D.V. v. R.G

THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

SUPREME COURT

In Case No. 2024-0523, D.V. v. R.G., the court on July 2,
2025, issued the following order:

The court has reviewed the written arguments and the record submitted
on appeal, and has determined to resolve the case by way of this order. See
Sup. Ct. R. 20(3). The defendant, R.G., appeals a civil stalking final order of
protection issued by the Circuit Court (Walch, J.) in favor of the plaintiff, D.V.
See RSA 633:3-a, III-a (2016). We affirm.

I. Background

The following facts were found by the trial court or are otherwise
supported by the record. The plaintiff owns a business near an apartment
building in Manchester where the defendant lives. In June 2024, the
defendant let her cat outside. The cat was apparently sick and dying. On the
same day, the plaintiff’s daughter found a cat on the plaintiff’s property that
appeared to be in poor health. The plaintiff took the cat in and spent several
thousand dollars on veterinary care.

On Friday, June 28, the plaintiff learned that the defendant had lost a
cat and went to the defendant’s apartment to inquire whether the cat belonged
to the defendant. Although the parties dispute what the plaintiff said or
promised during that meeting, there is no dispute that, by the end of the day,
the plaintiff refused to return the cat to the defendant. According to the
plaintiff, she was concerned that, if the cat were the defendant’s cat, the
defendant had abused or neglected it. The plaintiff communicated to the
defendant that she planned to consult with Manchester Animal Control when it
opened the following Monday morning.

By Saturday, the defendant had made claims on social media that the
plaintiff and her daughter had stolen her cat. The defendant posted, “Your
karma is going to come at you ten fold. Give him back like you said you
would.” The defendant also posted that the plaintiff had refused to give the cat
back because the defendant is Black. When individuals posted threatening
statements in response to the defendant’s original post — including statements
such as “Shawty take ya gun n go get ya f****** cat who tf these ppl think they
are” and “Go take her daughter” — the defendant expressed approval of the
posts as evidenced by the defendant’s social media profile picture and a red
heart on each post.
 On Sunday, the defendant posted information on social media about the
plaintiff and her daughter, including among other things, their names and the
name of their business. A number of people left statements of violence directed
at the plaintiff such as: “i hope your shop burns down you racist a** b****”;
“Should’ve been your worthless carcass they found in the streets, [plaintiff’s
name]. F******, disgusting, worthless, racist cat killer”; “You should find a rope
and hang yourself with it already”; “Disgusting ugly c*** karma is coming for
you. And the f****** law. You evil b****, I hope you f****** die screaming And
your little c*** [plaintiff’s daughter’s name] too.” The defendant also organized
a protest outside the plaintiff’s business, at which a protester chanted, “Come
out b****, come out.” On Tuesday, when the plaintiff’s daughter brought the
cat, at the suggestion of the police, to the animal shelter, the cat had died. The
defendant then claimed on social media that the plaintiff had killed the cat.

The plaintiff filed a stalking petition against the defendant. Following a
two-day bench trial, the circuit court issued a stalking final order of protection
in favor of the plaintiff. The court found that the defendant recklessly engaged
in a course of conduct targeted at the plaintiff by “weaponiz[ing]” social media
against her and foreseeably causing public outrage, and that the plaintiff
reasonably feared for her own safety and the safety of her daughter as a result.
The court also found that there was no legitimate purpose for the defendant’s
conduct independent of inflaming the public against the plaintiff and her
business, and that her conduct did not constitute constitutionally protected
speech. This appeal followed.

II. Analysis

A stalking victim “may seek relief by filing a civil petition in the [circuit]
court.” RSA 633:3-a, III-a; see RSA 490-F:18 (Supp. 2024) (explaining that
statutes which reference the jurisdiction of the district court are deemed to
refer to the circuit court). Upon proof by a preponderance of the evidence, the
court “shall grant such relief as is necessary to bring about a cessation of
stalking.” RSA 633:3-a, III-a. “Stalking” is defined to include “[p]urposely,
knowingly, or recklessly engag[ing] in a course of conduct targeted at a specific
person which would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her personal
safety or the safety of a member of that person’s immediate family, and the
person is actually placed in such fear.” RSA 633:3-a, I(a) (2016).

“‘Course of conduct’ means 2 or more acts over a period of time, however
short, which evidences a continuity of purpose.” RSA 633:3-a, II(a) (2016).
Acts that may constitute a “course of conduct” include, but are not limited to,
engaging in “[a]ny act of communication, as defined in RSA 644:4, II.” RSA
633:3-a, II(a)(7). “[C]ommunicates,” as defined in RSA 644:4, II (Supp. 2024),
means “to impart a message by any method of transmission, including, but not
limited to . . . personally delivering or sending or having delivered any

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information or material by . . . electronic transmission, including electronic
transmissions generated or communicated via computer.”

The trial court’s “findings of facts shall be final, but questions of law may
be transferred from the circuit court to the supreme court.” RSA 173-B:3, VI
(2022); see RSA 633:3-a, III-a (providing that, in civil stalking proceedings, “the
procedures and burdens of proof to be applied . . . shall be the same as those
set forth in RSA 173-B”). We review sufficiency of the evidence claims as a
matter of law and will uphold the trial court’s findings and rulings unless they
lack evidentiary support or are tainted by error of law. Despres v. Hampsey, 162 N.H. 398, 401 (2011). We review the evidence in the light most favorable
to the plaintiff, deferring to the trial court’s evaluation of the witnesses’
credibility. Id. at 401, 404; see State v. Giles, 140 N.H. 714, 718-19 (1996)
(“We defer to the [factfinder’s] findings on credibility in part because a trial
transcript provides no indication of a witness’s tone of voice or demeanor, two
useful tools in the assessment of credibility.”).

In this case, the trial court found that the defendant recklessly engaged
in a course of conduct targeted at the plaintiff when, within the context of a
dispute between the parties concerning a cat, the defendant: (1) posted on a
public social media account, “Your karma is going to come at you ten fold.
Give him back like you said you would”; (2) posted on multiple public social
media accounts the names of the plaintiff, the plaintiff’s daughter, and the
plaintiff’s business, photographs of the plaintiff, and information the defendant
could reasonably foresee would, and in fact did, inflame public outrage toward
the plaintiff; (3) expressed approval of responses to her social media posts that
threatened violence against the plaintiff and her daughter; and (4) conducted a
“protest” at the plaintiff’s business at which one protester stated, “Come out
b****, come out.” The trial court further found that the defendant’s conduct
caused the plaintiff to reasonably fear for her safety and the safety of her
daughter. Finally, the trial court determined that the defendant’s actions did
not serve a legitimate purpose or constitute constitutionally protected speech.

On appeal, the defendant first argues that, because she did not
personally convey threatening messages to or concerning the plaintiff or the
plaintiff’s daughter, or expressly encourage others to convey such threats, the
evidence was insufficient to establish stalking liability. However, RSA 633:3-a,
I(a) does not require proof that the defendant personally conveyed threats of
violence to or concerning the plaintiff or a member of the plaintiff’s immediate
family, or expressly encouraged others to do so. Rather, the statute requires
that the defendant purposely, knowingly, or recklessly engaged in a “course of
conduct,” targeted at the plaintiff, that caused the plaintiff reasonably to fear
for her own safety or the safety of a member of her immediate family, and the
person was actually placed in fear. RSA 633:3-a, I(a).

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 Here, although the defendant claims that she did not purposely cause
the plaintiff to fear for her safety, the trial court found that she recklessly
engaged in a course of conduct, targeted at the plaintiff, that caused the
plaintiff reasonably to fear for her own safety and the safety of her daughter.
The defendant has presented no developed legal argument challenging the trial
court’s findings that she acted recklessly, that her actions constituted a
“course of conduct” targeted at the plaintiff, or that her actions served no
legitimate purpose. See State v. Blackmer, 149 N.H. 47, 49 (2003) (declining to
address arguments that were not sufficiently developed for appellate review);
State v. Newton, 175 N.H. 279, 290 (2022) (“A blanket assertion, without
developed legal argument is insufficient to warrant judicial review.”). Nor has
the defendant challenged the trial court’s finding that her actions foreseeably
inflamed public outrage toward the plaintiff. Viewing the evidence in the light
most favorable to the plaintiff, we conclude that the trial court’s finding that
the defendant’s conduct violated RSA 633:3-a was neither lacking in
evidentiary support nor tainted by error of law. See Despres, 162 N.H. at 401.

The defendant next argues that the plaintiff was not entitled to relief
under RSA 633:3-a, III-a because the plaintiff is not an “innocent citizen.” The
defendant claims that the plaintiff was not “innocent” because she allegedly
provoked the defendant’s conduct by her own actions that gave rise to the
dispute. However, the defendant cites no authority for the proposition that
provocation is a defense to a civil stalking order. Cf. S.D. v. N.B., 176 N.H. 44,
53 (2023) (observing, in the context of ruling on the constitutionality of a
protective order that had the effect of restraining the defendant’s speech, that
“RSA 633:3-a was enacted to protect innocent citizens from a course of conduct
that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her personal safety, or
the safety of a member of that person’s immediate family”). Even if provocation
were a defense, however, we note that the plaintiff disputed many of the
defendant’s claims regarding the plaintiff’s conduct relative to the underlying
dispute. We defer to the trial court’s evaluation of the witnesses’ credibility.
See Despres, 162 N.H. at 401, 404.

Finally, the defendant argues that the trial court’s reliance upon the
“protest” violates her right to free speech under the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution, and that its findings of fact with respect to the
protest are contrary to “the testimony at trial and . . . unsupported by the
record.” We note that the defendant does not argue that her social media posts
were constitutionally protected.

The trial court determined that the defendant did not engage in
constitutionally protected speech, and other than asserting that she has a First
Amendment right to peacefully protest, the defendant presents no developed
legal argument why her conduct, under the facts of this case, was
constitutionally protected. Therefore, we decline to address it. See Blackmer,
149 N.H. at 49; Newton, 175 N.H. at 290. Moreover, while the parties showed

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videos of the protest at trial, the videos are not part of the record on appeal.
On this record, we conclude that the defendant has not established that the
trial court erred by determining that she did not engage in constitutionally
protected speech under the facts of the case.

Affirmed.

MACDONALD, C.J., and DONOVAN and COUNTWAY, JJ., concurred.

Timothy A. Gudas,
Clerk

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