What Is Considered Harassment in Michigan?

In Michigan, harassment is a repeated pattern of unwanted contact directed at a person that would cause a reasonable person emotional distress and actually does cause the victim distress. The state has no single statute called “harassment.” Instead, the conduct is prosecuted through three main criminal laws: stalking (MCL 750.411h), aggravated stalking (MCL 750.411i), and posting harmful messages electronically (MCL 750.411s). Victims can also pursue personal protection orders and civil lawsuits, and the two tracks can run at the same time.

How Michigan Law Defines the Conduct

Under the stalking and aggravated stalking statutes, “harassment” means repeated or continuing unconsented contact that would cause a reasonable person emotional distress and that does cause the specific victim distress.¹ Contact does not have to be physical or face-to-face. Phone calls, text messages, emails, showing up uninvited, mailing letters, and sending messages through third parties all qualify as unconsented contact.

Stalking adds a second layer: a willful course of conduct, which means at least two separate acts showing a continuing purpose. One rude message or a single confrontation is not stalking. The law asks whether a reasonable person in the victim’s position would feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested by the pattern, and whether this victim actually felt that way.² Both must be true.

The statute carves out constitutionally protected activity and conduct that serves a legitimate purpose. Lawful protests, news gathering, and similar speech do not qualify as harassment even when the target finds them upsetting.

Stalking and Aggravated Stalking

Basic stalking under MCL 750.411h is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.² If the victim is under 18 and the offender is five or more years older, the same conduct becomes a felony carrying up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

The charge rises to aggravated stalking under MCL 750.411i when any of these circumstances is present:

At least one act in the pattern violates a restraining order, injunction, or preliminary injunction the offender knew about.
At least one act violates a condition of probation, parole, pretrial release, or bond pending appeal.
The course of conduct includes one or more credible threats against the victim, the victim’s family, or someone living in the victim’s household.
The offender has a prior conviction for stalking or aggravated stalking.

Aggravated stalking is a felony. The standard maximum is five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. If the victim is under 18 and the offender is five or more years older, the ceiling rises to ten years and $15,000.¹

Online and Electronic Harassment

MCL 750.411s makes it a crime to post a message through any electronic medium without the victim’s consent when the message is intended to cause the victim fear or emotional distress or to provoke unwanted contact from others. “Posting a message” is read broadly: emails, social media posts, forwarded private information, and content designed to encourage others to contact or confront the victim all fit.³

Even a first offense is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000. The penalty rises to five years and $10,000 when aggravating factors are present, such as violating a restraining order, including credible threats, having a prior stalking conviction, or targeting a victim under 18.³

Federal law can also reach harassment that crosses state lines. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2261A, using the internet or other interstate communications to stalk someone is a federal crime when the conduct places the victim in reasonable fear of death or serious injury or causes substantial emotional distress.⁴

What Doesn’t Count as Harassment

The reasonable-person and legitimate-purpose limits matter in practice. Contact that is annoying, impolite, or unwelcome is not automatically harassment. Repeated but non-threatening messages tied to a real dispute, co-parenting communication, workplace complaints, public criticism, and lawful picketing may all feel like harassment to the recipient while remaining protected under the statute’s carve-out for constitutionally protected activity.¹ A single rude incident does not meet the course-of-conduct requirement either. And contact the recipient invited or consented to does not count as unconsented contact.

Civil Claims a Victim Can Bring

Criminal prosecution is not the only option. A victim can sue the harasser directly, and the standard of proof is lower than in a criminal case.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

An IIED claim requires four elements: the defendant acted intentionally or recklessly, the conduct was extreme and outrageous, the conduct caused emotional distress, and the distress was severe. Michigan courts set a high bar. Ordinary insults, rudeness, and petty conflicts rarely qualify. The conduct must be something a reasonable person would consider genuinely intolerable.

Invasion of Privacy

When harassment involves intrusion into private life, an intrusion upon seclusion claim may fit. The plaintiff must show an intentional invasion of privacy that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. Persistent surveillance, unauthorized recording, and repeated monitoring of private communications are typical examples. The intrusion has to target genuinely private activity, not something done in public view.

Harassment Based on a Protected Characteristic

The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits harassment based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, height, weight, familial status, or marital status in employment, housing, public accommodations, and education.⁵ Sexual harassment is defined specifically as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other conduct of a sexual nature that creates an intimidating or hostile environment or is tied to employment decisions. Employers, landlords, and business owners can be liable for failing to address complaints.

Personal Protection Orders

A personal protection order (PPO) is a court order prohibiting the harasser from contacting the victim, approaching their home or workplace, or engaging in other specified conduct. Michigan offers two types relevant to harassment.

A domestic PPO under MCL 600.2950 is available when the parties have a personal relationship: current or former spouse, someone the victim has a child with, a dating partner, or a current or former household member.⁶ A non-domestic PPO under MCL 600.2950a covers harassment by acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors, or strangers. The petition must describe facts amounting to stalking under 750.411h, aggravated stalking under 750.411i, or electronic harassment under 750.411s, and the petitioner does not have to wait for criminal charges before filing.⁷

PPO petitions are filed with the family division of circuit court. There is no filing fee. The court can issue an emergency ex parte order without first notifying the respondent, and an ex parte PPO is valid for at least 182 days.⁶ Orders can be extended or modified if harassment continues.

Violating a PPO is criminal contempt. A respondent age 17 or older who violates faces up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine, and police can make an immediate arrest when an officer witnesses a violation or has reasonable cause to believe one occurred. A PPO violation can also become an aggravating factor that converts a misdemeanor stalking charge into felony aggravated stalking.

Building a Record of the Pattern

Every path forward depends on evidence of a pattern. Save text messages, emails, voicemails, and social media interactions. Screenshot posts before they can be deleted. Write down in-person encounters the same day, noting date, time, location, what was said, and any witnesses. Call logs and message timestamps are particularly useful because they establish the repeated contact the statutes require. If the harasser uses third parties to reach you, document those contacts too, because indirect contact counts under the stalking definitions. Keep the records in chronological order so the course of conduct is immediately visible to a judge or prosecutor, and ask any witnesses to write and sign their own account of what they observed.

1
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 750.411i – Aggravated Stalking
2
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 750.411h – Stalking
3
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 750.411s – Posting Message Through Electronic Medium
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2261A – Stalking
5
Michigan Legislature. Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (Excerpt)
6
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 600.2950 – Personal Protection Orders
7
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 600.2950a – Nondomestic Personal Protection Orders