An elder abuse restraining order in California is a civil court order that protects a person 65 or older, or a dependent adult, from abuse by ordering the abuser to stay away, stop all contact, or move out. Welfare and Institutions Code 15657.03 provides that the order may last up to five years.
Families usually reach this point after something has already gone badly wrong. A caregiver will not leave the house. A sibling has cut off everyone else’s phone calls. An adult child has moved in and the money has started disappearing.
A restraining order is the fastest civil tool California gives a family in that position, because a judge can sign a temporary order on the day you file. It does not recover anything that has already been taken, which is covered further down.
This guide covers who qualifies, who is allowed to file, what a judge can actually order, how the filing process works, and what the order does not do. For the wider picture, see our complete guide to elder abuse in California.
Who Qualifies for an Elder Abuse Restraining Order in California
A person 65 or older is protected, and so is a dependent adult. Section 15610.27 states that an elder is any California resident aged 65 or older. A dependent adult is a resident aged 18 to 64 whose physical or mental limitations restrict their ability to protect their own rights.
The dependent adult definition is broader than families expect. Section 15610.23 includes people with physical or developmental disabilities and people whose physical or mental abilities have diminished because of age. It also covers anyone between 18 and 64 who has been admitted as an inpatient to a 24-hour health facility, regardless of whether they live independently the rest of the time.
Age alone is enough on the elder side. A healthy, fully independent 70 year old who is being harassed by a relative qualifies in exactly the same way as a parent with advanced dementia.
What Counts as Abuse Under the Elder Abuse Act
Section 15610.07 defines abuse of an elder or dependent adult in three parts. The first covers physical abuse, neglect, abandonment, isolation, abduction or other treatment resulting in physical harm, pain or mental suffering. The others cover deprivation by a care custodian and financial abuse.
A relative who screams at your mother every day, or who keeps threatening to put her in a home, can be committing abuse under this definition even if nobody has ever been touched. The words “or mental suffering” are what make that true. Deprivation by a care custodian means withholding food, medication or help with hygiene from someone who depends on it.
Financial abuse is defined separately in section 15610.30, which covers taking, hiding, appropriating, obtaining or retaining real or personal property for a wrongful use or with intent to defraud. It also covers taking property by undue influence. Therefore the same conduct that supports a restraining order can also support a claim for financial elder abuse in California.
Who Can an Elder Abuse Restraining Order Be Filed Against?
The statute defines who is protected by age or dependency rather than by relationship to the abuser. An order can therefore be sought against a son, a neighbor, a paid caregiver or a recent acquaintance, which is the main way these orders differ from a domestic violence restraining order.
Where the person responsible works for a licensed facility, an order against that individual remains available, while complaints about the facility itself generally run through its regulator. The isolation order described below is the one part of this that is unavailable to residents of long-term care and residential care facilities.
Who Can File for an Elder Abuse Restraining Order
The elder or dependent adult who suffered the abuse may file. Section 15657.03 also allows a conservator, a trustee, an attorney-in-fact under a power of attorney, a guardian ad litem, or another person legally authorized to seek the relief. A county adult protective services agency may file too.
Being the worried daughter is not by itself one of those categories. An adult child with no conservatorship, no power of attorney and no court appointment generally cannot file a general abuse petition for a parent who is able to decide for themselves. The statute does provide openings for families in that position.
What If Your Parent Will Not File for Themselves?
A county adult protective services agency may petition where the elder has suffered abuse and has an impaired ability to understand the risk, or where the elder gives written authorization. An interested party may also petition, though only for an order against isolation.
An interested party means someone with a personal, preexisting relationship with the elder, which is how a daughter or a grandson fits. The petition that person can bring is narrow. It addresses being cut off from contact, and it does not reach financial abuse, neglect or physical abuse.
Where a parent genuinely lacks capacity and no agent is in place, a conservatorship petition may become the realistic route, because a conservator can then file. Where a parent has capacity and simply does not want to act, a report to adult protective services is often the practical first step.
What the Court Can Order an Abuser to Do
A judge can order the restrained person to stop abusing, threatening, harassing, stalking or battering the protected person, to stop all contact, and to stay a specified distance away. The order can also cover the protected person’s animals and can exclude the restrained person from the residence.
Exclusion from the home has a limit families should check early. The court cannot order someone out of a residence where that person solely holds the title or the lease. Where the abuser owns the house outright, a move-out order is generally unavailable and the protective orders have to work another way.
For good cause, the protection can extend beyond the elder to other family or household members, or to a conservator. The California Courts self-help guidance on these orders also lists counseling or anger management classes and a ban on owning firearms, ammunition or body armor among the orders a judge may make.
After notice and a hearing, the court can make a finding that specific debts were incurred as a result of financial abuse. That finding does not change the priority of any lien, so it does not by itself clear a mortgage or a recorded judgment.
Can the Court Stop Someone From Isolating Your Parent?
Yes, after notice and a hearing, though the court has to make four cumulative findings before it can issue an isolation order. The first is that past acts of isolation repeatedly prevented contact with the interested party who is asking for it.
The remaining findings go to the elder’s own wishes and capacity. The court must find by a preponderance of the evidence that the elder wants contact with that person, that the elder has the capacity to consent to it, and that the isolation was not a response to abuse by that party or to the elder’s own wish to avoid them.
The order can bar interference with visits in person and with remote contact, which matters when the blocked contact is phone calls or video calls rather than visits. Section 15610.43 defines isolation to include preventing the receipt of mail or telephone calls, falsely telling a caller or visitor that the person is unavailable or does not wish to see them, false imprisonment, and physically restraining the person to prevent them meeting visitors.
The definition carries its own exceptions. Acts carried out on the instructions of a California licensed physician as part of medical care are presumed not to be isolation, though that presumption can be rebutted. Acts taken in response to a reasonably perceived threat to property or physical safety are not isolation at all.
An isolation order is also unavailable in certain living situations. The statute does not allow one where the elder resides in a long-term care facility or a residential care facility, or is a patient of certain health facilities. For those situations the complaint route runs through the facility’s own regulator instead.
How to File an Elder Abuse Restraining Order in California
Filing an elder abuse restraining order in California starts with form EA-100 at the superior court. A judge then decides whether to grant a temporary order, the restrained person is personally served, and the court holds a hearing where a longer order can be made.
Which Court Forms You Need
The request itself is Judicial Council form EA-100, Request for Elder or Dependent Adult Abuse Restraining Orders. It is filed with form EA-109, the Notice of Court Hearing, and with form CLETS-001, which passes your case details to law enforcement.
Form EA-110 is the temporary restraining order the judge signs. Form EA-120, the response, and form EA-800, the proof that firearms were turned in, sold or stored, go to the other side blank so the restrained person can fill them in. A granted order after the hearing is written on form EA-130, and personal service is proved on form EA-200.
The full set, including the EA-700 series for renewals and the EA-300 series for asking permission to contact a protected person, is published on the California Courts forms page for these orders.
Most cases turn on the description of the abuse you write on EA-100. A judge reading it needs specific dates, specific conduct and specific dollar amounts. A general account of a difficult relationship gives the court very little to act on.
How the Temporary Restraining Order Works
You can ask for a temporary restraining order when you file, without the other side present. Section 15657.03 provides that a request made this way must be decided on the day it is submitted, or on the next judicial day where it was filed too late for same-day review. The temporary order then holds until the hearing.
Asking to exclude someone from the residence on a temporary basis carries a higher showing. The person seeking the order has to show a right to possession of the home, that the party to be excluded assaulted or threatens to assault the protected person, and that physical or emotional harm would otherwise result.
The hearing must be set within 21 days of the decision on the temporary order, or within 25 days where the court finds good cause. Therefore the gap between filing and a full order is usually measured in weeks, with interim protection in place throughout.
Serving the Papers and Attending the Hearing
The restrained person must be personally served with the filed papers before the hearing, and a sheriff or other peace officer can do it. The petitioner pays no fee for law enforcement service. Service is what makes the order enforceable, so it cannot be done informally.
At the hearing the judge reads the papers, hears from both sides and decides whether to issue an order after hearing. The restrained person may appear, may file a response on form EA-120, and may bring an attorney. Bring your documents in order, because bank records, medical records, call logs and text messages carry more weight than recollection.
Our guide on how to prove financial elder abuse covers the evidence side in more depth, which is worth reading first where money is the central issue.
Is There a Filing Fee for an Elder Abuse Restraining Order?
No. Section 15657.03 provides that no fee is charged for filing the petition, for filing a response, or for filing papers seeking to have the order reissued, modified or enforced. There is also no fee for law enforcement to serve the order.
From January 1, 2027, courts must also accept electronic filing of these papers at no charge.
Cost can still arise on the other side of the case. The statute allows the court to award court costs and attorney’s fees to the prevailing party, which means a petition that fails can carry a fee exposure. A lawyer is optional for these petitions, and the courts operate self-help centers that assist people filing without one.
How Long Does an Elder Abuse Restraining Order Last?
After notice and a hearing, an order can last up to five years, and the length is at the judge’s discretion. Where the order form does not state an expiration date, section 15657.03 provides that it lasts three years from the date it was issued. A temporary order lasts only until the hearing.
Renewal does not require starting over. A request to renew may be brought within the three months before the order expires, and the renewed order can run for another five years or be made permanent. The statute allows renewal without any showing of further abuse, so your parent does not have to be harmed again to keep the protection.
Orders can also be modified or terminated, by agreement or by motion. Where the restrained person moves to end or change the order, the protected person is entitled to notice of that motion. Renewal runs on forms EA-700 through EA-730, which is why the expiration date is worth putting in a calendar as soon as the order is granted.
What Happens If the Abuser Violates the Order
Violating the order is a crime. Penal Code 273.6 makes an intentional and knowing violation of a protective order a misdemeanor, punishable for a first offense by a fine of up to $1,000, up to one year in county jail, or both. The section expressly covers orders issued under section 15657.03.
Where the violation results in physical injury, the penalties rise to a fine of up to $2,000 and a jail term of at least 30 days and up to one year, or both. A violation can also be brought back to the civil judge, since papers seeking enforcement of the order are filed without a fee.
Form CLETS-001, filed alongside the request, puts the order into a law enforcement database. An officer responding to a call can therefore confirm that an order exists without being shown a paper copy. Keeping a copy of the signed EA-130 with your parent is still worth doing, because it sets out the specific terms.
Keep a written record of every violation as it happens, with dates, times and screenshots. Law enforcement and the court both work from what can be documented, and a pattern recorded at the time is far more useful than one reconstructed months later.
What a Restraining Order Does Not Do
A restraining order controls behavior going forward. It does not recover money that has already gone, undo a deed, remove a name from a bank account, or change a will or trust. Where money or property has been taken, a separate civil claim for financial elder abuse is what addresses the loss.
That civil claim carries remedies the restraining order does not. Our guide to damages for elder financial abuse in California covers what can be recovered, and the statute of limitations for elder abuse in California covers how long you have to bring it. Both clocks run whether or not a restraining order is in place.
An elder abuse restraining order is also one of several protective orders California offers, and it is not always the right one. A domestic violence restraining order may fit where the abuser is a spouse or a close relative, and a civil harassment order may fit where the person is a neighbor or an unrelated caregiver. Which one applies depends on the relationship and on the protected person’s age.
Where the person taking the money is a son or daughter, the dynamics are usually more tangled than a stay-away order can address on its own. Our article on what to do when an adult child is stealing from an elderly parent deals with that situation directly.
When to Talk to an Elder Abuse Attorney
An attorney can tell you whether you are a person who may file, whether the facts support a temporary order, and whether an isolation order or a general abuse petition fits your situation. Bring dates, documented conduct, and any financial records you have.
If someone is harming or cutting off an elderly parent in your family, our elder abuse attorneys in Los Angeles and Orange County can review the situation with you and explain which order is available and what it would cover.
