Coercive Control in Massachusetts: Filing a 209A Order

Massachusetts recognizes coercive control as abuse under Chapter 209A, which means you can seek a protective order based on a pattern of non-physical conduct — things like isolation, financial control, surveillance, and threats — without ever having been hit. The legislature added this definition in 2024, and filing costs nothing. A judge can issue an emergency order the same day you walk into court.¹

What Counts as Coercive Control

The statute gives you two ways to establish coercive control. The more common path is a pattern of behavior that causes a family or household member to reasonably fear physical harm or feel a reduced sense of physical safety or personal autonomy. The second is a single severe act: harm to a child, cruelty to an animal connected to the victim, or publishing intimate images without consent.¹

The pattern-based definition lists specific behaviors that qualify:

Isolating you from friends, family, or other support
Depriving you of basic needs such as food, medication, or sleep
Monitoring or tracking your activities, communications, movements, finances, or access to services, including through GPS or monitoring apps
Compelling you to do or stop doing specific things, including participating in criminal activity
Threatening harm to a child or relative as leverage
Threatening cruelty to a pet or other animal connected to you
Intentionally damaging or destroying your property
Threatening to publish private material, including intimate images
Filing repeated court actions a judge finds have no legal basis, used as harassment

Financial abuse falls within the monitoring category, which specifically names finances and economic resources. A partner who hides bank statements, cancels credit cards, or doles out small allowances to keep you dependent is engaging in exactly the conduct the statute targets.¹

No single incident has to be a crime on its own. The judge evaluates the behaviors together. Demanding your phone password one time or pressuring you to quit your job once might not look like abuse. The same conduct repeated and layered over months is what the pattern definition is built to capture.

Who Can File

Chapter 209A protection is limited to people who meet the statutory definition of a family or household member. You qualify if you:

Are or were married to the person
Live or lived in the same household as the person
Are related to the person by blood or marriage
Share a child with the person, whether or not you were ever married or lived together
Are or were in a substantive dating or engagement relationship with the person

For the dating category, courts weigh four factors: how long the relationship lasted, its nature, how often you interacted, and how much time has passed since it ended.¹ A brief fling likely will not qualify; a longer relationship with regular contact usually will, even if it ended some time ago. The household-member category also covers roommates and former roommates, regardless of whether the relationship was romantic.²

What a 209A Order Can Require

Under Section 3, a judge can tailor a 209A order to the situation. The available provisions include:

A no-abuse order barring further abuse
A no-contact order barring communication unless the court authorizes it
A vacate order requiring the defendant to leave the shared home and stay away from the residence, the building, and your workplace
Temporary custody of minor children
Temporary child support or spousal support where a legal obligation exists, calculated under the state’s child support guidelines
Compensation for losses caused by the abuse, including lost earnings, medical bills, moving costs, replacement locks, destroyed property, and reasonable attorney’s fees
Impoundment of sensitive records from public access
Orders protecting children in your care from contact or abuse

The custody piece has real weight. When a Probate and Family Court finds a pattern or serious incident of abuse, a rebuttable presumption applies: the abusive parent should not get sole custody, shared legal custody, or shared physical custody. The abuser carries the burden to show otherwise.³

If a custody or support order from another court already exists, a 209A order from a district or municipal court can temporarily override it for up to 30 days. After that, the Probate and Family Court keeps final jurisdiction over custody and support.³

Firearms are handled automatically. If you show a substantial likelihood of immediate danger of abuse, the court must order the defendant to surrender all firearms, ammunition, firearms identification cards, and any license to carry; law enforcement takes possession when the order is served.⁴ Federal law adds a parallel prohibition. Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), anyone subject to a qualifying domestic violence protective order cannot possess firearms or ammunition, provided the order followed a hearing with notice and either includes a credible-threat finding or explicitly bars the use of physical force against an intimate partner or child.⁵

How to File

There is no filing fee.³ Go to the nearest District Court, Probate and Family Court, Boston Municipal Court, or Superior Court. Court staff will help you fill out the Complaint for Protection from Abuse.⁶

You will also complete a Defendant Information Form with whatever you know about the person: where they can be found, physical description, and whether they have access to weapons. If you do not have all of this, file anyway. The court’s own guidelines say missing details should not stop you, and the case should proceed.⁶

If the court is closed, go to a local police station. Officers will take your information and reach a judge by phone to request an emergency order.⁷

The Affidavit and Evidence

The affidavit is where you describe what happened in your own words. Every court strongly recommends submitting one, and in a coercive control case it is where you win or lose. A physical assault case can turn on a single incident. Coercive control depends on showing a pattern, so lay out specific examples with approximate dates: when the isolation started, what financial restrictions were imposed, how your communications were monitored, how the behavior escalated.⁶

Useful documentation includes saved text messages and voicemails, call logs showing excessive monitoring, screenshots of tracking apps installed without your knowledge, emails imposing financial restrictions, and bank records reflecting withheld funds or unauthorized account changes. Keep a written log of incidents with dates, even where you have no electronic proof.

If you still live with the person, be careful how you gather this. An abuser who monitors your devices may notice screenshots, forwarded emails, or search history. Use a device the abuser cannot see where possible — a library computer, a friend’s phone. The National Domestic Violence Hotline (800-799-7233) can help with a safety plan.⁸

The Hearing Timeline

After you file, a judge reviews your complaint and affidavit the same day at an ex parte hearing. The defendant is not present and gets no advance notice. The judge may ask questions, reviews what you brought, and decides whether to issue a temporary order.⁷

If the judge grants a temporary order, police serve it on the defendant. The order becomes enforceable once service happens. The court schedules a second hearing, typically within ten business days, where the defendant appears and can present a defense. Both sides offer testimony and evidence, and the judge decides whether to continue the order, modify it, or let it expire.⁷

Bring everything you have to the second hearing, organized chronologically. Judges are used to assessing bruises; a pattern of isolation, financial control, and surveillance has to be shown through your testimony and documents.

How Long the Order Lasts

An initial 209A order can last up to one year. Every order states its expiration date on its face, along with the date and time of any next hearing.³

When the order is about to expire, you can appear in court and ask for an extension. No new complaint is required. You file a supplemental affidavit explaining why you still need protection, and the standard is preponderance of the evidence that an extension is necessary to protect you from the likelihood of abuse. The court can extend for any additional time reasonably necessary, or make the order permanent.⁹

Here is a detail worth knowing: the fact that no new abuse happened while the order was in effect is not, by itself, a reason to deny an extension. The statute says so directly, because the order itself is often the reason the abuse stopped.³

If the Order Is Violated

Violating any condition of a 209A order is a criminal offense. Showing up at your workplace, sending a prohibited text, refusing to vacate the home — the penalty is the same: a fine of up to $5,000, up to two and a half years in a house of correction, or both. The same penalty applies to violating the firearms surrender order.⁴

For repeat violators, a judge can set geographic exclusion zones around your home, workplace, and your child’s school, and can order the defendant to wear a GPS tracking device to verify compliance. The court can also order the defendant to pay damages for losses caused by the violation, including emergency housing, lost earnings, medical bills, moving expenses, and the cost of switching to an unlisted phone number.¹⁰

If Your Status or Finances Are Part of the Control

If your immigration status depends on the person abusing you, two federal pathways do not require the abuser’s cooperation. VAWA self-petitioning on Form I-360 is confidential, has no filing fee, and USCIS will not contact the abuser; it is available to the abused spouse, child, or parent of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.¹¹ The U visa is a second option for victims of qualifying crimes, including domestic violence, who have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse and who assist law enforcement.¹²

On the tax side, if a spouse filed a joint return with errors or underreported income and you signed under pressure, you can request innocent spouse relief on IRS Form 8857. The IRS recognizes that domestic abuse victims may have known about errors on the return and signed anyway out of fear, and that knowledge does not automatically disqualify you.¹³

1
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Code Chapter 209A Section 1 – Definitions
2
Child Welfare Information Gateway. Definitions of Domestic Violence – Massachusetts
3
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Code Chapter 209A Section 3
4
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Code Chapter 209A Section 3B
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922
6
Massachusetts Court System. 209A Guideline 2:03 – Completing the Complaint, Obtaining Required Information
7
Mass.gov. Request an Abuse Prevention Order
8
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. Domestic Violence Support
9
Massachusetts Court System. 209A Guideline 6:08 – Further Extending an Order After Notice on Its Expiration Date
10
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Code Chapter 209A Section 7 – Abuse Prevention Orders, Domestic Violence Record Search, Service of Order, Enforcement, Violations
11
USCIS. Green Card for VAWA Self-Petitioner
12
USCIS. Victims of Criminal Activity: U Nonimmigrant Status
13
Internal Revenue Service. Innocent Spouse Relief