Attorney reviewed by Mark Blair, a Washington-admitted attorney who handles the firm's criminal defense matters. Last updated July 24, 2026.
Washington protection orders routinely bar the restrained person from contacting the protected party through a third party, and prosecutors charge that provision often. Proving it is harder than it looks. Division II reversed such a conviction on July 14, 2026 because the State established that the defendant handed a friend a phone number and told him to call, and stopped there.
Violating a protection order through another person requires proof that the resulting contact was contact by the restrained person, not merely contact that the restrained person made possible. In State v. Vancura, the court accepted that the defendant acted knowingly and deliberately, and still found the evidence insufficient. That gap between facilitating a call and making one is where the case turns.
What RCW 7.105.450 Actually Requires
A protection order violation is a criminal charge under RCW 7.105.450 that arises when a person who knows an order exists knowingly does something the order forbids. The statute reaches violations of the restraint provisions, the contact prohibitions, the exclusion and distance requirements, and the provisions covering removal of a pet.
Most violations are gross misdemeanors. The charge rises to a class C felony where the violation involves an assault that does not amount to first or second degree assault, where the conduct creates a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury, or where the person already has at least two previous convictions for violating a qualifying order.
The same statute carries charges for violating a criminal no-contact order entered in a domestic violence case, which is one reason people conflate the two systems. The civil order and the criminal one come from different places and can exist at the same time, over the same two people, with different terms. Anyone trying to comply with both needs to read both, and our page on the difference between civil orders and no-contact orders covers where they diverge.
The Order's Own Words Control
RCW 7.105.450 says nothing about third parties. That restriction, where it exists, comes from the text of the individual order, which means the charging decision and the defense both start with what the judge actually wrote rather than with the statute.
That distinction did the work in Vancura. The order prohibited the defendant from contacting his ex-wife through a third party. It did not prohibit a third party from contacting her for that person's own reasons, and the court declined to read the broader prohibition into it.
The protection order attorneys at Blair Kim Moeller read the operative order first in every King County violation case we take, because two orders that look alike on a form can carry materially different restraint language.
What Division II Reversed on July 14, 2026
The defendant was arrested at his ex-wife's home on charges including criminal trespass, stalking, harassment, and attempted residential burglary, and the court entered a pretrial domestic violence protection order. While he was in jail awaiting trial, he sold his truck to a friend. The truck had been left at his ex-wife's home when he was arrested and might have been towed, which he explained as part of why the price was good.
He gave the buyer his ex-wife's phone number and told him to call her to locate the truck. The buyer called. She reported the call to police, and a jury convicted the defendant of violating the order.
The Court of Appeals agreed the State had proved the defendant knew about the order and acted knowingly when he passed along the number. His conduct was deliberate and not accidental. What the State never proved was that the buyer's call amounted to contact from the defendant through the buyer. The only evidence about the call showed the buyer phoning for his own interest in the truck he had just bought, and the record was silent on what he actually said. Nothing suggested he conveyed that he was calling on the defendant's behalf.
The conviction was reversed and the case remanded for resentencing. The decision is unpublished and is not binding precedent.
A protection order violation charge that looks airtight in a police report often turns on a narrow question of proof. Our attorneys can review the order language and the State's evidence together before a plea deadline arrives.
Why This Cuts Both Ways
For a person restrained by an order, the case is not permission to route messages through friends. The court found the deliberate act of passing along the number sufficient on the knowledge element, and it took only slightly different facts to make the conviction stand. A message relayed on the restrained person's behalf, or a call in which the caller says who sent them, is a different case entirely.
For a protected party, the same reasoning explains why some reported contacts do not produce charges that survive appeal. Proving indirect contact usually requires evidence of what the third party said, which means the content of the call matters as much as the fact of it.
The firm handles both sides of these cases, and the analysis does not change with the seat. It also frequently overlaps with a pending criminal domestic violence charge, where a violation allegation can affect release conditions well before any trial.
Talk to a Seattle Protection Order Attorney About a Violation Allegation
Blair Kim Moeller, PLLC represents both petitioners and respondents in protection order matters throughout King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties, and handles the related criminal charges in the same office. Mark Blair, a former deputy prosecuting attorney, handles protection order violation defense and the contempt and violation proceedings that follow. Contact our office at 888-478-4001 or schedule a consultation.
