M.R. v. C.H.

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FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Following a custody agreement finalized earlier in 2025, Mother sought and secured an emergency ex parte PFA order against Father on October 17, 2025.¹Her petition alleged a long series of physically and verbally abusive acts over the preceding year.²Under the ex parte, Mother and the parties' minor child, N--- H-------- (D.O.B.: --/-- /2024) ("N---"), were the protected victims. The order bestowed temporary custody of N- -- on Mother and directed Father not to contact Mother, approach her, or otherwise

"threaten, molest, attack, harass[,] or commit any other act of abuse against" her or N---

.³In addition, Father's visitation with N--- was suspended until further order of the Court. The PFA was initially set to expire on November 17, 2025, but it was later extended to January 14, 2026.⁴On December 16, 2025, Mother filed a motion seeking to obtain records of relationship therapy sessions that took place between January 2024 and June 2025.⁵Over the next two days, Father secured a lawyer, responded to that motion, moved for interim relief, sought his own PFA, and filed a custody-modification petition.⁶

On December 19, 2025, with the ex parte PFA in effect but frustrated with the litigation and his lack of holiday time with N---, Father posted the video at issue here. The video showed N--- walking with Father's help (though only his legs and arms were visible), and it bore the caption, "Thx for joining. If you have any legal advice for dealing with manipulative/emotional abusers please share I'd really appreciate it."⁷Father shared the video on his Instagram "story," where it was visible to his network, but not to Mother, whose account was inactive.⁸

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The parties both appeared for the PFA cross-petitions on January 14, 2026, but Father ultimately agreed to dismiss his petition and sign a consent order in Mother's favor.⁹As a result, the parties returned to their prior interim custody agreement, which gave Father parenting time on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and alternating Saturdays.¹⁰In addition, the consent PFA proscribed precisely the same conduct as the ex parte, except that Father was permitted to communicate with Mother on Our Family Wizard regarding N---'s well-being.¹¹

On January 30, 2026, Mother found the aforementioned video on Instagram.¹² Although a video shared as a story on Instagram normally expires after 24 hours, Father

"pinned" it sometime after publishing it, and it remained online and readily visible to his roughly 700 followers for weeks.¹³Consequently, Mother filed a motion to hold Father in contempt of the ex parte and consent orders,¹⁴a motion to extend the consent PFA and modify it to explicitly prohibit social-media posts about "any Family Court litigation, Petition[er,] and their child in common,"¹⁵and, in the custody case, a Motion to Restrict Public Postings.¹⁶On March 4, 2026, the Court declined to issue an interim custody order restricting Father's social media posts, finding that Mother had not shown that her requested prior restraint—a limitation of Father's constitutional speech rights—was narrowly tailored to protect N---'s best interests during the litigation.¹⁷The Court nevertheless cautioned that, in its final custody determination, it would "consider the extent to which each parent ha[d] facilitated—or sabotaged—the beneficial involvement

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of the other in N---'s life."¹⁸The Court also remarked that a PFA could justify enjoining speech in the form of harassment or threats.¹⁹

Mother's parallel motion for contempt of the PFA came to a hearing on April 10, 2026. Before trial, Father raised an oral motion to dismiss, arguing that he could not be held in contempt of the consent PFA for prior conduct, that his video was a permissible request for legal advice, and that Mother had "waived her right to prove [prior] abuse" by entering the consent PFA.²⁰Acknowledging that the post, on its face, was "asking for help" and not "directed to" Mother, the Commissioner nevertheless denied the motion, noting that Father purported to be seeking legal advice at a time he was already represented by counsel.²¹

The Commissioner then heard testimony from Mother and Father. Mother testified that Father's post—shared with hundreds of mutual friends, family members, and colleagues—"hurt[] [her] personally and professionally" and left her "afraid of what he'[d] do" if the PFA were to end.²²Even though Father had not "tagged" Mother or mentioned her by name, she felt alarmed and plainly "targeted" for public

"disparage[ment]."²³In Mother's estimation, Father shared the video "on purpose to reach [her] through mutual acquaintances," "intend[ing] to damage [her] reputation," hurt her, and "create confusion about who actually experienced abuse."²⁴By leaving the video online for more than a month, Father made continuing "indirect" contact with her, damaged her professional reputation, caused her emotional distress, and "br[oke] [her] bonds with the community."²⁵Had she discovered the post sooner, Mother would have declined to enter a consent PFA. But she did not find it until January 30, 2026.²⁶

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Father initially testified that his video was not directed to Mother but rather to his

"friends that frequent [his] posts."²⁷He chose to solicit advice on social media because, compared with other means of communication, it "reaches the other people [he] do[es]n't see or talk to on a daily basis."²⁸He knew that those "other people" included both Mother and at least 50 of her friends and family members.²⁹Father conceded, moreover, that the post about manipulative/emotional abusers referred to Mother, that he had briefly thought at the time about whether Mother would be upset by it, and that he had concluded she likely would.³⁰But he was frustrated about how the PFA had affected his visitation with N---, so he published the video anyway.³¹Though he initially posted the video on December 19, 2025, he admitted that he later pinned the video to his Instagram profile, where it could have remained "indefinitely."³²Later in his testimony, Father could not recall when he pinned the video or when he later decided it was "causing [him] trouble" and took it down.³³He also could not recall whether he removed any other posts about Mother at the same time, or whether he had posted anything else about Mother on Instagram or other social media platforms.³⁴ Nevertheless, Father said that he opposed prospectively refraining from posting about Mother or the pending litigation on social media.³⁵

After hearing the evidence, the Commissioner took the matter under advisement, then issued an order finding Father in contempt on May 4, 2026.³⁶The Commissioner credited both Mother's testimony about how the video affected her and Father's admission that he posted the video, knowing it would reach and hurt Mother, because he was angry about being denied holiday visitation.³⁷The Commissioner did not,

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however, find Father's other explanations and justifications believable. Therefore, recognizing that "[s]ocial media communications are increasingly . . . a venue for harassment," the Commissioner found Father in contempt of the no-contact provisions of the consent PFA.³⁸Additionally, the Commissioner extended the PFA by six months because the violation showed a significant danger that Father would continue to abuse Mother "under the guise of exercising his First Amendment rights to free speech."³⁹ On June 6, 2026, Father filed this ROCO,⁴⁰to which Mother responded on June 22, 2026.⁴¹In addition to his substantive claims, Father seeks an award of the attorney's fees he accrued in defending this action.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court has appellate jurisdiction to review the Commissioner's order under

10 Del. C. § 915(d)(1), which states:

Any party, except a party in default of appearance before a Commissioner, may appeal a final order of a Commissioner to a judge of the Court by filing and serving written objections to such order, as provided by rules of the Court, within 30 days from the date of a Commissioner's order. A judge of the Court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the Commissioner's order to which objection is made. A judge of the Court may accept, reject[,] or modify in whole or in part the order of the Commissioner. The judge may also receive further evidence or recommit the matter to the Commissioner with instruction. When making a "de novo" determination, the Court independently "reviews the evidence and law without deference to the trial court's ruling"⁴²and "decide[s] anew"

whether that ruling was correct.⁴³The Court may "accord[] weight to the credibility

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findings of the Commissioner,"⁴⁴who had "the opportunity to hear and assess witness testimony" in person at trial.⁴⁵However, "the Commissioner must explicitly identify the reasons why one witness is more credible than another," and the Court must "conduct a meaningful appellate review" of whether the Commissioner arrived at the correct conclusion.⁴⁶

Analysis

Not all of Father's claims require separate discussion. His constitutional and public policy arguments raise parallel issues and may be analyzed together. His theory of legal impossibility is another way of saying that he did not in fact violate the PFA. His speculative-harm claim, too, ultimately turns on whether there was an underlying violation. A PFA is properly extended if the Court finds "that domestic violence has occurred since the entry of the order, [that] a violation of the order has occurred, [that] the respondent consents to the extension of the order[,] or for good cause shown."⁴⁷ Despite Father's repeated suggestions to the contrary, neither a finding of contempt nor an extension of a PFA requires a separate finding of domestic violence, abuse, or specific harm. If Father knowingly and meaningfully violated the consent order, that is enough.⁴⁸Consequently, the Court finds that Father's six grounds for appeal may be more aptly addressed under three combined headings: (1) whether the consent PFA negated Father's pre-existing social media post or waived Mother's right to raise it here,

(2) whether Father violated the consent PFA, and (3) whether the Commissioner's contempt finding violated the Constitution or public policy. The Court discusses the issues sequentially below.

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1. Did Mother's choice to enter a consent PFA on January 14, 2026, preclude her from seeking contempt based on a video originally posted on December 19, 2025?

For three independent reasons, Mother did not forfeit her right to complain about Father's video by failing to seek contempt at the time of the consent PFA. First, her PFA petition (filed in October 2025) and her motion for contempt (concerning a video shared between December 2025 and January 2026) do not "arise . . . from a common nucleus of operative fact."⁴⁹A litigant is not precluded from raising "events arising after the filing of the complaint that formed the basis of the first lawsuit."⁵⁰Second, Mother credibly testified that she did not discover Father's video until after the consent PFA, and there is no reason to think she should have known about it.⁵¹Whether the PFA is issued based on a finding of abuse or by consent, to expect a protected victim to monitor the social media accounts of a respondent is not only unreasonable, it is anathema to the PFA's purpose: to protect an individual who has experienced domestic violence and prevent further harm. Father's attempt to contact Mother is not insulated from liability because of the time it took to materialize. Third, Father continued to share the video even after the consent PFA, which was an ongoing violation that Mother would have been entitled to raise even if she could not seek contempt of the ex parte. Therefore, the Commissioner correctly rejected Father's preclusion argument.

2. Did Father violate the PFA?

A party seeking a finding of civil contempt must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) the Court issued a valid order, (2) the opposing party "had the ability to abide by" that order, and (3) the opposing party nevertheless disobeyed the order "in a meaningful way."⁵²In this case, both the ex parte and the consent PFA provided that

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Father could not "threaten, molest, attack, harass, or commit any other act of abuse"

against Mother or N---. Equally, he was prohibited from "contact[ing] or attempt[ing] to contact" Mother "in any way" or "by any . . . means."⁵³His constitutional attacks (which are addressed below) aside, Father does not dispute the validity of the PFA or his ability to comply with it. Instead, he claims that the Commissioner's finding of contempt is, first, legally impossible, because the consent PFA was issued after he posted the video at issue here, and, second, unsupported by the evidence. In his view, the video he posted was not threatening and did not constitute harassment or abuse in the sense intended by the PFA or the statute. Further, because he did not send the post directly to Mother, message her about it, identify her by name, tag her, or encourage third parties to contact her, it cannot be considered prohibited contact.

Yet a statement need not name a person to be identifiably about her.⁵⁴As the Commissioner observed, contact and harassment can and often do happen through intermediaries such as social-media sites.⁵⁵A message may predictably and intentionally reach a victim who has not been "tagged," named, or directly messaged.⁵⁶ At some point, there is simply "no meaningful difference between . . . posting messages on [social media] with both the purpose and effect of communicating a message [to the

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victim], and the defendant positioning himself on a street corner with the knowledge and expectation that the victim would pass by, and then shouting to her."⁵⁷ Although Father did not tag, name, or message Mother, the evidence supports the Commissioner's finding of contempt. Father posted the video on December 19, 2025. Instead of allowing it to naturally expire after 24 hours, he pinned it to his story, making it continuously available to his 700 or more than followers for weeks. The fact that the post was originally published before the consent PFA does not negate the ongoing harm and harassment that he intentionally inflicted on Mother. He admitted at trial that his intent was to publicly label Mother a manipulator and emotional abuser. Moreover, the video pictured the daughter he shares with Mother and was posted shortly after their custody litigation escalated. He knew that others, including mutual friends, would recognize Mother as the target, that the video would reach Mother, and that it would upset and humiliate her. He took it down later because it was "causing [him] trouble,"⁵⁸but he continues to believe he has a right to send critical messages to Mother and his expansive community via social media.

Undoubtedly Father was under stress when he published the video of N--- in December, but his decision to pin the post is pivotal. If he had shared it in a moment of anger, seeking only to reach his friends, but soon, upon reflection, removed it or allowed it to expire—or even if he had rushed home to remove the pinned post after entering the consent PFA, or after clarifying its meaning with his attorney or the Court—he might not have "meaningfully" violated the PFA. But he did none of those things. Father instead remained on his digital "street corner" for weeks, shouting his disparaging message to all concerned "with the knowledge and expectation that [Mother] would [eventually] pass by."⁵⁹Only once she had, and only once her motion for contempt had caused him

"trouble," did he see fit to pull down his message. His failure to do so sooner was a meaningful violation of both the consent PFA and the ex parte that preceded it.

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3. Was Father's video nevertheless benign speech protected by public policy or the Constitution?

Father contends that, even if his conduct violated the PFA, holding him in contempt would infringe his constitutional rights and undermine public policy. He argues that Mother has failed to identify a compelling reason to punish his "generalized and vague social commentary" and restrict his "right to seek advice and support from [his] social network[]."⁶⁰Further, he takes the position that, as a matter of public policy, Mother should not be permitted to "weaponiz[e]" broad language in a PFA against speech that the Court found "lawful" in another proceeding.⁶¹ Father's claims fail for two reasons. First, he has raised them too late. Although he repeatedly refers to Mother's motion for contempt as a prior restraint, it is not.⁶²The consent PFA was, in part, a prior restraint on speech. But the validity of that order is no longer directly before the Court, for Father did not contest it. If he had misgivings about the PFA he had entered voluntarily, he was free to seek to modify it, set it aside, or appeal it. Instead, he decided unilaterally to disregard it and raise his arguments as a defense to contempt.

In contempt proceedings, however, "[t]he Court will not listen to an excuse for the contemptuous action based upon an argument that the order in question was imperfect or erroneous,"⁶³or even that it violated fundamental constitutional rights.⁶⁴While "[t]he party charged [with contempt] is always at liberty to defend his disregard of the court's order by showing that the order was void for lack of jurisdiction[,] . . . [n]o person may with impunity disregard an order of the court having jurisdiction over the subject matter

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and the parties."⁶⁵Father has never suggested that the Commissioner lacked jurisdiction. Consequently, whether the PFA violated his constitutional rights is now simply collateral to the dispositive question of whether he indirectly but intentionally communicated a message to Mother in violation of a court order. Second, even on the merits, Father's constitutional and policy claims are unavailing. In denying Mother's motion for an interim custody order restricting Father's use of social media, the Court did not declare Father's speech categorically permissible. The Court decided only that Mother had failed to justify her request with a showing of imminent, significant harm to their child in common—which was "[t]he only question [then] before the Court."⁶⁶The question now before the Court is whether limiting Father's speech is justifiable as a means of protecting Mother. Under the First Amendment, any regulation of speech that "discriminate[s] based on 'the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed'" is subject to strict scrutiny, meaning that it is constitutionally invalid unless it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest.⁶⁷A content-based prior restraint faces an even

"heav[ier] presumption against its constitutional validity."⁶⁸The government has

"somewhat wider leeway," however, when it regulates only the time, place, or manner of speech, or when a regulation of conduct burdens speech only incidentally.⁶⁹ Had the PFA broadly prohibited Father from talking about Mother, it might not have survived First Amendment scrutiny.⁷⁰But that is not what it proscribed. Father was

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prohibited only from contacting, harassing, or abusing Mother. This was a contact- based restriction, not a content-based regulation of speech.⁷¹Moreover, "[w]hen . . . an individual speaks to another person, whether through telephonic or other electronic means, 'not to communicate, but for other unjustifiable motives,' that conduct is not speech protected by the First Amendment."⁷²Consequently, a court "do[es] not violate a defendant's First Amendment protections by issuing a protection from abuse order that prohibits him or her from having any direct or indirect contact with the protected person where the defendant has a history of engaging in [abusive] behavior."⁷³So long as the order sweeps no more broadly than necessary to restrict the abusive or threatening conduct, it is constitutionally permissible.⁷⁴

Father's video was precisely the kind of harmful speech that a court may constitutionally prohibit. Mother, for her part, found it distressing and disparaging. Father admitted that he intended the video for his wider social network, including Mother's friends and family members, and knew that it would reach Mother and upset her. Indeed, despite his unpersuasive alternative justifications, it appears that upsetting and insulting her was his goal: he was frustrated that the PFA had denied him holiday time with N---. His purpose was not to seek legal advice, because he had an attorney at the time of the post with whom he was already consulting. Rather, his intent was to exercise what he saw as his constitutional right to communicate his frustration with Mother. He

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conceded that the video would have remained on Instagram indefinitely if he did not take it down, and that he took it down only after Mother filed her motion for contempt. Under the PFA, Father was free to talk with his family and community about his frustrations with Mother. He was free to ask for advice from his lawyer or anybody else. He was free to use social media, so long as he did not use it to contact or harass Mother. The PFA narrowly restricted only online conduct that would continue the cycle of abuse. By knowingly making indirect contact with Mother in a way that he knew would likely cause her, or a reasonable person, to feel harassed, distressed, and alarmed, he violated that narrow prohibition. Finding contempt based on Father's disregard of a valid court order serves the important state interest of protecting victims of abuse from further abusive and threatening behavior. Accordingly, the Commissioner's finding of contempt does not violate Father's constitutional rights nor any broader public policy.

CONCLUSION

By posting and then pinning a disparaging video that he knew would reach and distress Mother, Father violated the no-contact and no-harassment provisions of the PFA order. Both that violation and his testimony that he would do it again if given the chance justified the Commissioner's decision to extend the order. His constitutional and policy arguments fail by virtue of the collateral bar rule and on their merits. To the extent PFA sanctions disadvantage him in the parallel custody proceedings, that consequence flows directly from his own defiance of a court order and from the statutory recognition that domestic violence is relevant to the best interests of children.⁷⁵Consequently, after an independent review of the record, the Court ACCEPTS and AFFIRMS the Commissioner's Order dated May 4, 2026. Additionally, despite Father's novel arguments on appeal, Mother's motion for contempt was filed in good faith and ultimately warranted by the evidence. Father's request for Attorney's Fees is DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

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July 20, 2026 _______/ Eliza Hirst /___________ Date Written Order Issued ELIZA HIRST, JUDGE

cc: Petitioner via email and regular mail Respondent(s) via regular mail Date emailed/mailed: July 20, 2026