Effective January 1, 2025, Senate Bill 428 (signed by Governor Newsom on September 30, 2023, and codified in California Code of Civil Procedure section 527.8) expands employers’ ability to seek a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and Workplace Violence Restraining Order (WVRO) against individuals who harass their employees.
Prior to SB 428, employers could seek a TRO and WVRO to protect employees from individuals who committed “unlawful violence” posed a “credible threat of violence.” The law, though, did not provide the employer with the ability to protect its employees from other forms of misconduct that could spill into the workplace like harassment. Further under earlier law, if a coworker, customer or some other third party was harassing an employee in extreme ways, the employer could not take any action until the harasser became or threatened to become violent. See Senate Judiciary Bill Analysis, March 24, 2023.
SB 428 expands on legislative movement to protect employees from violence in the workplace, for example, as of July 1, 2024, California employers are required to establish a written workplace violence prevention policy and provide annual trainings on those policies (WVPP and trainings). Please see our firm’s article March 7, 2024 California Employer Alert for more on WVPP and trainings.
SB 428 amends section 527.8 of the Code of the Civil Procedure, defining “harassment” to mean “a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person that seriously alarms, annoys, or harasses the person, and that serves no legitimate purpose.” The definition further requires that the “course of conduct must be that which would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and must actually cause substantial emotional distress.” The targeted employee may now also choose not to be named in any order issued, addressing any potential privacy concerns.
Interestingly, SB 428 prohibits an employer from using these orders to restrict speech or activities protected by the constitution, National Labor Relations Act (labor activities), and other speech or activities protected by law. Code Civ. Proc. Sect. 527.8(c).
Including harassment under the umbrella of unwanted conduct allows employers to quickly, and preemptively, seek a TRO and WVRO to timely prevent distressing behavior. SB 428 thus expands the scope of remedies that an employer may deploy to proactively maintain a workplace that prioritizes the health and safety of employees.
If you have questions about Workplace Violence Restraining Orders or other employment-related questions, please contact Jaclyn Tran at [email protected] or any other members of our team including Denis Kenny at [email protected], John Lough at [email protected] or Ryan Stahl at [email protected].
-Written by Jaclyn Tran