Pay Attention to What the Pleading Are Saying

Video Transcribed: This might sound like an obvious one, but read the pleadings. My name is Brian L. Jackson, I am a men’s rights attorney in Tulsa with Dads.Law. I want to talk to you about another topic on protective orders that I think gets overlooked from time to time. Read the pleadings. Really, really read the pleadings and pay attention to what it actually is saying and not saying.

Protective orders are on a shortlist of types of causes of action in Oklahoma that do not come under Oklahoma’s normal notice pleading rules. Now, what a notice pleading rule is basically you are required to plead enough information into the court with your initial filings to allege a prima facie case so that the other side is on notice of what your claim is going to be, but you don’t necessarily have to spell out every detailed fact in most types of causes of action.

Protective orders are an exception to that rule. First of all, it’s a form of pleading. One of the things that the form requires is that you have to fill out a detailed narrative of precisely what occurred that you believe falls into one of the statutory grounds for entering a final protective order.

Now, the reason it’s very important to read those pleadings is, that if it’s written poorly, it may be possible to attack the pleadings on their face. I like to use that tactic because if I can avoid doing a hearing, like a formal evidentiary hearing on it, I will.

Not that I’m mind doing evidentiary hearings, but I’m mindful of the risks involved with that. But the other reason is you can use that defensively to box the other side in. Make them stick to whatever it is they pled in and nothing else. If they file a really shitty, weak pleading, then great.

Make them stick to it. If you have to go to an evidentiary hearing, you make them stick to that and make them convince the court that this weak-ass pleading needs to be in a protective order, because that is the rule.

That is the rules procedurally on protective orders and it is a due process right you have. Exercise it. Don’t waive those objections. But to do that, you really need to understand fully what it is that’s alleged to have happened.

That’s why reading the pleadings carefully is very important. It’s where you really want a good attorney who will do that, so they understand fully what the allegation is, what it is they’re saying, why they’re saying it justifies this particular relief, and then they can better discuss with you, this is what should be done to try to rebut this. If you are looking for a Tulsa Protective Order Defense Attorney visit Dads.law.