Background
CMT and TOF were neighbors with a years-long history of disputes and police involvement. CMT petitioned for a nondomestic stalking personal protection order under MCL 600.2950a(1), alleging multiple incidents from 2021 through February 2025. The alleged conduct included blowing dirt and rocks onto CMT’s vehicle, firing a gun while yelling a racial epithet, placing cement blocks where they damaged CMT’s trailer, intentionally striking and repositioning garbage cans, moving ladders, and repeatedly directing racially charged insults at CMT.
After hearing testimony and viewing a recording of the parties’ February 2025 confrontation, the Muskegon Circuit Court issued the PPO. Following an appellate remand, the trial court denied TOF’s motion for reconsideration and found that he had engaged in a willful course of repeated harassment that would cause, and actually caused, intimidation, harassment, or terror. TOF appealed, challenging the adequacy of the trial court’s findings, the sufficiency of the evidence, and the court’s consideration of speech he argued was constitutionally protected.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that the two trial-court hearings and resulting orders created a sufficient record for appellate review, making another remand unnecessary. Although two reported incidents—marking trees while remaining on TOF’s property and contacting police about a vehicle extending over the property line—served legitimate purposes and did not constitute harassment, the remaining incidents supplied sufficient evidence of stalking under MCL 750.411h.
The court concluded that at least two acts qualified as unconsented contact and supported findings of actual and objectively reasonable emotional distress. Unconsented contact did not require CMT to be physically present or expressly demand that all contact cease; it included such conduct as placing objects on his property, entering his property, and approaching or confronting him without consent. The court also rejected TOF’s First Amendment argument. It explained that the PPO was not based solely on an offensive epithet: the repeated racial language provided context for conduct such as firing a gun, damaging or interfering with property, and escalating confrontations, and the language could constitute unprotected fighting words when assessed in context.
Key Takeaways
- A stalking PPO may rest on testimony, documents, recordings, and other hearing evidence; the circuit court is not confined to the petition’s four corners.
- Unconsented contact may occur through interference with a person’s home or property even when the person is not physically present, and it does not always require a prior express demand to stop.
- Offensive speech cannot alone support a stalking PPO when constitutionally protected, but repeated racial epithets may supply relevant context for threatening or harassing conduct and may qualify as fighting words depending on the circumstances.
Why It Matters
The unpublished decision illustrates how Michigan courts assess a prolonged neighbor dispute under the stalking-PPO statute. Courts must distinguish legitimate property-related conduct and protected expression from a repeated course of unconsented, intentionally antagonistic conduct that causes legally cognizable emotional distress.
It also shows that conduct that might appear innocent in isolation—such as discharging a firearm on one’s own property—may take on a harassing or threatening character when evaluated alongside contemporaneous racial abuse, property interference, prior confrontations, and credibility findings.