Stalking Protective Order Sufficiency | Cash v. Cash (2026)

Sammica Cash v. Kimberly Cash, 14-25-00724-CV, July 09, 2026.

On appeal from 280th District Court, Harris County, Texas

Synopsis

The Fourteenth Court of Appeals affirmed a five-year stalking-based protective order, holding that legally sufficient evidence supported probable cause under Code of Criminal Procedure article 7B.052 and the stalking elements under Penal Code section 42.072. Repeated social-media posts and electronic disclosures of private information, location data, intimate images, and therapy-related recordings were enough to show a course of conduct constituting harassment and stalking, and to support findings that the conduct actually distressed the applicant and would distress a reasonable person.

Relevance to Family Law

This opinion matters well beyond standalone protective-order practice. In divorce, SAPCR, and post-decree litigation, parties increasingly weaponize digital platforms by publishing private family information, health information, location data, recordings, and humiliating content to gain leverage or retaliate against the other side. Cash v. Cash confirms that repeated online conduct can support a stalking-based protective order even when the evidence is built primarily through testimony and selected exhibits rather than a fully archived social-media record. That has immediate consequences for temporary orders, possession exchanges, geographic safety concerns, parental fitness arguments, and the strategic use of protective-order findings in parallel custody and property disputes.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The parties were formerly married. After the divorce, Kimberly alleged that Sammica began using social media to post personal, confidential, and humiliating information about her. According to Kimberly, those posts included private photographs, sensitive personal information, location information, and recordings from therapy sessions. She also testified that Sammica tracked her Apple Watch data, mocked her on Facebook Live, used third parties to locate her, created a digital file containing medical information including a sexual assault history, and shared her home address online with a very large audience. Kimberly testified that these disclosures made her fear for her safety and the safety of her minor son and threatened her reputation in a public-facing job.

Kimberly sought a protective order in Harris County and also alleged a history of domestic violence. At the hearing, both parties appeared pro se. Kimberly introduced testimony, a therapist’s report, and other limited documentary evidence. Sammica admitted posting information online but framed those publications as defensive responses to Kimberly’s alleged attacks on her name and business reputation. She also attempted to recast the broader relationship history as one in which Kimberly had wronged her.

The trial court entered a five-year protective order based on stalking. On appeal, Sammica challenged the legal sufficiency of the evidence, arguing that the record did not establish the statutory elements necessary for a stalking-based protective order.

Issues Decided

• Whether legally sufficient evidence supported the trial court’s finding of probable cause under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 7B.052 that a stalking offense under Penal Code section 42.072 had been committed.
• Whether legally sufficient evidence showed that, on more than one occasion and pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct, Sammica engaged in repeated electronic communications or social-media publications constituting harassment under Penal Code section 42.07(a)(7) or (8).
• Whether the evidence was sufficient to show that the conduct caused Kimberly, and would cause a reasonable person, to feel harassed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended.
• Whether the five-year protective order was properly affirmed on the record presented.

Rules Applied

The court worked from the stalking-protective-order framework in Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 7B. Under article 7B.003(b) and article 7B.052, a court may issue a protective order when there are reasonable grounds or probable cause to believe the respondent committed stalking, and when the nature of the scheme or course of conduct indicates the respondent is likely to engage in prohibited conduct in the future.

The substantive stalking standard came from Penal Code section 42.072(a). As relevant here, stalking requires proof that, on more than one occasion and pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct directed specifically at another person, the respondent knowingly engaged in conduct that constitutes harassment, that caused the complainant to feel harassed, annoyed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended, and that would cause a reasonable person to experience the same reaction.

For the harassment predicate, the court relied on Penal Code section 42.07(a)(7) and (8), which cover repeated electronic communications sent in a manner reasonably likely to harass or offend, and repeated electronic communications published on an internet website or social-media platform in a manner reasonably likely to cause emotional distress, abuse, or torment, unless made in connection with a matter of public concern.

On standard of review, the court applied the legal-sufficiency framework from City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802 (Tex. 2005), and reiterated that in a bench trial the trial judge is the sole judge of witness credibility and evidentiary weight. The opinion also referenced Stary v. Ethridge, 712 S.W.3d 584 (Tex. 2025), for the seriousness of protective-order proceedings and the Family Code’s longer-duration protective-order provisions when the underlying conduct constitutes a felony-level offense involving family violence. Because stalking is a felony under Penal Code section 42.072(b), a longer-than-two-year order was legally available.

Application

The appellate court treated the case as a straightforward sufficiency dispute in a bench-tried protective-order proceeding. Although the record contained limited non-testimonial evidence and not all referenced videos were admitted, the court emphasized that the trial judge was entitled to credit Kimberly’s account over Sammica’s competing explanation. That point is critical: the absence of a perfectly curated evidentiary file did not defeat the order where there was sworn testimony describing repeated targeted online conduct and supporting exhibits that corroborated the pattern.

Kimberly’s testimony supplied the core narrative of repeated, targeted conduct. She described multiple social-media posts disclosing her private and humiliating information, publication of her address and location-related information, online dissemination of intimate photographs, and sharing of therapy-session recordings and sensitive medical information. The court viewed that conduct as more than isolated interpersonal conflict. In its view, the repeated use of social media and electronic publication to expose and embarrass Kimberly fit the statutory harassment predicates in section 42.07(a)(7) and (8).

The court then moved to the dual-impact requirement in stalking cases: subjective effect on the applicant and objective effect on a reasonable person. On the subjective side, Kimberly testified that the conduct made her feel harassed and fearful, and that she worried for her own safety and that of her child. The therapist’s letter reinforced the psychological dimension of that fear and described a broader context of abuse. On the objective side, the court concluded that repeated publication of private, confidential, or humiliating information—including address information, intimate material, and therapy-related content—would cause a reasonable person in similar circumstances to feel harassed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended.

The appellant’s principal legal argument appears to have been that stalking required proof of conduct causing a reasonable person to fear bodily injury or death. The court rejected that framing as too narrow. The opinion recognized that threats of bodily injury or death may satisfy stalking, but they are not the only route under section 42.072 when the underlying conduct consists of repeated harassment producing the statutorily enumerated reactions. In other words, repeated online harassment can independently satisfy the stalking statute without a separate showing that the complainant reasonably feared imminent physical violence.

Holding

The court held that legally sufficient evidence supported the stalking-based protective order under Code of Criminal Procedure article 7B.052. Testimony and exhibits showing repeated electronic and social-media disclosures of Kimberly’s private information, location data, intimate images, and therapy-related material were enough to establish harassment under Penal Code section 42.07 and stalking under section 42.072.

The court further held that the evidence was sufficient both subjectively and objectively. Kimberly’s testimony established that the conduct caused her to feel harassed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended, and the same conduct would cause a reasonable person under similar circumstances to experience those reactions.

Finally, the court affirmed the five-year protective order. Because stalking is a felony-level offense and the trial court had a legally sufficient basis to find the necessary course of conduct, the appellate court found no reversible error in the issuance of the order challenged on appeal.

Practical Application

For family lawyers, the practical significance of Cash is substantial. First, it reinforces that digital abuse is not ancillary misconduct; it is substantive evidence that can support affirmative protective relief. If a party is posting addresses, tracking data, medical history, recordings, intimate photographs, or other confidential information during or after a divorce, counsel should analyze the conduct through the harassment-and-stalking statutes immediately rather than treating it as mere “bad behavior” for a temporary-orders hearing.

Second, the case is useful in custody and modification litigation because repeated online targeting may bear directly on conservatorship, parental judgment, emotional stability, and the child’s safety environment. A parent who publicizes the other parent’s location, humiliates the other parent online, or crowdsources harassment through a large social-media following creates a record that can influence possession logistics, communication protocols, supervised exchanges, and injunctive restrictions.

Third, the opinion underscores that sufficiency can be built through a combination of credible testimony and selected exhibits. Practitioners should still over-prepare the evidentiary record, but Cash is a reminder that the winning record in a bench trial is often the coherent narrative that ties repeated digital acts to a single course of conduct, demonstrates the complainant’s actual distress, and explains why a reasonable person would react the same way.

Fourth, respondents in family cases should be warned early that “I was defending myself online” is not a safe theory where the response consists of repeated publication of private information or humiliating content. Retaliatory posting can easily become the very course of conduct that supports a stalking finding and a multi-year protective order.

Checklists

Building a Stalking-Based Protective Order Record

• Identify each separate online act by date, platform, and content.
• Show that the acts occurred on more than one occasion.
• Tie the acts together as part of the same scheme or course of conduct.
• Establish that the conduct was directed specifically at the applicant.
• Plead and prove the harassment predicate under Penal Code section 42.07(a)(7), (8), or both.
• Develop testimony on the applicant’s actual reaction: harassment, alarm, torment, embarrassment, offense, or fear.
• Develop testimony on why a reasonable person would react the same way.
• Offer exhibits showing the publication of private information, images, recordings, location data, or repeated messages.
• Preserve metadata, screenshots, URLs, timestamps, and witness testimony authenticating the exhibits.
• Address future risk to support article 7B.052’s forward-looking component.

Evidence Collection for Digital Abuse Cases

• Capture screenshots with visible dates, usernames, and platform identifiers.
• Download or preserve posts, stories, live-stream clips, and comments before they disappear.
• Preserve text messages, direct messages, emails, and cloud-shared files.
• Obtain records showing dissemination of addresses, GPS/location information, or tracking activity.
• Collect therapist letters, treatment records, or other corroboration of emotional impact where admissible.
• Document audience reach when the respondent has a large social-media following.
• Preserve evidence that third parties were mobilized or encouraged by the respondent’s posts.
• Maintain a chronology linking online events to real-world consequences such as safety planning, missed exchanges, employment concerns, or police reports.

Framing the Reasonable-Person Standard

• Explain why disclosure of the specific information at issue is inherently invasive.
• Emphasize publication of home address, child-related location details, or medical and sexual-assault information.
• Show how intimate images or therapy recordings magnify humiliation and vulnerability.
• Connect repeated postings to emotional distress, not just annoyance.
• Use context: divorce conflict, prior abuse allegations, access to firearms, prior tracking, or prior stalking-like behavior.
• Avoid overclaiming bodily-injury fear if the stronger theory is repeated harassment causing torment or alarm under the statute.

Defending Against a Stalking-Based Protective Order

• Do not rely solely on the argument that there was no express threat of bodily injury or death.
• Confront the repeated-publication element directly.
• Assess whether any communications plausibly fall within a matter-of-public-concern exception.
• Challenge authentication, completeness, and attribution of electronic exhibits where appropriate.
• Develop evidence negating intent to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, or embarrass.
• Avoid testimonial admissions that confirm repeated posting or broad dissemination.
• Consider whether immediate takedown, preservation compliance, and non-contact proposals may mitigate future-risk findings.
• Build a record if the complained-of posts were not actually directed at the applicant or were isolated rather than part of a course of conduct.

Integrating the Case into Divorce and SAPCR Strategy

• Evaluate whether a protective-order filing should proceed before temporary orders or in parallel.
• Consider how digital harassment affects conservatorship and possession restrictions.
• Seek tailored injunctions addressing posting, tagging, geolocation, recordings, and third-party dissemination.
• Use exchange protocols and communication apps when online escalation creates safety concerns.
• Review whether the conduct affects employment, property access, or exclusive-use requests.
• Coordinate discovery to obtain platform records, account ownership evidence, and deleted-content information.
• Anticipate collateral use of the protective-order evidence in later modification or enforcement proceedings.

Citation

Sammica Cash v. Kimberly Cash, No. 14-25-00724-CV, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] July 9, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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