L.D.1 v. (and a companion case 2). (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

The defendant, L.Z., appeals from the issuance of two harassment prevention orders under G. L. c. 258E. In both appeals he argues that the evidence at the initial two-party hearing was insufficient to prove that he committed at least three “acts of willful and malicious conduct,” as required to constitute “harassment” under G. L. c. 258E, § 1, or to show that continuance of the ex parte order was reasonably necessary. We affirm.

Background. In March 2025, Y.D., acting on behalf of his nine year old son, plaintiff L.D., and H.W., acting on behalf of his nine year old son, plaintiff N.W., filed complaints for protection from harassment against the defendant, who is the parent of another child attending the plaintiffs’ school.

1. Allegations of harassment. Plaintiff L.D.’s complaint was accompanied by a supporting affidavit signed by Y.D., describing an incident that occurred on February 26, 2025, involving the defendant, L.D., and N.W., in which the defendant grabbed L.D. by the arm and shook him “violently while shouting abusive and extreme profanity,” then pushed him into a snowbank. The affidavit also stated that the defendant committed “multiple acts of intentional violence” against L.D. prior to this incident, including “forcibly removing [L.D.’s] winter jacket from his body and throw[ing] it into the bushes,” pushing L.D. into a snowbank, and pushing N.W. into L.D.

Plaintiff N.W.’s complaint was accompanied by a supporting affidavit signed by H.W., also describing the February 26 incident. N.W.’s complaint alleged that the defendant struck N.W.’s “chest with his fist, knocking him to the ground, followed by verbal abuse.” The affidavit also stated that the defendant had exhibited a “[p]attern of abuse” against N.W. in the preceding months, including by “plac[ing] his fist against [N.W.’s] face, arm, and chest in a threatening manner, then push[ing] him forcefully”; pushing N.W. into L.D.; and pushing both N.W. and L.D. into a snowbank.

Finding a substantial likelihood of an immediate danger of harassment, a District Court judge issued two ex parte harassment prevention orders on March 3, 2025, which directed the defendant not to harass, abuse, or contact L.D. or N.W., and to stay twenty-five feet from them and their residences. The defendant was also ordered to stay ten feet away from L.D. and N.W. at the children's school.

2. Two-party hearing. The ex parte orders remained in effect until a two-party hearing, held on June 20, 2025. At the hearing, the primary evidence of the defendant's harassment of L.D. was in the form of hearsay statements made by L.D. to his father, Y.D. According to Y.D., L.D. reported that the defendant approached him one day after school, grabbed his jacket, and threw it into the bushes. Another time, L.D. was walking with N.W. when the defendant confronted them and pushed N.W. into L.D. Y.D. also testified that there had been one other interaction, where the defendant pushed L.D. into the snow, but L.D. could not recall the date of this incident. The harassment culminated in the February 26 incident, which L.D. recounted to Y.D. as follows: while L.D. was walking through a parking lot on the way home from school, accompanied by N.W., the defendant approached and grabbed L.D., “shaking him and yelling at him, and then pushed him into the snowbank.” N.W.’s mother also testified that she saw the defendant “holding [L.D.’s] shoulder -- shoulders and shaking continuously” while shouting profanities.

As to N.W., his father, H.W., testified that N.W. had reported harassment by the defendant “on multiple occasions.” According to H.W., N.W. said that in early February, when N.W. accidentally hit the defendant's daughter with a snowball, the defendant reacted by pushing N.W. into the snow. After this incident, “there were a couple of instance[s]” where the defendant would gently push his fist against N.W.’s face, as if to threaten him. The defendant also “grabbed [N.W.’s] arm” and pushed him “many times.” N.W. also told H.W. about the February 26 incident: while N.W. was walking home from school with L.D., the defendant saw N.W. holding a snowball and started chasing and yelling at them; the defendant “lost control and started punching” N.W., then threw him into a snowbank.

Other witnesses’ testimony bolstered N.W.’s account. A friend of N.W.’s family testified about an incident that occurred in early February 2025, during which N.W. threw a snowball at the defendant, and in response, the defendant pushed N.W. into a snowbank and applied “pressure” to N.W.’s neck. The family friend did not see any other child nearby during this incident. N.W.’s mother and a neighbor also testified to the events of February 26, recalling that the defendant, while shouting angrily, assaulted L.D., then chased after N.W. and hit him with his fist, causing N.W. to fall into a pile of snow.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the same judge who had issued the ex parte order found that both plaintiffs had met their burdens of proof and extended the orders for approximately one year, until June 16, 2026.³

Discussion. We review a judge's decision to issue a harassment prevention order “for an abuse of discretion or other error of law.” Yasmin Y. v. Queshon Q., 101 Mass. App. Ct. 252, 256 (2022), quoting Vera V. v. Seymour S., 98 Mass. App. Ct. 315, 318 (2020). The standard for issuing such an order is whether the plaintiff has demonstrated, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the order is reasonably necessary to protect the plaintiff from further harassment. See G. L. c. 258E, § 3. The orders appealed from, like most harassment prevention orders, were “granted based on ‘[three] or more acts of willful and malicious conduct aimed at a specific person committed with the intent to cause fear, intimidation, abuse or damage to property and that does in fact cause fear, intimidation, abuse or damage to property.’ ” Yasmin Y., supra at 256, quoting Orla O. v. Patience P., 100 Mass. App. Ct. 126, 127 (2021).

1. Three or more acts of harassment. The defendant argues that the plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proving at least three acts of harassment by the defendant, in part because their hearsay statements were unreliable. In harassment prevention proceedings, “the rules of evidence need not be followed, provided that there is fairness in what evidence is admitted and relied on.” A.P. v. M.T., 92 Mass. App. Ct. 156, 161 (2017), quoting Frizado v. Frizado, 420 Mass. 592, 597-598 (1995). “[D]ue process requires that such statements be considered for their truth only if the judge determines that they carry sufficient indicia of reliability.” F.A.P. v. J.E.S., 87 Mass. App. Ct. 595, 602 (2015). With regard to a child's hearsay statements, a judge can make this determination based on cross-examination of the declarant “regarding the timing of the statement, the circumstances in which it was made, the language used by the child, and the child's apparent sincerity, or motive, in making the statement,” as well as “evidence as to the consistency over time of a child's statements” and “expert testimony about a child's ability to remember and to relate his or her experiences.” Care & Protection of Rebecca, 419 Mass. 67, 79-80 (1994).

The trial transcript contains descriptions of four independent acts of harassment by the defendant against L.D.⁴ and four acts against N.W.⁵ For all but the February 26 incident involving L.D., however, the only evidence was in the form of hearsay statements by L.D. to his father. Similarly, only two of the four acts against N.W. were supported by live testimony; the two other acts were based on L.D.’s or N.W.’s hearsay statements. The defendant contends that the hearsay was not sufficiently reliable to support the extension of the orders.

As a threshold matter, the defendant did not object to the admission of either L.D.’s or N.W.’s hearsay statements.⁶ In his closing argument, counsel urged the judge not to find this testimony credible. “Conversation, however, does not an objection make.” Laveck v. Pascoe Pizza, Inc., 29 Mass. App. Ct. 935, 937 (1990). In failing to “state ‘distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection,’ ” Composto v. Massachusetts Bay Transp. Auth., 48 Mass. App. Ct. 477, 480 (2000), quoting Mass. R. Civ. P. 51 (b), 365 Mass. 816 (1974), the defendant failed to preserve the issue for appeal. See Diaz v. Gomez, 82 Mass. App. Ct. 55, 63 (2012) (failure to raise due process claim in trial court waives any due process claim on appeal). His argument that the judge improperly relied on the plaintiffs’ hearsay is therefore waived.

But even if the claim were not waived, we would discern no error. Although the absence of any objection meant that neither party questioned Y.D. or H.W. about the circumstances of their sons’ disclosures, the defendant's own testimony lent credence to their allegations. For example, with respect to L.D., the defendant admitted that his interactions with the child “became physical” sometime prior to the February 26 incident, as L.D. had joined N.W. in throwing snowballs at the defendant “multiple times” when he picked up his daughter from school. The defendant also discussed “disciplin[ing]” N.W. at one time by pushing him into a snowbank. These admissions closely align with the L.D.’s account that the defendant assaulted him around the time that school let out, when he was with N.W., by pushing him into a snowbank.

Likewise, with respect to N.W., the defendant testified that, leading up to February 26, N.W. had thrown snowballs at him and his daughter “multiple times” on their walk home from school; when L.D. joined in, the defendant reacted by pushing both N.W. and L.D. into a snowbank to “discipline” and “restrain them.”⁷ This testimony parallels N.W.’s account that the defendant had “grabbed” and “pushed” him, and with L.D.’s account that the defendant had once pushed N.W. into him.

Therefore, the children's hearsay statements were not only consistent with each other, but with the defendant's admissions as well. “[T]he consistency of the hearsay incident with other, known behavior” of the defendant can support a finding that hearsay evidence is substantially reliable. Doe, Sex Offender Registry Bd. No. 523391 v. Sex Offender Registry Bd., 95 Mass. App. Ct. 85, 89 (2019). See also Commonwealth v. Hartfield, 474 Mass. 474, 484 (2016) (indicia of reliability include “whether the evidence is corroborated by information from other sources”). It was therefore not an abuse of discretion for the judge to rely on the plaintiffs’ hearsay statements in issuing the harassment prevention orders.⁸

2. Reasonable necessity for extension. The defendant also argued at the two-party hearing, as he does on appeal, that the continuance of the ex parte orders was not necessary because he had complied with the orders by ceasing contact with L.D. and N.W., and he had no intention of ever contacting or interacting with them or their families again. Although violation of the ex parte orders would certainly have warranted their continuance, the defendant's compliance with the ex parte orders does not prove that the orders after notice were is unnecessary. Defendants subject to harassment prevention orders are expected to comply with them. See MacDonald v. Caruso, 467 Mass. 382, 388-389 (2014); Iamele v. Asselin, 444 Mass. 734, 738 (2014). Furthermore, considering that L.D. and N.W. attend the same school as the defendant's daughter -- where the defendant also volunteers and chaperones field trips -- and the families all live in the same neighborhood, there is a high “likelihood that the parties will encounter one another in the course of their usual activities.” Yasmin Y., 101 Mass. App. Ct. at 258, quoting Iamele, supra at 740. In the affidavit supporting L.D.’s complaint, Y.D. cited the defendant's “repeated violent and threatening behavior toward [L.D.] and others,” and stated that the defendant's “unpredictable, escalating, and deeply concerning” conduct caused “fear for the safety of [his] children and family” and created the need for “immediate protection.” Similarly, H.W. averred that his family “live[s] in fear” of the defendant, whose “repeated aggression” and “alarming, unpredictable” conduct “poses an immediate threat.” Given the defendant's repeated physical aggression against both L.D. and N.W., particularly in light of their and the defendant's ages, and the probability that the children will see the defendant at school and around the community, the judge's decision to credit Y.D.’s and H.W.’s statements and extend the orders to protect L.D. and N.W. from further harassment does not “fall[ ] outside the range of reasonable alternatives,” L.L. v. Commonwealth, 470 Mass. 169, 185 n.27 (2014), and thus does not constitute an abuse of discretion.

Conclusion. The harassment prevention orders entered on June 20, 2025, are affirmed.

So ordered.

FOOTNOTES

3.   Although the orders have expired and there is no indication in the record that they have been extended, the appeals are not moot. See Seney v. Morhy, 467 Mass. 58, 62 (2014).

4.   When the defendant grabbed L.D.’s jacket and threw it into the bushes, when he pushed N.W. into L.D., when he pushed L.D. into a snowbank, and the February 26 incident.

5.   When the defendant pushed N.W. into the snow and applied pressure to N.W.’s neck, when he touched N.W.’s face with his fist, when he grabbed and pushed N.W., and the February 26 incident.

6.   At one point during H.W.’s testimony, defense counsel objected, “I can only let the hearsay go so far.” However, he went on to ask merely that the plaintiffs’ counsel lay a foundation for the testimony. He made no other objection on hearsay grounds.

7.   It is unclear from the defendant's testimony how many times he confronted the children in this manner before the events of February 26. However, any such incident must have been independent from the early February pushing incident witnessed by N.W.’s family friend, for which L.D. was not present.

8.   Again, because of the lack of any objection by the defendant, the judge made no specific findings as to the reliability of the hearsay evidence. However, in a harassment prevention proceeding, “[w]here we are able to discern a reasonable basis for the order in the judge's rulings and order, no specific findings are required.” Yasmin Y., 101 Mass. App. Ct. at 256, quoting Vera V., 98 Mass. App. Ct. at 318.