Opinion
21-P-103
02-09-2022
D.H. v. A.C.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0
The defendant, A.C., appeals from an order denying his motion to dismiss a civil harassment prevention order issued pursuant to G. L. c. 258E. We affirm.
Procedural history and background. According to the docket, the original ex parte order entered on July 11, 2019. The first one-year extension entered on July 25, 2019, following a hearing at which the defendant was not present. The defendant did not appeal from the original order or from the one-year extension order. Thereafter, on July 24, 2020, following a hearing at which both parties were present, the order was extended for six months to January 22, 2021. The defendant appealed from that order. In that appeal, he claimed that the original order should never have issued due to lack of proper service and insufficient evidence of three acts of harassment. See D.H. v. A.C., 99 Mass. App. Ct. 1127 (2021). That appeal was adjudicated by a different panel of this court. In an unpublished memorandum and order issued pursuant to Rule 23.0, we considered and rejected the defendant's arguments regarding service and sufficiency of the evidence. Id.
While his appeal was pending, on January 14, 2021, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss, which is the subject of this appeal. On January 22, 2021, an extension hearing was held at which both parties were present. Following the hearing, the judge extended the harassment prevention order for another year (to January 21, 2022) and denied the defendant's motion to dismiss. The docket indicates that the defendant timely appealed from the order denying his motion to dismiss, but he did not appeal from the extension order.
Discussion. We review for an abuse of discretion a judge's order denying a party's motion to vacate a civil harassment extension order. See MacDonald v. Caruso, 467 Mass. 382, 394 (2014) (reviewing for an abuse of discretion a judge's order denying a party's motion to terminate an abuse prevention order). The record does not appear to contain a written decision denying the defendant's motion. However, upon a careful review of the record, we discern no basis upon which we can conclude that the judge abused her discretion. As an initial matter, we note that, for the most part, the arguments advanced by the defendant in support of his motion to dismiss were raised in his appeal from the six-month extension order entered on July 24, 2020. As previously noted, a panel of this court rejected those arguments. To the extent that the defendant raised any new grounds in support of his motion to dismiss, he has not addressed them in his appeal and, therefore, these grounds are deemed waived. See Adams v. Adams, 459 Mass. 361, 392 (2011).
Order denying motion to dismiss affirmed.