Legal View: Gay houseguest subject to family violence law

By Pat Murphy
The Daily Record Newswire

A New Jersey man discovered he had a problem when one day he stepped out of the shower only to find his male houseguest smiling at him through the bathroom window.

He just didn’t realize how big the problem actually was.

This is the story of S.Z. and M.C. To make it easy, S.Z. is the plaintiff and M.C. is the defendant.

The plaintiff lives with his wife and children in a home in Sussex County. He runs a renovation business.

The defendant was the plaintiff’s bookkeeper and needed a place to live. The plaintiff claims that the defendant is a homosexual.

In October 2008, the plaintiff gave permission for the defendant to move into his home.

One suspects that there must have been some sexual tension beforehand, but the defendant’s feelings for the plaintiff surely became impossible to ignore on April 12, 2009. The plaintiff claims that that day he stepped out of the shower and found the defendant on a ladder against the outside of the house, peering through the bathroom window, smiling.

Now, call me insensitive, but I’m not the sort who would grant a Mulligan for this sort of behavior. Nope, I’m a one-peep-and-you’re-outa-my-house kinda guy.

But the plaintiff must be of a more tolerant stripe because he didn’t kick the defendant out right away.

Instead, the plaintiff finally laid down the law when later that month he allegedly caught the defendant getting down from the same ladder after he had finished showering.

Me, I would have moved the ladder by this time and had it under lock and key, but call me paranoid.

The second Peeping Tom incident forced the plaintiff to confront the defendant about spying into the bathroom. The plaintiff reminded the defendant that he was not gay and had no interest in having a relationship with the defendant.

The defendant tried to explain his conduct away by saying he hadn’t had sex in a long time. One can imagine that this revelation didn’t exactly help clear the air.

Instead, the plaintiff told the defendant to move out and hand over his house keys.

The defendant left, but the plaintiff claims that his troubles were just beginning. The plaintiff alleges that the defendant started stalking him, going to the extreme of installing a hidden camera in the plaintiff’s truck.

The plaintiff finally had enough and filed an action for protection under the New Jersey Prevention of Domestic Violence Act.

The trial court short-circuited the plaintiff’s harassment claim, deciding that an adult male guest, who resided in the plaintiff’s home for seven months, did not constitute a “household member” for purposes of the Act.

Last week, the New Jersey Appellate Court righted a wrong by acknowledging that the state’s domestic violence statute protected individuals in the plaintiff’s situation.

“We have found that the Act covers unwelcomed sexual overtures of a harassing nature between two parties of the opposite sex who lived in the same home for three months. ...

“Jurisdiction under the Act is present here just as it would be if the plaintiff’s wife alleged the same behavior found in the plaintiff’s complaint directed against her. The fact that the plaintiff is heterosexual and the defendant may have sought a homosexual liaison does not affect jurisdiction,” the court said. (S.Z. v. M.C.)