§ 129A.002.Injunctive Relief

The operative remedy, and it sets aside several of the ordinary requirements for an injunction.

Subsection (a) names who may sue and whom. A recipient of cyberbullying behavior who is younger than 18 at the time, or a parent or person standing in parental relation, may seek injunctive relief against the individual cyberbullying them — or, if that individual is under 18, against their parent.

Suing the bully’s parent is the practical route, since the person to be restrained is frequently a child.

Subsection (b) supplies two forms of order: enjoining the defendant from cyberbullying; or compelling a parent to take reasonable actions to cause the child to stop. The second is a mandatory order directed at supervision rather than conduct.

Subsections (c) and (d) lower the threshold substantially. A plaintiff is entitled to a temporary restraining order on showing they are likely to succeed in establishing the cyberbullying — and is not required to plead or prove immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage.

For a temporary or permanent injunction the showing is the conduct itself: entitled on showing that the individual was cyberbullying the recipient.

That is a significant departure. Irreparable injury and an inadequate remedy at law are the usual price of an injunction; here the Legislature decided the conduct speaks for itself.

Subsection (e) allows preservation of electronic communications, on motion or on the court’s own initiative, and relieves the order of three ordinary requirements — defining the injury, stating why it issued without notice, and setting the case for trial.