Quintero Diaz v. Nabiyev – Pa. Superior Court – reported, precedential – July 29, 2020
Held: Past incidents of abuse – all of which took place within 10 months of plaintiff’s petition – were relevant to probative of most recent incident and supported decision of trial court to grant an order of protection.
From the opinion:
Questions concerning the admission or exclusion of evidence are within the sound discretion of the trial court and may be reversed on appeal only when a clear abuse of discretion was present. . . . .[I]n light of the purpose of the Act to “prevent imminent harm to abused person(s),” some flexibility must be allowed in the admission of evidence relating to past acts of abuse.
. . . [I]t was within the trial court’s discretion to hear any relevant evidence that would assist it in its obligation to assess the [complainant]’s entitlement to and need for a protection from abuse order. If the trial court found the testimony to involve events too distant in time to possess great relevance to the case, it could certainly have assigned less weight to the testimony. However, it was not an abuse of discretion for the trial court to hear the evidence. Past abusive conduct on the appellant’s part was a crucial inquiry necessary for entry of a proper order. Miller v. Walker, 665 A.2d 1252, 1259 (Pa. Super. 1995) (citations modified).
