How to Stop Threats, Violence, and Harassment of Your California Employees with Workplace Violence Restraining Orders in One Court Day

While working as an Oakland, California reserve police officer, I met a few witnesses who did not recognize violence when it occurred right in front of them. They insisted that the incident they saw was harmless, even theatrical, telling me on one occasion right after a bloody knife fight, “I thought they were just rehearsing a role for a movie.”

Had my self-deluding witnesses ever seen real violence beforehand, they likely would also have learned that aggressors often test prospective victims first with non-violent but alarming “boundary-testing” behavior – insults, offensive gestures, invading space, yelling, and taking a fighting stance, all of which were calculated to see if the victim will resist.  This red flag behavior is well-known to cops and academics. See, for example, Tedeschi, J.T., & Felson, R.B. (1994) Violence, Aggression, and Coercive Actions, American Psychological Association, arguing that many acts of violence are not caused by spontaneous emotional outbursts, but are instead the result of the aggressor’s careful calculations of whether the targeted victim will resist.

Aggressors use escalating “boundary-testing” and violence in the workplace too. When they do, California employers and unions have a quick and effective remedy to stop them: “Workplace Violence Restraining Orders (“WVRO’s”).”

California Code of Civil Procedure Section 527.8 allows employers, their contractors, and now unions, to obtain WVROs against any person who has credibly threatened any employee with violence, used unlawful violence, or harassed any employee at work. Once served, WVROs typically prohibit the restrained person from further contact, making threats, and committing violence against the protected employee. The restrained person must also stay 50 to 100 yards away from the victim employee at any location, including their workplace, whether the employee is present or not.

More than 90% of restrained people obey court orders without police intervention, judging from more than the 600 cases I have filed.

Since 2024, most California employers have been required by Labor Code Section 6401.9 to establish, implement, and maintain a written workplace violence prevention plan (“WVPP”) requiring covered employers to record, among other things, every workplace violence incident, response, and investigation.  Although the governing statutes do not require employers to consider or to get WVRO’s to address workplace violence, they are free to do so. (Some public employers reportedly include consideration of WVROs within their plans, see e.g., San Bernardino Community College District, City of Sacramento, Alameda County Office of Education, and University of California, Irvine.  Employers can use the incident information they log to prepare the Petition for a WVRO.

Sometimes, smaller, and less sophisticated clients discount threats and violence because they believe the offender “didn’t mean it,” “was harmless,” or was “just having a bad day.”  These excuses are just like the “wishful thinking” fantasies some Oakland witnesses concocted at my scenes.  

WVRO’s also protect employees and workplaces from an aggressor’s  “boundary-testing” behavior before escalation to threats and violence against the employee occurs.  Such pre-violent behavior often falls within the statutory definitions of actionable “harassment” at Section 527.8(b)(4): a knowing and willful course of conduct of two or more acts, serving no legitimate purpose, directed at a specific employee which seriously alarms, annoys or harasses the victim and reasonably causes substantial emotional distress. Here are some  recurring examples of nonviolent harassment which we stopped with WVRO’s:

• A person loiters in front of a liquor store to steal beer and snacks. An employee directs him to leave, drawing a profane response without any violence or threat of violence. The loiterer then stares angrily (“mean mugging”) the employee from the lot that night and the next for prolonged periods. The loiterer also leaves notes on the employee’s car which display the employee’s name, information that is not readily available to customers. The employee fears for his safety.
• A customer mistakenly believes that an employee is in a romantic relationship with him. He visits the store several times daily to make unwanted small talk with the employee. This pattern persists after the employee and her manager repeatedly ask the customer to leave the employee alone, and when that fails, not to enter the store again. He keeps coming back. The employee is afraid of the man who will not leave her alone.
• A former employee says he is owed benefits by the former employer. He calls the manager dozens of times each day while screaming and says he will come to the store to get “what is [his].” The manager is afraid of the ex-employee.

For more detailed information about how WVROs work in California for retailers, please see my two-part August 2026 article in the Daily Journal,  https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/393621-the-safety-tool-retailers-keep-leaving-on-the-shelf [part 1] https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/393658-need-a-workplace-violence-restraining-order-here-s-how-to-get-one-fast [part 2].

Starting next year, the updated WVRO statute will make it easier for employers and unions to get restraining orders. My next blog will discuss these welcome changes.

JOHN DAHLBERG, Partner
McLaughlin & Stern CA LLP
155 Sansome Street, Suite 700
San Francisco, CA 94104
415.397.2700
PREFERRED NUMBER: 415.264.5401 [24 HOURS]

DISCLAIMER: This blog is for general information and is not legal advice,
or an attorney-client communication. No attorney-client relationship is created.