirty] days.” Appellant's Br. at 21. However, Mother argues, and we agree, that any error is harmless. An “error is harmless when ‘its probable impact, in light of all the evidence in the case, is sufficiently minor so as not to affect the substantial rights of the parties.’ ” B.N. v. Health & Hosp. Corp., 199 N.E.3d 360, 365 (Ind. 2022) (quoting Ind. Appellate Rule 66(A)). J.F. fails to establish how a purportedly erroneous ex parte order and hearing outside the thirty-day window prejudiced his substantial rights. He participated in a fully contested hearing— presented evidence, cross-examined witnesses, offered objections, and made arguments to the court.

[19] Furthermore, at no point in the proceedings did J.F. raise this purported error to the trial court. The record shows J.F.’s attorney filed his appearance on February 5, 2026—twenty days after the trial court entered the ex parte order. On the 12th, he requested a hearing on Mother's petition. In neither of these filings did J.F. raise any objection to the issuance of the ex parte order or reference the thirty-day hearing window under Indiana Code section 34-26-5-9(b). In fact, J.F. later filed a motion to continue the hearing. And he did not raise this issue at the evidentiary hearing. See Allison v. Pepkowski, 6 N.E.3d 467, 470 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) (“[A] party's failure to object to an error waives the issue for review.”).

[20] J.F. also seems to argue that the trial court imposed an inference or presumption at the evidentiary hearing in light of the existence of the ex parte order. Indiana Code section 34-26-5-9(j) prohibits courts from doing so. However, we find no evidence in the record to support J.F.’s contention. Rather, the court relied on the evidence presented to support its finding that J.F. repeatedly harassed Child. While such evidence included the Discord messages that also supported the issuance of the ex parte order, an overlap in the underlying evidence is inevitable in these circumstances.

[21] In sum, even if the trial court erred in issuing the ex parte order, J.F. has failed to show his substantial rights were prejudiced as a result.

Conclusion

[22] For the reasons set out above, we affirm the trial court's decision to issue the protective order.

[23] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Mother and Child live with Grandmother.

2.   Relatedly, J.F. argues the trial court “treated Mother's determination as the controlling criterion for whether the communications legally constituted harassment” rather than the statutory elements of harassment. Appellant's Brief at 20. However, both the protective order and the court's supplemental order correctly denote the elements of harassment. And the supplemental order connects specific evidence to the relevant elements, such as the fact that the contact between J.F. and Child was impermissible because J.F. knew or should have known Mother was attempting to prohibit contact between them. Furthermore, much of the manipulation the court found woven throughout J.F.’s messages is tied to his attempts to undermine Mother's authority. We thus find no error in the court's assessment that Mother's parental authority was relevant to its determination.

DeBoer, Judge.

Foley, J., and Felix, J., concur.