Jake Platt, V. Paige Wager

CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedOctober 28, 2024
Docket85758-4
StatusUnpublished

This text of Jake Platt, V. Paige Wager (Jake Platt, V. Paige Wager) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jake Platt, V. Paige Wager, (Wash. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

JAKE PLATT, No. 85758-4-I Respondent, DIVISION ONE v. UNPUBLISHED OPINION

PAIGE WAGER,

Appellant.

DÍAZ, J. — A trial court issued a domestic violence protection order (DVPO)

against appellant Paige Wager, which protects her ex-husband and co-parent,

Jake Platt. The court found that Wager had engaged in domestic violence through

unlawful harassment. Wager now asserts that the court failed to make sufficiently

specific findings explaining the basis of the DVPO, and that Platt did not proffer

sufficient evidence to establish harassment. Wager fails to demonstrate reversible

error and we affirm.

I. FACTS

Wager and Platt were married from 2011 to 2015. They share equal

parenting time with their son, R.P., per a superior court parenting plan.

Wager remarried after their divorce and, according to Platt, their co- No. 85758-4-I/2

parenting relationship began to deteriorate after her second husband attempted

suicide with a firearm in 2021. Prior to his own suicide attempt, the second

husband’s son had committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot in 2020.

Platt petitioned for a DVPO in May 2023. In support, he provided a

declaration that alleged Wager was abusively targeting him online, and that

attached relevant text messages and emails between them, as well as declarations

signed by his fiancée and adult son. Platt’s fiancée’s declaration claimed that

Wager once chased her and Platt across a parking lot as they were walking to their

car when leaving an event for R.P. Platt’s petition also requested the immediate

surrender of a number of firearms he claimed Wager owned. The court ex parte

granted the petition and entered a temporary order.

Later that month, Platt filed an amended petition, which made several new

factual claims and which requested an order of protection for their son in addition

to himself. Namely, in a supporting declaration, Platt asserted that a court in

Issaquah had entered an entirely separate protective order against Wager in 2022

based on harassing text messages she had sent to her then mother-in-law.

Further, he provided evidence that she had since violated that order and faced

criminal charges. In the same declaration, he also reported that, following the entry

of the temporary order in this matter, he had received another message from

Wager in violation of the order, in which she threatened to take full custody of their

son.

Additionally, Platt provided a declaration from Wager’s second husband,

who attested that she possessed numerous high-capacity rifles which did not

2 No. 85758-4-I/3

conform to legal specifications, and that he was concerned Wager was evading

the temporary weapons surrender order. Platt’s attorney also filed a declaration

attaching an email from a detective in the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s

Office Regional Firearms Unit. The detective stated that Wager owned six guns,

one of which was not accounted for in her purchase history, and that Wager had

“blatantly” refused to comply with the surrender order. The detective further stated

that three of the weapons were illegally altered or contained a magazine capacity

in violation of regulations.

Finally, in his amended petition, Platt stated he feared for his son based

upon new information he had recently received. Platt claimed Wager’s ex-husband

told him several friends had witnessed Wager driving drunk with their son in the

car and said that she regularly drank heavily. And Platt asserted that R.P. told him

that Wager had once punched him and cursed at him. To supplement his amended

petition, he later filed another declaration from his mother, in which she also

attested that R.P. had told her that Wager punched him, upsetting and scaring him.

She claimed R.P. also told her Wager punished him for lengthy periods if he

disagreed with her.

Following a June 2, 2023 hearing, a pro tem commissioner granted Platt’s

amended petition for a DVPO, protecting both Platt and R.P. The commissioner

entered the DVPO solely “based upon the fact that there’s been allegations of harm

to [R.P.]. . . .” Wager moved for revision.

In July 2023, a superior court judge granted the motion on revision in part

and entered an amended protection order. The court struck the provisions of the

3 No. 85758-4-I/4

prior protection order that related to R.P. because it found only “limited details”

showing Wager had physically harmed R.P. and because the timing and nature of

the relief sought “raise[d] credibility questions.” However, the court denied the

motion for revision as to Platt, finding that, based on the totality of the evidence,

Platt provided sufficient proof that Wager engaged in domestic violence by

unlawfully harassing him.

The court later denied Wager’s motion for reconsideration, and she now

timely appeals each of the superior court’s decisions. 1

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

This court reviews a trial court’s decision to grant or deny a domestic

violence protection order for an abuse of discretion. Maldonado v. Maldonado,

197 Wn. App. 779, 789, 391 P.3d 546 (2017); see also Juarez v. Juarez, 195 Wn.

1 During the pendency of the appeal, Platt filed a “Motion to Dismiss as Moot”

(Sept. 5, 2024), arguing that Wager’s appeal should be dismissed because the DVPO has now expired. Wager filed a written opposition to the motion. “Generally, we will dismiss an appeal where only moot or abstract questions remain or where the issues raised in the trial court no longer exist.” Price v. Price, 174 Wn. App. 894, 902, 301 P.3d 486 (2013). A case is not moot, however, when the court can still provide effective relief. Hough v. Stockbridge, 113 Wn. App. 532, 537, 54 P.3d 192 (2002). Because this court could provide effective relief to Wager, we address the merits of her claims.

In Wager’s opposition to Platt’s motion, she also expressly sought as alternative relief, if the panel granted Platt’s motion to dismiss, an accompanying order from this court “that the entire superior court case in Platt v. Wager, King County Superior Ct. No. 23-2-07898-5 SEA, is moot and order that the case be dismissed and that any findings that Ms. Wager committed domestic violence or represented a physical threat to Mr. Platt be vacated,” but offered no authority in support of the proposition that we may issue such an order. Answer of Appellant to "Resp’t’s Mot. to Dismiss as Moot" at 1-2 (Sept. 9, 2024). Because we reach the merits of her appeal, we need not consider this request further. 4 No. 85758-4-I/5

App. 880, 890, 382 P.3d 13 (2016) (“We will not disturb such an exercise of

discretion on appeal absent a clear showing of abuse.”) (emphasis added). A court

abuses its discretion “when a trial judge’s decision is exercised on untenable

grounds or for untenable reasons,” or “if its decision was reached by applying the

wrong legal standard.” Id.

In reviewing a trial court’s factual findings, this court does not “substitute our

judgment for the trial court’s, weigh the evidence, or adjudge witness credibility.”

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