Rule 3.702.Definitions

MCR 3.702 fixes the vocabulary for the rest of the personal protection subchapter. Definition rules can look like housekeeping, but this one carries procedural weight. The meaning given to petition in subrule (4) decides how a protective case enters the courthouse, and the meaning given to existing action in subrule (7) reaches well beyond the file in front of the judge.

The parties

Subrules (5) and (6) name the two sides in plain terms. The petitioner is the party seeking protection. The respondent is the party to be restrained. The subchapter uses those labels everywhere, and a reader who substitutes plaintiff and defendant will lose the thread quickly.

What a petition is, and what it is not

Subrule (4) calls a petition a pleading for commencing an independent action for personal protection, and adds that it is not considered a motion as defined in MCR 2.119. Those are two statements doing one job. A request for protection stands as its own case rather than as a request filed inside someone else's case, and the machinery that governs motion practice does not govern it.

Existing action

Subrule (7) defines an existing action as an action in this court or any other court in which both the petitioner and the respondent are parties. The list that follows is open ended: pending and completed domestic relations actions, criminal actions, and other actions for personal protection orders all qualify. Two words in that definition do heavy lifting. Completed means a case that ended years ago still counts. Any other court means the search is not limited to the county or the courthouse where the petition lands.

The order and the minor track

• Subrule (3) ties personal protection order to the protection orders described under MCL 600.2950 and 600.2950a.
• Subrule (8) sets minority at under the age of 18.
• Subrule (9) defines a minor personal protection order as one issued by a court against a minor under jurisdiction granted by MCL 712A.2(h).

That last definition is the hinge between the adult rules and the juvenile ones. A protective order against a minor rests on a different grant of jurisdiction, and the subchapter labels it differently so the rest of the rules can point at it.

One qualification governs the whole rule. The opening line applies these meanings when used in this subchapter, unless the context otherwise indicates.