The Georgia Family Violence Act creates a specific legal process for violence allegations involving certain family or household relationships. Whether the Act applies depends first on who the people are to each other, and then on whether the alleged conduct fits the types of acts the statute covers.
The law focuses on relationship status as well as conduct
The Act does not apply to every conflict between two people. It applies when the people involved fall within protected family or household categories and one person alleges conduct that the statute recognizes as family violence.
Covered relationships may include:
- Current or former spouses
- People who share a child
- Parents and children
- Stepparents and stepchildren
- Foster parents and foster children
- People who live together or lived together before
A general Georgia domestic violence overview can give background on how the state defines these cases.
A court can act quickly after one qualifying incident
A single qualifying incident may support a request for a temporary protective order. A judge can issue that order before the other side appears in court.
That early order may limit contact, control access to a home and address temporary issues involving children. The case then moves to a later hearing where both sides can present evidence.
The hearing can affect more than the order itself
The later hearing can shape much more than whether the protective order stays in place. Records of calls or messages, photographs and witness statements may all affect the result.
A family violence finding may also affect criminal charges, custody issues, job records and future court proceedings. People dealing with related violent crime allegations may need to look closely at how those issues overlap before the case moves forward. An attorney can review the allegations, the relationship between the parties and the available records to assess how the Act may apply.