As used in this chapter:

"Coercive control" means a pattern of threatening, humiliating, or intimidating actions, which may include assaults, or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten an individual. "Coercive control" includes a pattern of behavior that seeks to take away the individual's liberty or freedom and strip away the individual's sense of self, including bodily integrity and human rights, whereby the "coercive control" is designed to make an individual dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence, and regulating their everyday behavior including:

1. (1) Isolating the individual from friends and family;
2. (2) Controlling how much money is accessible to the individual and how it is spent;
3. (3) Monitoring the individual's activities, communications, and movements;
4. (4) Name-calling, degradation, and demeaning the individual frequently;
5. (5) Threatening to harm or kill the individual or a child or relative of the individual;
6. (6) Threatening to publish information or make reports to the police or the authorities;
7. (7) Damaging property or household goods; and

8. (8) Forcing the individual to take part in criminal activity or child abuse.

   "Dating relationship" means a romantic, courtship, or engagement relationship, often but not necessarily characterized by actions of an intimate or sexual nature, but does not include a casual acquaintanceship or ordinary fraternization between persons in a business or social context.

   "Domestic abuse" means:

9. (1) Physical harm, bodily injury, assault, or the threat of imminent physical harm, bodily injury, or assault, extreme psychological abuse, coercive control, or malicious property damage between family or household members; or

10. (2) Any act which would constitute an offense under section 709-906, or under part V or VI of chapter 707 committed against a minor family or household member by an adult family or household member.

    "Extreme psychological abuse" means an intentional or knowing course of conduct directed at an individual that seriously alarms or disturbs consistently or continually bothers the individual, and that serves no legitimate purpose; provided that such course of conduct would cause a reasonable person to suffer extreme emotional distress.

    "Family or household member":

11. (1) Means spouses or reciprocal beneficiaries, former spouses or former reciprocal beneficiaries, persons who have a child in common, parents, children, persons related by consanguinity, persons jointly residing or formerly residing in the same dwelling unit, and persons who have or have had a dating relationship; and

12. (2) Does not include those who are, or were, adult roommates or cohabitants only by virtue of an economic or contractual affiliation.

    "Malicious property damage" means an intentional or knowing damage to the property of another, without his consent, with an intent to thereby cause emotional distress.

[L 1982, c 123, pt of §2; am L 1987, c 359, §2; am L 1997, c 383, §64; am L 1998, c 172, §1; am L 2000, c 186, §2; am L 2016, c 231, §62; am L 2020, c 20, §5]

Revision Note

Definitions rearranged pursuant to §23G-15.

Case Notes

Where defendant testified at defendant's criminal trial that complainant was defendant's niece and that they had formerly resided together at the home of defendant's father, this testimony established that defendant and complainant met the definition of "family or household member" under this section; thus, family court had jurisdiction to issue the protection order under §586-5.5 and the protection order was valid. 112 H. 136 (App.), 144 P.3d 584 (2006).