Abuse Defined

What is “abuse” under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act?   You can only get domestic violence restraining orders if there has been some form of abuse.  California’s Domestic Violence Prevention Act (DVPA) defines “abuse” as any of the following:

  1. Intentionally or recklessly causing or attempting to cause bodily injury.
  2. Sexual assault.
  3. Placing a person in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury to that person or another.

Abuse includes behavior where one party does any of the following to another person:  molests, attacks, strikes, threatens, batters, harasses, makes annoying telephone calls, destroys personal property, or disturbs the peace of the other party.

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