Romanyshyn was charged with violating a disorderly conduct restraining order (DCRO) issued against him in Stark County in October 2023, which protected two minor children. Between November and December 2023, prosecutors alleged Romanyshyn sent text messages to one or more protected parties in violation of the order. The State filed criminal charges in January 2024 for a class A misdemeanor under North Dakota law.
The case took a procedural turn when this Court reversed a separate DCRO against Romanyshyn in neighboring Hettinger County involving the same parties. In June 2025, Romanyshyn moved to dismiss his criminal charges, arguing that the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hettinger County case invalidated his Stark County DCRO. As Justice Bahr wrote for the unanimous court, 'The State argued this Court's ruling in the Hettinger County case did not invalidate the DCRO in the Stark County case.'
The Supreme Court found Romanyshyn's challenge was fundamentally flawed as an improper collateral attack. The State had argued that Romanyshyn 'may not collaterally attack the issuance of temporary restraining orders in a subsequent criminal proceeding for violating those orders,' citing established precedent that parties cannot challenge the validity of protection orders without first raising the issue with the trial court.
District Court Judge William A. Herauf initially denied Romanyshyn's motion to dismiss in July 2025, leading to Romanyshyn's conditional guilty plea that preserved his right to appeal. The case required a procedural detour when the Supreme Court remanded for correction of the judgment to properly reflect the conditional nature of the plea, before reaching the merits on this second appeal.
Romanyshyn argued the district court failed to make adequate factual findings and improperly conducted legal research without following judicial notice rules. But Justice Bahr rejected both arguments, explaining that 'because the issue before the court was one of law, factual findings were not necessary.' The court noted that Romanyshyn's motion 'made a legal, not factual, argument' based on undisputed procedural history.
The Supreme Court also dismissed Romanyshyn's judicial notice challenge as 'both legally incorrect and internally inconsistent.' Justice Bahr explained that 'independent judicial research on a legal question does not implicate the judicial notice and ex parte issues spawned by independent factual research,' noting the contradiction in Romanyshyn's position that simultaneously claimed no factual findings were made while arguing the court improperly took judicial notice of facts.
Significantly, the court declined to address the merits of whether the district court properly denied the motion to dismiss because Romanyshyn failed to brief the issue in his opening brief. As Justice Bahr wrote, 'We decline to address this issue because Romanyshyn did not brief or otherwise argue it,' despite the State's argument that the motion was an improper collateral attack on the DCRO.