Background
Guy Zubchevich (Father) and Maryeve Zubchevich (Mother) separated in 2022 and shared joint custody of their two minor children under a 2024 consent order. On the morning of January 27, 2025, Father was preparing to drive both children to school. Seven-year-old Minor Plaintiff refused to get into his car seat on the correct side of the truck. After the child persisted in refusing, Father grabbed him by the neck and hip, lifted him onto his tiptoes, carried him around the truck, and fastened him into his car seat. The child cried, testified that his face turned red, that he felt “weird” and “dizzy,” and that he “couldn’t breathe” during the incident. His nine-year-old sister corroborated the account. Minor Plaintiff continued “breathing hard” for the rest of the drive to school. No visible marks or injuries were found on examination.
On February 3, 2025, Mother filed a Complaint and Motion for a Domestic Violence Protective Order (DVPO) on behalf of Minor Plaintiff. On the same day, she also filed a motion to modify custody. The trial court issued an ex parte DVPO and appointed Mother as Minor Plaintiff’s Guardian ad litem. At a return hearing on February 10, 2025, the trial court heard testimony from Minor Plaintiff, his sister, Father, and a Mooresville Police Department officer who had interviewed both children. The trial court found that Father “intentionally caused bodily injury” to Minor Plaintiff and entered a DVPO effective through February 10, 2026. Father appealed.
The Court’s Holding
Affirmed (2–1). Writing for the majority, Judge Hampson held that competent evidence supported the trial court’s finding and conclusion. Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50B-1(a)(1), “domestic violence” includes “intentionally causing bodily injury” by a person with whom the aggrieved party has a personal relationship. Minor Plaintiff’s testimony—that Father grabbed him by the neck and hip, lifted him off his feet, and that he felt dizzy, couldn’t breathe, and cried—plus the officer’s corroborating account and the sister’s testimony that the child’s face was red and he was breathing hard for the entire drive to school, constituted competent evidence supporting Finding of Fact 3. The court declined Father’s invitation to define “bodily injury” using dictionary definitions that would require proof of lasting physical damage; the General Assembly did not impose such a requirement, and the court would not read one in. Analogizing to In re A.L.T., 241 N.C. App. 443 (2015) (striking a child causing a swollen lip) and Williams v. Cabrera, 298 N.C. App. 611 (2025) (backing a car into a person causing a minor laceration), the majority held the evidence sufficient.
The court rejected Father’s constitutional argument—that parents have a constitutional right to control their children—because it had not been preserved at the trial level: defense counsel’s closing statement that “a parent has a right to put their child where they want them to be” did not adequately inform the court that a constitutional claim was being raised. The court also held that Minor Plaintiff had standing to seek a DVPO: he was an “aggrieved party” who had a “personal relationship” with Father under the statute, Mother had been properly appointed Guardian ad litem, and neither the existence of a pending Chapter 50 custody action nor Father’s policy objections to minor-plaintiff DVPOs changed the statutory analysis. Judge Wood dissented, arguing that grabbing a child by the neck without leaving any mark does not constitute “bodily injury” under any reasonable reading of the statute and that the majority’s holding would criminalize routine parental discipline.
Key Takeaways
- Competent evidence that a parent grabbed a child by the neck, caused the child to feel dizzy and unable to breathe, and left the child’s face red and breathing labored for an extended period is sufficient to support a finding of “intentionally causing bodily injury” under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50B-1(a)(1)—even absent a visible mark, bruise, or medical finding of physical damage.
- Minor children have standing to be DVPO plaintiffs through a court-appointed Guardian ad litem. A pending Chapter 50 custody action does not deprive the trial court of jurisdiction over a DVPO filed on the child’s behalf, and the DVPO proceeding does not constitute an impermissible “collateral attack” on an existing custody order.
- Constitutional arguments about parental rights under the Due Process Clause must be expressly raised at the trial level. A closing argument stating that parents have a right to control their children does not preserve a constitutional claim for appellate review absent specific invocation of constitutional grounds and a ruling by the trial court.
- The dissent’s framing—that routine car-seat enforcement without lasting injury cannot be domestic violence—highlights the practical tension in applying § 50B-1(a)(1) to parent-child discipline situations. This 2–1 split may invite further appellate or legislative attention to where normal parental correction ends and domestic violence begins.
Why It Matters
For North Carolina family law practitioners, Zubchevich sets a precedent with significant practical reach. A DVPO can be entered against a parent based on a single physical-correction incident—even one without lasting marks—where the child credibly testifies to pain, breathing difficulty, or distress and the trial court credits that testimony. DVPOs carry collateral consequences that extend into custody proceedings: a finding of domestic violence is a statutory factor in Chapter 50 custody determinations and can dramatically alter custody arrangements, as it did here when the modification motion that was filed simultaneously with the DVPO complaint produced a shift from joint custody to sole custody with supervised visitation.
The decision also underscores the strategic significance of Guardian ad litem appointments in contested family matters: a GAL can bring a DVPO on a minor child’s behalf independently of what the other parent-litigant might do in the parallel Chapter 50 action. Defense counsel representing parents in DVPO proceedings involving minor children should be prepared to address the constitutional parenting-right argument at the trial level, place it on the record specifically, and obtain an explicit ruling—otherwise that argument is lost on appeal.