RCW 7.92.190 Modification or termination of protection orders.

(1) Upon application with notice to all parties and after a hearing, the court may modify the terms of an existing stalking protection order.

(2) A respondent's motion to modify or terminate an existing stalking protection order must include a declaration setting forth facts supporting the requested order for termination or modification. The nonmoving parties to the proceeding may file opposing declarations. The court shall deny the motion unless it finds that adequate cause for hearing the motion is established by the declarations. If the court finds that the respondent established adequate cause, the court shall set a date for hearing the respondent's motion.

(3) The court may not terminate or modify an existing stalking protection order unless the respondent proves by a preponderance of the evidence that there has been a substantial change in circumstances such that the respondent will not resume acts of stalking conduct against the petitioner or those persons protected by the protection order if the order is terminated or modified. The petitioner bears no burden of proving that he or she has a current reasonable fear of harm by the respondent.

(4) A respondent may file a motion to terminate or modify an order no more than once in every twelve-month period that the order is in effect, starting from the date of the order and continuing through any renewal.

(5) A court may require the respondent to pay the petitioner for costs incurred in responding to a motion to terminate or modify a stalking protection order, including reasonable attorneys' fees.

(6) In any situation where an order is terminated or modified before its expiration date, the clerk of the court shall forward on or before the next judicial day a true copy of the modified order or the termination order to the appropriate law enforcement agency specified in the modified or termination order. Upon receipt of the order, the law enforcement agency shall promptly enter it in the computer-based criminal intelligence information system, or if the order is terminated, remove the order from the computer-based criminal intelligence information system.

[ 2019 c 245 § 10; 2013 c 84 § 19.]