Courts can make orders to protect an employee from suffering unlawful violence or credible threats of violence at the workplace including the following:

• no harassment or threatening of the employee
• no contact or proximity of the employee
• no possession of guns

An employer must request a workplace violence restraining order on behalf of an employee who needs protection. The court order can last up to three years and the order can also protect the employee’s certain family or household members and other employees at the employee’s workplace or at the employer’s other workplaces.

Section 1256 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code provides that a claimant may be deemed to have left work for good cause when the claimant leaves work because of “domestic violence abuse.”

In addition, Section 1032 provides that an employer’s reserve account is not subject to charges if it is determined the claimant quit with good cause due to domestic violence abuse.^[15]

In determining eligibility for benefits, the code provides that:

An individual may be deemed to have left his or her most recent work with good cause if he or she leaves employment to protect his or her children, or himself or herself from domestic violence abuse.

The claimant’s spouse does not have to be the source of the abuse or threat of abuse, to find good cause for the claimant to leave work. The abuser may be a spouse, a partner, “significant other,” a stalker, etc. To establish that a person has good cause to quit due to domestic violence abuse, the following must be established:

1. An act or threat of domestic violence abuse occurred.
2. The claimant or the claimant’s children are the intended victims of the domestic violence abuse.
3. The claimant has a restraining order, a police report or some other information that identifies the source of the abuse and/or verifies the abuse or threat of abuse.
4. A leave of absence or a transfer was not available, or would not have resolved the problem, e.g., the claimant has a restraining order against the abuser, but the abuser violates the restraining order.

• The California Labor Code 230(c) allows for an employee to take time off to obtain or attempt to obtain any relief. Relief includes, but is not limited to, a temporary restraining order, restraining order or other injunctive relief, to help ensure the health, safety or welfare of the victim or their child.
• State employees are entitled to take leave and use any eligible leave credits available to them to attend to certain family crisis situations.

Yes. Per Family Code Section 3042, a court must consider the wishes of a child old enough to form “intelligent preference as to custody or visitation” and per Family Code Section 3080, there is a presumption, affecting the burden of proof, that joint custody is in the best interests of the child where the parents have agreed.

Information around coercive family violence under the Divorce Act

On 29 September 2020, California S.B. 1141, Chapter 238 was signed into law, which amended Family Code Section 6320 to clarify that conduct used to establish “coercive control” constitutes abuses under California’s Domestic Violence Prevention Act.

Yes. The California Code of Civil Procedure Section 1161.3 stops landlords from making tenants who have been victims of domestic violence move out so long as the abuse has been documented by either a protective order, police report or a qualified third party acting in his or her professional capacity. However, a landlord may end, or refuse to renew, a tenancy if, after giving three days’ notice to correct, (i) the victim allowed the abuser to visit the property, or (ii) the abuser is a physical threat to other tenants or their invitees or their right to use the property.

Yes. The California Code of Civil Procedure Section 1946.7 allows a victim of domestic violence to terminate his or her lease early so long as the tenant provides documented proof that verifies that the abuse occurred. The notice of termination must be given within 180 days of the protective order or police report being issued or within 180 days after the violence occurred. In such case, the victim will be responsible for paying rent for no more than 14 calendar days following delivery to the landlord of the tenant’s termination notice.

Yes. Per Family Code Section 2045, a spouse or registered domestic partner who is a victim of domestic violence may ask the court (by completing Form DV-100) to issue a domestic violence restraining order prohibiting the abuser from disposing of property, real or personal, whether community, quasi-community or separate, except in the usual course of business or for necessities of life. A judge may also order the abuser to notify the victim of any proposed extraordinary expenditures.

The California Invasion of Privacy Act makes wiretapping a crime and allows victims to file civil suits to recover compensation for the invasion of privacy. However, there are some exceptions to this law. Per Penal Code Section 633.5, victims of certain crimes, including domestic violence, may legally record confidential communications if there is a reasonable belief that the communications relate to the crime, and Penal Code Section 633.6 allows a victim to use such communications as evidence to obtain a restraining order. The law also provides that a court may grant in a domestic violence restraining order permission for the victim to record confidential communication made by the perpetrator of the crime.