Restraining Orders

An injunction against workplace violence is designed to prevent future harm from an abuser at the workplace. If any one of the crimes listed below occurs to an employee or to a person invited into the workplace (“invitee”) by the employer, the employer can seek a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, and an injunction prohibiting further unlawful acts by the abuser at the work site. The “work site” includes any place at which work is being performed on behalf of the employer.¹ (Note: Unless you are your employer’s authorized agent, you cannot petition for an injunction on your own behalf.)

To get an injunction against workplace violence, an employer must show a judge that one of the following has happened:

• An employee/invitee was the victim at any location of:
  • a terroristic act, rape, battery, domestic battering, assault on a family or household member; or
  • a “crime of violence,” which includes murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, mayhem, assault to do great bodily harm, robbery, burglary, housebreaking, breaking and entering, and larceny;²
• An employee/invitee received one of the following threats of violence at any location and it can reasonably be interpreted as a threat that may be carried out at the work site:
  • terroristic threatening, threatening a catastrophe, threatening an assault, or threatening domestic battering;³ or
• An employee/invitee has been stalked or harassed at the workplace, which includes any of the following crimes committed against the employee/invitee at a work site:
  • loitering, criminal trespass, harassment, and stalking.¹

Note: Your employer may file for an injunction against workplace violence regardless of whether or not you have an order of your own, such as an order of protection or a no contact order.

The injunction can be served upon the abuser by law enforcement and enforced anywhere within the state of Arkansas by law enforcement.⁴

¹ Ark. Code § 11-5-115(a)(3)
² Ark. Code §§ 5-73-202(1); 11-5-115(a)(1)
³ Ark. Code § 11-5-115(a)(2)
⁴ See Ark. Code § 11-5-115(c)-(e)