Angela Ferrante v. Steven Adkins

VERMONT SUPREME COURT Case No. 25-AP-219
109 State Street
Montpelier VT 05609-0801
802-828-4774
www.vermontjudiciary.org

Note: In the case title, an asterisk (*) indicates an appellant and a double asterisk (**) indicates a cross-
appellant. Decisions of a three-justice panel are not to be considered as precedent before any tribunal.

ENTRY ORDER

JANUARY TERM, 2026

Angela Ferrante* v. Steven Adkins } APPEALED FROM:
} Superior Court, Chittenden Unit,
} Family Division
} CASE NO. 24-FA-01104

Trial Judge: Brian K. Valentine

In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

Plaintiff appeals from the trial court’s denial of her request for a relief-from-abuse (RFA)
order. We reverse and remand for additional proceedings.

Plaintiff sought a RFA order against defendant in April 2024. She alleged that in late
2022, she had a short romantic relationship with defendant after meeting him on the Appalachian
Trail. Plaintiff became concerned by defendant’s increasingly violent behavior and ended the
relationship. Plaintiff alleged that defendant later began stalking her and she was afraid of him.

The court held a hearing over three days in May 2024, August 2024, and late February
2025. At the hearing, plaintiff testified to her brief relationship with defendant and described her
concerns about defendant’s escalating behavior that caused her to fear for her physical safety.
She stated that defendant threatened to injure himself and other hikers they were traveling with,
and that he threw a gas canister at her, among other things. At the time she ended her
relationship with defendant in 2022, plaintiff described running away from defendant and
reaching out to law enforcement because defendant followed her to a shelter and told her she
shouldn’t feel safe. Plaintiff testified that not long thereafter, defendant posted information
about her on a site used by those hiking the Appalachian Trail, disparaging her and alleging she
was a danger to herself and others. The post included plaintiff’s full name and stated in part: “I
recently dickmatized a deranged, slow, thicc, SOBO in her late thirties going by the Trail name
‘Detour.’ She is currently suicidal and has had a knife taken from her. She was threatening to
‘kill people in their sleep’ at the shelter. She has also admitted to being off one of her
medications.”

Several years later, in March 2024, plaintiff shared her concerns about defendant on a
private Facebook group called “Women of the PCT [(Pacific Crest Trail)].” Plaintiff then
received several calls from unknown numbers and a direct message from defendant. In the
message, defendant included several emojis, including smiley faces with hearts. He wrote:
“[What] can I say? I like to fuck crazy women.” He said he was glad plaintiff found some
women to commiserate with and support was important after being “traumatized by a big scary
man.” He told plaintiff that he hoped she “remain[ed] forever innocent,” that she “kn[e]w what
[she] did,” he “would never have to explain himself again,” and she should “keep acting.”
Plaintiff was very disturbed and afraid after receiving the message as it appeared that defendant
was monitoring her online activities.

Defendant then began a barrage of social media posts about plaintiff, including posting
pictures of her, her former employer and coworkers, and her contact information. He posted a
video that he claimed to show plaintiff drinking his urine. He “tagged” her and her former
employer in some of these posts and asked, among other things, “How’s [plaintiff’s] mental
health been?” Plaintiff was very concerned by this behavior, including by defendant’s apparent
efforts to encourage others to engage with her. Plaintiff reached out to police in California,
where she believed defendant could be found. Defendant then texted her that the police officer
who contacted him thought plaintiff was “fucking crazy,” and told plaintiff to “apologize or else,
the law,” “[b]ut in a different way.”

In late April 2024, defendant also posted that he had called plaintiff’s employer and
learned that plaintiff no longer worked there; he included a gold trophy emoji at the end of the
post. On the same day, defendant called plaintiff and left several voicemails, both of which were
admitted into evidence. In the first message, defendant apparently believed he was calling
plaintiff’s employer. He identified himself by name and provided his telephone number and
said:

It’s come to my attention that one of your employees, [plaintiff],
was using the technology there at [her job] to defame me on
Facebook while she was doing her other duties for social media for
[employer]. And she was just kind of switching in and out
between defaming me and then going back to office duties. And
I’m just going to report to you guys now that the PTCA was an
organization that reposted these reports from [plaintiff] and they
have since redacted the comments and are issuing a public apology
for ruining my reputation. The damage is already done but I just
wanted to warn you guys about the employee you have there and
the consequences that are going to come for her actions through
this defamation and libel suit that is going to be brought against
her. If you could call me back and confirm if she is in fact still
employed with you guys, I would really appreciate it because I do
need to have an opportunity to serve her with papers and I would
like to do that at her job.

Plaintiff was very frightened to receive this message in light of the other messages
defendant had been posting, particularly as defendant was trying to confirm where she worked.
She was concerned that he was monitoring her and trying to pinpoint her location.

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Fifteen minutes later, defendant called back and left another message on plaintiff’s
phone. He said:

Nice fucking try, [plaintiff], nice fucking try . . . how dare you lie
about me like that on the internet and think that you were going to
get away with it…you really thought that I was some fucking farm
boy some country boy that you could just mock imitate and make
look like a fool . . . I’m glad I got to show you just what this farm
boy was capable of . . . good luck.

Plaintiff was frightened by the message and by defendant’s tone. She construed the message to
contain an implicit threat of violence and considered defendant’s behavior to be escalating
toward violence in the same way that led to the parties’ breakup in 2022. Plaintiff testified that
defendant made hundreds of posts and continued to post about her after she obtained a temporary
RFA order. She stated that defendant’s behavior interfered with her daily routine, caused her to
miss work, lose weight, and not be able to sleep.

Defendant also testified. He provided his version of the day the parties broke up in 2022,
asserting that plaintiff engaged in self-harm and threatened harm to others. Defendant stated that
in 2024, he learned from others that information about him was being posted on the internet
alleging that he had sexually assaulted women. He believed plaintiff was the source of the
information. According to defendant, plaintiff told him that she wanted to protect others on the
trail and that defendant would not get away with trying to embarrass her. Defendant testified
that in response, he warned people on the internet about plaintiff. He said that he found a phone
number for plaintiff’s employer and called to warn her employer about plaintiff. He filed a
lawsuit against a website that had posted allegations about him and demanded a retraction and
apology from them. Defendant said he wasn’t trying to threaten plaintiff by leaving her
voicemails. He testified that he left plaintiff a voicemail to let her know he would be suing her
and tried calling her employer to verify that she worked there so he could serve her with his
complaint. He denied threatening anyone with violence on the Appalachian Trail, stating that his
threat to “curb stomp” another hiker was taken out of context. Defendant testified that some of
the “tags” of plaintiff in his posts contained an incorrect address and would not have reached her.
He acknowledged posting a screenshot of plaintiff’s workplace information including her picture
and contact information, although on cross-examination he testified that he did not remember
posting the screenshot of plaintiff’s information from her workplace or the post in which he
tagged plaintiff and her employer and asked “How has [plaintiff’s] mental health been?”
Defendant stated that he was “traumatized” by plaintiff’s behavior when they broke up and his
posts about plaintiff were an effort to clear his name.

Three months after the final hearing, the court denied plaintiff’s request for an RFA. It
made the following findings. The parties met in the fall of 2022. They had a brief sexual
relationship. The relationship ended in October 2022 after defendant allegedly threw a camping
gas canister in plaintiff’s direction, causing her to flee the trail and reach out to law enforcement.
Defendant alleged that the relationship ended after plaintiff threatened self-harm. Following
their breakup, the parties had no contact with each other until March 2024 when plaintiff alleged
that defendant engaged in stalking behavior. Specifically, plaintiff alleged that defendant
contacted her and left her a voicemail message about allegations that she had raised about him on
a Pacific Crest Trail chat group. Defendant also allegedly attempted to reach out to plaintiff’s

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former employer by leaving a voicemail message at a number that turned out to be plaintiff’s
number. He sought to confirm plaintiff’s address with her employer so that he could serve
plaintiff with a defamation action he threatened to bring against her. Defendant successfully had
the chat group retract the posts from plaintiff and apologize to him. The court credited
defendant’s testimony that he blocked plaintiff on his cellphone and did not wish to speak to
plaintiff again.

Based on these findings, the court concluded that, “[t]aken in isolation,” plaintiff’s
“allegations arguably [met] the definition of stalking, in that there were two or more acts in
which [defendant] monitored [plaintiff] by leaving her voicemail messages, and . . . those
messages were found by [plaintiff] to be threatening.” The court was unpersuaded, however,
that these incidents caused plaintiff to fear for her safety or suffer substantial emotional distress.
The court found that plaintiff’s fears were grounded on her allegations of what occurred along
the Appalachian Trail when the parties separated in October 2022 and plaintiff failed to establish
that the events about how the parties came to separate unfolded as she claimed. The court
viewed plaintiff’s allegations “in the greater context of what was occurring in the spring of
2024.” It found that, at that time and without having had any contact with defendant since
October 2022, “[p]laintiff unilaterally engaged in an on-line campaign of character assassination
against [defendant] on the Pacific Crest Trail group chat.” The court considered it “entirely
predictable” that defendant would find out about this, call her out, and try to defend himself by
investigating the possibility of bringing a defamation suit against her. “But for [plaintiff]’s
actions,” the court concluded, “neither of the voicemails left by [defendant] would have
occurred.” “And but for [plaintiff]’s possible continuing attacks on [defendant’s] character,” the
court did not find a danger of further abuse as required by statute. The court therefore dismissed
plaintiff’s complaint.

Plaintiff argues that the court engaged in impermissible victim-blaming. According to
plaintiff, the court’s findings were antithetical to the remedial purpose of the Abuse Prevention
Act, they were unnecessary in determining if plaintiff met her burden of proof, and if allowed,
they would create a chilling effect on prospective litigants seeking injunctive relief from intimate
partner abuse in the future. Plaintiff further asserts that the court’s finding that she did not suffer
substantial emotional distress was not supported by the evidence and its conclusion that there
was no danger of further abuse was unsupported by its findings.

On appeal “we review the family court’s decision to grant or deny a protective order only
for an abuse of discretion, upholding its findings if supported by the evidence and its conclusions
if supported by the findings.” Raynes v. Rogers, 2008 VT 52, ¶ 9, 183 Vt. 513. We agree with
plaintiff that the court abused its discretion here. Its conclusions are inconsistent with our case
law and the statutory scheme and they are unsupported by the court’s findings.

The Abuse Prevention Act is a remedial statute that “must be liberally construed to
suppress the evil and advance the remedy intended by the Legislature.” Rogers, 2008 VT 52,
¶ 15 (quotation omitted). “The Act addresses the pattern of controlling behavior that
distinguishes intimate abuse from other forms of violence by providing a unique legal remedy,
injunctive in nature, aimed at ending the cycle of domestic violence before it escalates.” Id. ¶ 8.
RFA orders “are intended to provide immediate relief” and “protect victims from future abuse.”
Id. We note the significant delays that occurred here, both in hearing this case and issuing a
decision.

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To be entitled to relief, plaintiff needed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that
defendant abused her and that there was a danger of further abuse. 15 V.S.A. § 1103(c)(1).
Plaintiff alleged here that the abuse consisted of stalking. Id. § 1101(1)(A)(iv). “Stalk” is
defined as:

to engage purposefully in a course of conduct directed at a specific
person that the person engaging in the conduct knows or should
know would cause a reasonable person to:

(A) fear for the person’s safety or the safety of a family member;
or

(B) suffer substantial emotional distress as evidenced by:

(i) a fear of unlawful sexual conduct, unlawful restraint, bodily
injury, or death; or

(ii) significant modifications in the person’s actions or routines,
including moving from an established residence, changes to
established daily routes to and from work that cause a serious
disruption in the person’s life, changes to the person’s employment
or work schedule, or the loss of a job or time from work.

12 V.S.A. § 5131(6). A “course of conduct” means, in relevant part, “two or more acts over a
period of time, however short, in which a person follows, monitors, surveils, threatens, or makes
threats about another person, or interferes with another person’s property.” Id. § 5131(1)(A)(i).

We have previously considered a defendant’s argument that he was “justified” in abusing
a victim. As we explained in Rogers, a defendant in a contested RFA case:

necessarily argues either: (1) that the abuse claimed by plaintiff did
not occur, or (2) that defendant was justified in abusing plaintiff.
With regard to the latter, courts frequently hear testimony from
defendants that the alleged act of violence was provoked by
plaintiff's own actions—e.g., name-calling, infidelity, or striking
first—and that the plaintiff is therefore undeserving of a protective
order. See P. Roestenberg, Representing Children When There
Are Allegations of Domestic Violence, 28 Nov. Colo. Law. 77, 78
(stating that “many batterers will minimize their abuse, contend
that it occurred in self-defense, or argue that it resulted from the
victim’s provocation”). While the court considers such testimony
in assessing the totality of the circumstances, it does so with its
statutory duty in mind—to determine whether the plaintiff is in
need of legal protection from intimate abuse, rather than to decide
which party was to blame for the dispute that led to the act of
violence triggering the abuse-prevention petition.

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Rogers, 2008 VT 52, ¶ 10 (emphasis added). “The critical question,” we emphasized, “is not
who was at fault, but who, if anyone, is in need of protection.” Id. ¶ 13.

The court here acted inconsistently with Rogers and the purpose of the Abuse Prevention
Act. The court blamed plaintiff for “causing” defendant to “arguably” stalk her. It characterized
what plaintiff described as an effort to promote the safety of other women through a post on a
private chat group as engaging “in an online campaign of character assassination against
[defendant].” It discounted plaintiff’s testimony that she was frightened by defendant’s actions
by making findings about what allegedly occurred when the parties broke up in 2022 without
considering whether a reasonable person would fear for her safety based on defendant’s actions
in 2024. This included posting apparently hundreds of posts about plaintiff, including sharing
her photo and personal contact information, contacting her employer and then celebrating the
fact that she no longer worked for her employer, attempting to contact her employer to demean
and “warn” the employer about plaintiff, and contacting plaintiff directly and indirectly
numerous times. Plaintiff testified that she was afraid because defendant appeared to be
monitoring her and encouraging others to engage with her by posting her personal information.
In considering plaintiff’s allegations “in the greater context of what was occurring in the spring
of 2024,” the court failed to address any of these postings and the effect they had on plaintiff. It
clearly erred in describing one of the voicemails that defendant left on plaintiff’s phone as
simply seeking to confirm plaintiff’s address for a lawsuit. The audio shows defendant
maligning plaintiff to a person he apparently thought was her employer, indicating that plaintiff
was using work time to “defam[e]” him and “warn[ing]” the employer about “the employee you
have there and the consequences that are going to come for her actions.” The court considered
defendant’s acts of alleged abuse “predictable” in response to plaintiff’s actions, which suggests,
as plaintiff argues, that the court decided that she “deserved what she got.” The court stated that
plaintiff would be to blame for any future abuse if she continued to attack “[d]efendant’s
character.”

As we made clear in Rogers, “[c]onstruing the abuse-prevention statute in a way that
gives credence to the gender-biased myth that domestic-violence victims provoke, and therefore
deserve their abuse, would in no way serve its legislative purpose of providing victims with
prompt, uncomplicated relief from abuse.” 2008 VT 52, ¶ 15. As set forth above, it was not the
court’s role to try to assess who was to “blame” for defendant’s actions or to assess whether it
was appropriate for plaintiff to attempt to warn others about defendant via a private chat group.
But see Johnson v. Freborg, 995 N.W.2d 374, 385 (Minn. 2023) (recognizing “that as a general
proposition, speech relating to sexual assault is a matter of public concern (quotation omitted))
(citing additional case so holding); Coleman v. Grand, 523 F. Supp. 3d 244, 259 (E.D.N.Y.
2021) (finding that open letter defendant circulated accusing plaintiff of abuse and sexual
harassment involved matter of public concern). The court’s role was to determine if plaintiff
needed protection from defendant, and the court failed to engage in an appropriate analysis here.

Because the court engaged in improper assessment of who was to “blame” for
defendant’s decisions to “stalk” plaintiff, its decision cannot stand. We therefore reverse the
court’s decision and remand for additional proceedings consistent with our case law and the
Abuse Prevention Act.

Reversed and remanded for additional proceedings.

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BY THE COURT:

Paul L. Reiber, Chief Justice

Harold E. Eaton, Jr., Associate Justice

Nancy J. Waples, Associate Justice

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