08-0370 DENEA ACEVEDO v. LAJUANNA M. WILLIAMS, AS NATURAL GUARDIAN OF JAQUINTA WIGGINS, A MINOR

State: Florida

Court: Florida First District Court

Docket No: 08-0370

Case Date: 06/30/2008

Preview:IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA DENEA ACEVEDO, Appellant, v. LAJUANNA M. WILLIAMS, as Natural Guardian of Jaquinta Wiggins, a Minor, Appellee. ___________________________/ Opinion filed June 30, 2008. An appeal from the Circuit Court for Alachua County. Stanley H. Griffis, III, Judge. Therese Misita Truelove, Gainesville and Shelbi D. Day, St. Petersburg, for Appellant. Lajuanna M. Williams, pro se, Appellee. NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED CASE NO. 1D08-0370

BENTON, J. Eighteen-year-old Denea Acevedo appeals an injunction, entered at seventeenyear-old Jaquinta Wiggins's mother's behest, forbidding contact between Denea and Jaquinta, on the purported authority of section 784.046, Florida Statutes (2007). The

trial court premised the injunction on its legal conclusion that, if an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old have "been together in an intimate way," the 18-year-old has committed sexual battery as a matter of law, and has, therefore, perpetrated "sexual violence," which section 784.046 specifies as grounds for an injunction. We reverse. There is no dispute that Denea and Jaquinta began dating when they were 17 and 16 years old, respectively, and are in what the trial court called a "long-term dating relationship." Insofar as pertinent here, section 784.046 authorizes an

injunction for protection in cases of dating violence, and permits any person who is a victim of such violence (or his or her parent or legal guardian if the victim is a minor living at home) to file a petition for such an injunction whenever there is reasonable cause to believe the petitioner (or the petitioner's child or ward) is in imminent danger of suffering dating violence.

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