Background
N.D. (Wife) and J.D. (Husband) had been married since 2004 and shared two children. On May 18, 2025, while Husband was away on a business trip, Wife discovered he was having an affair. She confronted him by phone, called her father for support, and also alerted police — noting that she did not know what Husband would do when his plane landed that evening. In the early morning hours, Wife took the children to her parents’ home in a different town. Once there, Husband sent a barrage of text messages professing his love and attaching vacation photos, none of which Wife read; she turned off her phone and went to sleep around 3:45 a.m.
Shortly after 4 a.m. on May 19, Wife’s mother was awakened by a Ring doorbell alert showing a vehicle in the driveway. Her father went outside armed with a gun to investigate. He found Husband in his Mustang, screaming something about “kill” through the open window. Husband drove across the yard, revving the engine, running into the house, and nearly striking Father — who ultimately fired several shots into the car’s engine and tires. Wife, awakened by the distinctive sound of Husband’s Mustang, took her daughter into the bathroom, locked the door, and, with no window to see outside, listened to “revving and then the banging and then the sounds on the sidewalk and then the gunshots.” She described being “shaking” and “holding my daughter praying.” Afterward, she observed tire marks in the yard, on the sidewalk, and two smashed chairs in front of the house.
Wife filed a petition under Kansas’s Protection from Abuse Act (PFA Act), K.S.A. 60-3101 et seq. The Sumner County District Court issued a temporary order, and after an evidentiary hearing found by a preponderance of the evidence that Husband’s intentional conduct constituted a “physical threat” placing Wife “in fear of imminent bodily injury” under K.S.A. 60-3102(a)(2). Husband appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed, applying the substantial competent evidence standard of review. The panel emphasized that the PFA Act must be construed “liberally . . . to promote the protection of victims of domestic violence from bodily injury or threats of bodily injury,” K.S.A. 60-3101(b), and that protection orders “are by their nature subjective judgments” best assessed by the district court. The court viewed all evidence in the light most favorable to Wife without reweighing it or reassessing witness credibility.
Husband argued that because Wife never saw the confrontation and because he made no direct threat to her, the statutory requirement of “intentionally placing, by physical threat, another in fear of imminent bodily injury” could not be satisfied. He relied on J.B.B. v. J.L.B., 60 Kan. App. 2d 310 (2021) — where a wife’s physical confrontation with a husband’s girlfriend did not threaten the husband himself — and Baker v. McCormick, 52 Kan. App. 2d 899 (2016) — where a child had neither witnessed abuse nor been targeted. The panel distinguished both precedents: in those cases, the challenged conduct was not directed at the petition’s subject. Here, Husband drove to the house specifically knowing Wife was there, texted asking her to come outside, and rammed the entrance to reach her. His actions were intentionally aimed at Wife, not a third party.
The court held there was substantial competent evidence that Husband’s conduct placed Wife in fear of imminent bodily injury, regardless of whether she could see the violence unfolding outside. The totality of the circumstances — forcing through a padlocked gate at 4 a.m., driving a vehicle up to the front door, screaming, and causing property damage — was sufficient.
Key Takeaways
- A petitioner need not directly witness the threatening conduct to establish fear of imminent bodily injury under K.S.A. 60-3102(a)(2); courts examine the totality of the respondent’s intentional actions and whether they were directed at the petitioner.
- Forcing through a locked gate, driving onto private property, and revving an engine up to a home’s front door at 4 a.m. — combined with evidence that the respondent specifically sought out the petitioner — can satisfy the “physical threat” element even without a verbal threat or direct physical contact.
- Kansas appellate courts apply a highly deferential standard to district court PFA rulings: evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the prevailing party, credibility is not reassessed, and conflicting evidence is disregarded on appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies an important boundary question under Kansas’s PFA Act: a petitioner who is inside a structure and cannot see escalating, violent conduct outside may still obtain and sustain a protection order if the evidence shows the respondent’s actions were intentionally directed at reaching or confronting her. For Kansas family law practitioners, the opinion reinforces that courts assess fear objectively — asking whether a reasonable person given the totality of the circumstances would be placed in fear — and that the petitioner’s subjective experience is highly probative even absent visual contact with the threat.
For practitioners defending PFA petitions, the decision tightens the argument that absence of a direct verbal threat or physical encounter forecloses a finding of abuse. Where a respondent deliberately travels to a location knowing the petitioner is there and engages in aggressive, property-damaging conduct in close proximity, Kansas courts will scrutinize the totality of those circumstances rather than demand proof that the petitioner saw or was explicitly told she was in danger.