⭐ Lawsuit #7: Why It Took This Long — and Why the Order for Protection That Started Everything Must Be Overturned
- Ryan Alvar
- 2 days ago
- 12 min read
Today I filed Lawsuit #7, my second Minnesota Court of Appeals case, appealing the denial of my motion to vacate or reopen the Order for Protection (OFP) that started everything.
I want to be very clear about why it took this long, because that question matters—and the answer exposes exactly how broken our family court system is.
Why This Didn’t Happen Sooner
For a long time, I did not know the full scope of what had happened during the OFP case.
I did not learn until early this year that Amy had been accessing my computer remotely—illegally—reading my court filings, witness statements, notes, subpoenas, and strategy, and using that information in active litigation against me.
That is not speculation.
Amy has admitted to accessing my computer and reviewing my court materials. I have over forty screenshots documenting her access, written statements in court filings where she acknowledges it, text messages from witnesses confirming it, and sworn testimony addressing it. Most notably, a Duluth Police Department report dated December 11, 2024 documents that Amy admitted she believed I did not know she still had access to my files and that she was viewing information not intended for her—files that included my court materials for active cases. I did not receive this police report until May 2025, months after it was created, despite its obvious relevance to my defense.
That conduct is computer tampering—a state and federal crime—and it fundamentally corrupted the fairness of the Order for Protection proceedings. She was doing this in real time while litigation was ongoing, and then using that information to her advantage.
Even with the courts now aware of this misconduct, I have not seen a single criminal prosecution recommendation, adverse civil ruling, or meaningful consequence imposed for it. Instead, the burden has remained entirely on me—forcing me to defend myself for more than eighteen months against an order that was built on compromised process and ignored evidence.
Even worse, that access allowed her to obstruct justice, including witness tampering, by interfering with subpoenas and testimony I was attempting to present.
I could not act on what I did not know.
At the Same Time, I Was Trying to Do This the Right Way
Once I discovered the computer access, I faced a difficult decision.
By that point, I had already done something the court itself had refused to do during the OFP case:
I had secured Amy’s agreement—later reduced to a court order—for psychological evaluations.
This is something I had repeatedly requested during the OFP case.
Every single time, the court denied it.
At one point, the referee stated on the record:
“Mental health has nothing to do with this case.”
That statement alone should terrify anyone who believes family courts protect children.
Mental health has everything to do with:
perception,
memory,
fear,
credibility,
emotional regulation,
and reality itself.
But instead of requiring evaluations, the court chose to take sworn testimony at face value, even when it conflicted with police reports, physical evidence, and the testimony of every witness.
The One-Year Deadline Forced My Hand
Under Minnesota law, I had one year from the final OFP order dated October 23, 2024 to file a motion to vacate or reopen the case.
By the time that deadline approached:
I still had not received Amy’s psychological evaluation,
despite her agreement,
despite multiple court orders requiring it,
and despite months of delay by her attorney.
I could not wait any longer.
So I filed my motion to vacate or reopen the OFP without her evaluation—not because there wasn’t one, but because it was being withheld despite court orders, and I could not wait any longer without losing my right to seek relief.
That motion was decided not by the original OFP referee (Kathryn Bergstrom, who is no longer on the bench), but by Judge Nicole Hopps, the same judge presiding over the custody case—and one of the same judges I am currently suing in federal court.
She denied the motion.
The district court denied my motion not because the evidence was insufficient, but because it was mischaracterized, discounted, or excluded altogether. The order rests on a series of fundamental errors: it reframed proposed witness testimony in a way that was never argued, treated documented computer access and interference as legally inconsequential, and reaffirmed a position that mental health was irrelevant—despite the case turning entirely on credibility, perception, and fear.
In doing so, the court declined to engage with the substance of the newly discovered evidence and the demonstrated misconduct that compromised the original proceedings. The denial reflects not an exercise of discretion informed by the record, but a refusal to revisit the record under the correct legal framework. Against that backdrop, the court’s failure to address reopening only underscores the broader problem: once vacatur was rejected, the court avoided confronting the evidence at all.
Why the Original OFP Decision Was Arbitrary
Let’s look closely at the October 23, 2024 Order for Protection.
At the outset of this case, the emergency OFP was granted based on Amy’s allegations, and those allegations were applied broadly—to both me and my children—based on the same narrative, the same testimony, and the same evidence.
After a full evidentiary hearing, the court removed the children from the OFP.
That decision necessarily means the court found that Amy’s allegations were not credible or not supported by the evidence as to the children. There was no separate evidentiary record for the children; the court evaluated the same testimony, the same police reports, and the same history.
And that is where the decision becomes arbitrary.
The same allegations, supported by the same evidence, were rejected as unreliable when applied to the children, yet accepted as reliable when applied to Amy herself. The order offers no explanation for how Amy’s testimony could be insufficient to justify protection for the children but sufficient to justify protection for her, when no additional facts, witnesses, or incidents distinguished the two analyses.
This is not a matter of discretion or close judgment. It is an unreconciled internal contradiction.
Credibility is not divisible without explanation. Testimony cannot be unreliable in one context and reliable in another absent a reasoned basis grounded in evidence. The October 23, 2024 order provides no such basis.
This contradiction is one of the central reasons the Order for Protection should have been vacated—or, at the very least, reopened—once the court was presented with new evidence demonstrating that the original proceedings treated Amy’s credibility as absolute while categorically refusing to consider mental health, despite the case turning on perception, memory, fear, and interpretation of events.
By excluding mental health entirely, the court deprived itself of the very tools necessary to resolve this inconsistency. Once that omission was exposed through newly available evidence, the integrity of the original decision could no longer be assumed.
The Police Reports Were Completely Mischaracterized
In the final OFP order, the court wrote:
“Most of the police reports were read into the record as impeachment…Therefore, the police reports corroborate the Petitioner’s testimony and refute Respondent’s testimony.”
That statement is shocking.
I introduced every police report.
Amy’s attorney introduced none.
And every single police report showed:
No charges against me
Amy removed by law enforcement
Amy intoxicated, including one incident with a .181 BAC
Me trying to leave, blowing a .000 BAC
Law enforcement reporting Amy making false allegations of domestic abuse
Amy admitting to hitting me
Amy admitting I did not hit her
Police documenting injuries on me and none on her
Amy admitting she had no injuries
I also submitted a phone recording where Amy states she knows she “smacked me fucking hard.”
Every one of Amy’s own witnesses testified that they had never once seen me be anything but loving and caring toward her and our children.
And yet the court concluded that these police reports corroborated her testimony and refuted mine.
That is not a difference of opinion.
That is a mischaracterization of the record.
Why Mental Health Matters — Whether Courts Like It or Not
By refusing to consider mental health, the court created a false premise: that both parties were equal in perception, memory, and emotional regulation.
But what happens when they aren’t?
What happens when one party:
has poor emotional regulation,
distorted perception,
unstable memory,
or a reality that does not align with objective evidence?
The law cannot treat testimony equally in that situation—because reality itself is not equal.
This is not controversial.
It is basic psychology.
You don’t need a degree to understand that:
someone with untreated mental health issues may sincerely believe things happened that did not,
may interpret events through fear or distortion,
and may swear to things that are objectively false.
That is why psychological evaluations exist.
And by refusing to require them, the court:
prevented Amy from getting the help she needs,
placed our children in the care of someone who is not healthy,
and punished the parent who was actually seeking help.
This All Started With a 911 Call for Help
None of this began with abuse.
It began when I called 911 seeking help from my government. I believed that asking for help was the responsible thing to do. I now know it was the worst decision I could have made, and I regret it every single day—not because my family didn’t need help, but because the system turned a request for assistance into eighteen months of litigation, separation, and harm.
The mother of my two-year-old child lost the ability to regulate herself during a naptime issue as our daughter Sloane refused to lay down for a nap.
I asked for help.
That single moment exploded into:
an emergency Order for Protection, granted without a full evidentiary record,
the separation of my children from me,
four separate alleged OFP violation cases, all of which I was forced to defend against and overcome,
criminal charges that were later dismissed, in the name of justice,
two days of incarceration for publishing a Guardian ad Litem report that documented harm to my children and the state’s failure to act,
a federal civil rights lawsuit naming twenty-seven defendants, including the State of Minnesota,
a federal appeal to the Eighth Circuit,
two separate Minnesota Court of Appeals cases, including this OFP appeal,
tens and tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs, with more accruing every week,
lost work opportunities,
lost time with my children,
lost time for my children with their siblings, grandparents, and extended family,
and most devastating of all, my children being kept in a home with a parent whose untreated mental health issues are causing ongoing, life-altering harm to their own mental health.
This is not an isolated incident. It is a generational cycle of harm.
The same untreated mental health issues that damaged Amy’s parents damaged Amy — and now, because the court refused to take mental health seriously, those same dynamics are being imposed on our children.
From the very beginning, I have been trying to stop this legally:
by calling 911 for help,
by asking the court to require psychological evaluations,
by presenting police reports instead of narratives,
by appealing to continue to defend myself.
Not once has my government stepped in to help.
Instead, it has:
doubled down,
retaliated,
refused to reverse course,
and treated accountability as a threat rather than a duty.
The harder I defend myself and try to protect my children, the harder the system pushes back.
And that raises a question every parent should be asking:
Is this what our government’s role is supposed to be?
Is this its duty to families — to escalate harm, silence warning signs, and punish the parent who asks for help?
Because if this is how the system responds to a naptime crisis and a call for help, then the problem is not just my case.
It’s the system itself.
Why This Appeal Matters
This appeal is not about winning a technical argument.
It is about:
accountability,
oversight,
and a system that must be able to admit when it got it wrong.
Judges are elected public officials.
We require oversight from:
legislators,
law enforcement,
executive officials,
prosecutors,
child protection agencies,
school systems,
regulatory agencies,
and every other arm of government that exercises power over families.
So why not judges?
The answer is always:
“They need immunity so they can decide without fear of being sued.”
But ask yourself:
Does that sound like democracy?
What if everyone had that immunity?
Read the Filings for Yourself
I believe people should be able to see the actual court filings and judge’s reasoning for themselves.
Below are the documents filed in Lawsuit #7, my second Minnesota Court of Appeals case challenging the Order for Protection that started all of this:
Notice of Appeal – filed January 2026
Statement of the Case – outlining the legal basis for appellate review
District Court Order (December 5, 2025) – denying my motion to vacate or reopen the OFP
Motion to Vacate/Reopen (October 22, 2025) – the full filing package that the district court denied
These are not summaries or interpretations. They are the actual filings and orders. I encourage anyone reading this—parents, advocates, lawmakers, and journalists—to review them and draw their own conclusions about how this case was handled.
The Contradictions the Court Never Reconciles
By the time the court denied my motion on December 5, 2025, the record already contained everything needed to identify fundamental contradictions in how this case was decided.
Rather than restating the full history, I want readers to focus on what the orders actually say when read side by side.
1. Proposed testimony was mischaracterized to dismiss it
In the December 5, 2025 order, the court states that I intended to subpoena Amy’s mother, Margie Schmidt, to testify about abuse Amy suffered as a child, and then dismisses that testimony as irrelevant to whether I committed domestic abuse.
That is not what was argued, and it is not what the record reflects.
What was argued—both in my filings and on the record—was that Margie Schmidt would testify about two documented police reports from 2016, involving adult Amy Schmidt, during the period when Amy and I were already in a relationship. Those police reports document incidents in which:
Margie Schmidt attempted to shoot Amy Schmidt twice,
Margie told law enforcement that Amy “always causes problems when she comes over,” and
Margie stated that Amy’s prior relationships had ended because Amy claimed the other person was “trying to kill her.”
This testimony was not offered to recount childhood history. It was offered to address credibility, perception of threat, and mental health, all of which were central to the court’s evaluation of fear and abuse in the OFP proceedings.
By recasting this proposed testimony as “childhood abuse,” the court avoided engaging with its actual relevance and dismissed it on a factual premise that does not match what was presented. That mischaracterization directly affected the court’s Rule 60.02 analysis and its refusal to revisit the original findings.
2. Identical police reports are treated as both disqualifying and corroborating
In the October 23, 2024 OFP order, the court removed the children based on lack of credible evidence—using the same police reports, testimony, and witnesses presented throughout the case.
Yet in that same order, the court states that those police reports “corroborate” Amy’s testimony and “refute” mine.
The court never explains how the same reports can:
undermine Amy’s allegations as to the children, but
simultaneously corroborate those same allegations as to herself.
That internal contradiction is left unresolved.
3. Mental health is excluded, then relied upon implicitly
During the OFP proceedings, the court stated that mental health “has nothing to do with this case.”
Yet the decision itself rests entirely on concepts that cannot be evaluated without mental health context—credibility, fear, perception, memory, and interpretation of events.
When psychological evaluations later became available and I sought to reopen the case, the court refused without revisiting how excluding mental health distorted the original analysis.
4. Computer tampering is acknowledged, then rendered harmless
The December 5 order acknowledges that Amy accessed my computer and that a police report documents this access.
It then concludes that this did not affect my ability to present my case—without addressing:
witness interference,
subpoena obstruction,
or the advantage gained by reviewing opposing-party strategy during active litigation.
The misconduct is recognized, but its consequences are neutralized.
Why This Appeal Exists
Taken together, the record shows that the court:
rejected Amy’s allegations as to the children,
accepted those same allegations as to herself without explanation,
mischaracterized proposed testimony to dismiss it,
excluded mental health entirely,
acknowledged illegal computer access without consequence,
and refused to reopen the case once those problems were clearly presented.
I’m not asking anyone to take my word for this.
Look at the orders. Look at the filings. Look at the police reports.
If this doesn’t raise questions, nothing will.
This is why I’m here.
This is why I appealed.
And this is why this fight isn’t over.
Lawsuit #7 Is About Fixing the First Wrong
This appeal is my attempt to go back to the moment everything went wrong—and to force the system to confront the consequences of ignoring evidence, ignoring mental health, and ignoring accountability.
Doing things the legal way does not mean doing them the easy way.
I will keep doing it—because broken systems do not fix themselves, and because children should never be collateral damage.
🔁 Join the Fight for Reform
I have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging systemic misconduct by judges, attorneys, and state agencies that has stripped parents of their rights and traumatized countless children.
With 27 defendants, including the State of Minnesota, this case seeks accountability — and reform.
Join me in taking this mission national.
How You Can Help:
✅ Sign the Petition: Urge DOJ to investigate family-court violations
✅ Subscribe: Stay updated — Contact
✅ Visit: www.ryanalvar.com
✅ Support the Fight: GoFundMe – Help Cover Legal Costs & Reform Efforts
✅ Follow & Share: Real Dad Initiative
✅ Contact Your Legislators: Demand oversight for Judges, GALs and transparency in family court.
Family-court reform won’t happen unless lawmakers hear directly from the people.
If what you’ve read here troubles you, don’t stop at signing the petition—call and email your state legislators. Tell them that what has happened in this case—and in so many others—proves we need oversight for judges and guardians ad litem, uniform due-process protections, and full transparency in family courts.
📬 Not sure who represents you? Find out here → 🔗 https://www.gis.lcc.mn.gov/iMaps/districts/
Across the country, I’ve heard from parents who’ve lost everything—some haven’t seen their children in years. When the system designed to protect families becomes the weapon that destroys them, it’s time for change. We must fix this broken family court system. Until that day, I’ll keep fighting—for our children, for truth, and for justice.
"558 days since my children were kidnapped. This isn't over."
Ryan William Alvar
Parent and Plaintiff
