Who Can Get a Domestic Violence Restraining Order in California: The Relationship Requirement

By Matthew Barhoma, Esq. — California State Bar No. 319339 | Last updated: November 2026

A person can get a domestic violence restraining order in California only against someone with whom they have, or had, one of six relationships listed in Family Code section 6211: a spouse or registered domestic partner (current or former); a cohabitant (current or former); a dating or engagement partner (current or former); the other parent of their child; a parent or child; or a grandparent, grandchild, sibling, or corresponding in-law or step-relative. The relationship may have ended years ago; former relationships qualify with no time limit. A minor 12 or older may file without a parent. If the relationship is not on the list — a neighbor, coworker, friend who was never a partner, roommate with no personal relationship, cousin, or stranger — the Domestic Violence Prevention Act does not apply, and the correct order is a civil harassment restraining order under Code of Civil Procedure section 527.6, which uses a narrower definition and a higher burden of proof. For a petitioner, this question decides which forms to file and what the court can order. For a respondent, it is the first and sometimes complete defense: if the petitioner cannot prove a qualifying relationship, the court cannot issue a domestic violence restraining order no matter what else is alleged. Call (888) 808-2179 for a confidential consultation.

Who qualifies: at a glance

Why the relationship question comes first

Every California domestic violence restraining order case has two threshold questions, and the court answers them in order. First: is the relationship one the Domestic Violence Prevention Act covers? Second: did the respondent commit “abuse” as Family Code § 6203 defines it? The relationship question comes first because, if the answer is no, the second question never gets asked under the Family Code. The judge cannot issue a DVRO against a neighbor, however frightening the neighbor’s conduct.

The stakes of the answer are large because the two statutes are so different. Under the DVPA, the petitioner must prove abuse by a preponderance of the evidence — more likely than not — and “abuse” includes non-physical conduct such as harassment, unwanted contact, disturbing the peace, and coercive control under Family Code § 6320. The court can order the respondent to move out of a shared home, make custody and visitation orders, order support, protect pets, and require firearm surrender within 24 hours; the order can last five years and be renewed permanently. Under CCP § 527.6, the petitioner must prove “harassment” — unlawful violence, a credible threat of violence, or a course of conduct that would cause a reasonable person substantial emotional distress and serves no legitimate purpose — by clear and convincing evidence, and the court cannot make move-out, custody, or support orders.

The statutory text, the companion definitions in §§ 6205, 6209, and 6210, and the appellate decisions are set out on the Family Code § 6211 page. This page applies them.

The six relationships, with examples

Spouses and registered domestic partners

Married couples qualify whether they live together, are separated, or have been divorced for decades. No divorce or separation case needs to be on file; Family Code § 6301(c) says so expressly. Registered domestic partners have every right a spouse has under § 297.5. Same-sex couples are treated identically.

Examples that qualify: a wife seeking protection from her husband during a divorce; a man seeking protection from his ex-wife eight years after the divorce was final; a registered domestic partner whose partner has been monitoring her phone and controlling her money.

Cohabitants and former cohabitants

Family Code § 6209 defines a cohabitant as a person who “regularly resides in the household.” Read literally, that would include any roommate. Courts have not read it literally. In O’Kane v. Irvine (1996) 47 Cal.App.4th 207, the Court of Appeal held that a tenant and landlord who shared a residence, with no relationship beyond the housing arrangement, were not cohabitants under the DVPA. The court looked for the kind of substantial relationship — permanence, intimacy, mutual commitment — that the Legislature had in mind, not merely two people under one roof.

Examples that qualify: unmarried partners who live together; former partners who lived together for a year and broke up; a couple who never married but shared a home and raised children.

Examples that generally do not: a roommate found through an online listing; a boarder renting a room; a short-term subletter; a landlord who lives in the same duplex. These petitioners proceed under CCP § 527.6. (Adult siblings or a parent and adult child sharing a home qualify under the family categories regardless.)

Dating and engagement relationships

Family Code § 6210 defines a dating relationship as “frequent, intimate associations primarily characterized by the expectation of affection or sexual involvement independent of financial considerations.” Current and former relationships both qualify; there is no minimum length and no time limit after the breakup.

Three points are settled by the cases. A sexual relationship is not required: in Phillips v. Campbell (2016) 2 Cal.App.5th 844, the court affirmed a restraining order where the parties called themselves friends and there was no evidence of sex, because their messages showed the frequent, affectionate associations § 6210 describes. The relationship need not be exclusive. And commercial arrangements are excluded by the phrase “independent of financial considerations.”

What remains contested is the line between dating and friendship, or dating and a casual encounter. Before § 6210 was enacted, Oriola v. Thaler (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 397 required a “serious courtship” with a reciprocally amorous and increasingly exclusive interest, and held that a casual acquaintance did not qualify; the statute has since lowered that bar, but the question is still decided on evidence — how often the parties saw each other, what they said to each other, whether either expected affection or intimacy. In a contested case, the court reads the messages.

Examples that qualify: a former boyfriend of six months; a fiancé; a person the petitioner dated for a few weeks and exchanged daily affectionate messages with; a long-distance relationship conducted mostly by text and video.

Examples that are contested or do not qualify: a one-time encounter with no continuing association; a friendship with no romantic expectation on either side; a paid escort arrangement.

Co-parents

A person who shares a child with the respondent qualifies under § 6211(d), whether or not the two were ever married, engaged, dating, or living together, and whether the child is an infant or an adult. The statute refers to the Uniform Parentage Act’s presumptions of parentage; where parentage is established or presumed, the co-parent relationship exists. Where parentage is genuinely disputed, the petitioner may still qualify through the dating or cohabitation category.

Examples that qualify: parents who had a child after a brief relationship and have co-parented, with conflict, ever since; a mother seeking protection from the father of her adult son.

Parents, children, and other close relatives

Section 6211(e) covers a party’s child; § 6211(f) covers any other person related by consanguinity (blood) or affinity (marriage) within the second degree. Counting by the civil-law method, the covered relatives are: parents and children (first degree); grandparents, grandchildren, and siblings including half-siblings (second degree); and the in-law and step equivalents of each — parents-in-law, children-in-law, stepparents, stepchildren, grandparents-in-law, siblings-in-law, and step-siblings. Adopted relatives are treated as blood relatives.

Not covered: aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and first cousins, all of whom are third-degree or more remote; and former in-laws after the marriage that connected them has ended, because affinity ends with the marriage (the former spouse remains covered under subdivision (a)).

Examples that qualify: an adult daughter seeking protection from her father; a grandmother seeking protection from a grandson who lives with her; a man seeking protection from his brother-in-law while the sister’s marriage is intact.

Examples that do not: a niece seeking protection from an uncle (civil harassment order, or an elder abuse order if the niece is a caregiver and the uncle is 65 or older); a woman seeking protection from her ex-husband’s brother after the divorce.

Special situations

Minors

A minor 12 or older may file a DVPA petition without a parent or guardian ad litem under Code of Civil Procedure § 372(b) and Family Code § 6301(b). A teenager in an abusive dating relationship qualifies in their own right. A parent may also file on a child’s behalf, and a court may add children as protected parties on a showing of good cause under §§ 6320(a) and 6340.

Protecting people other than the petitioner

The petitioner’s relationship to the respondent is what opens the door; once open, the court may protect “other named family or household members” on good cause (§ 6320(a)). A petitioner’s children, new partner, parents, or roommates may be listed as additional protected persons even though they have no § 6211 relationship with the respondent of their own. In J.H. v. G.H. (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 633, the Court of Appeal held that the court need not find that the additional person’s safety would otherwise be jeopardized; good cause is enough. In K.T. v. E.S. (2025) 109 Cal.App.5th 1114, the court held that children who witnessed one parent’s abuse of the other had their own peace disturbed and should have been added as protected parties.

Abuse of a child as abuse of the parent

Under Gou v. Xiao (2014) 228 Cal.App.4th 812, a parent may seek a DVRO based on the other parent’s abuse of their child, because that abuse can also constitute abuse of the parent. A facially sufficient petition alleging abuse of both cannot be denied without a hearing.

Elders and dependent adults

A person 65 or older, or a dependent adult 18 to 64, who is abused by a spouse, partner, or close relative may choose between a DVRO and an elder or dependent adult abuse restraining order under Welfare and Institutions Code § 15657.03. The elder abuse statute also reaches caregivers and others with no § 6211 relationship, and covers financial abuse, neglect, isolation, and abandonment. The firm’s Elder & Dependent Adult Abuse Restraining Orders page compares the two.

Immigration status

Immigration status is irrelevant to eligibility. A petitioner need not be a citizen or lawful resident, and § 6320(c)(4) specifically identifies threats based on actual or suspected immigration status as a form of coercive control.

Out-of-state parties

A petitioner need not be a California resident (§ 6301(a)). Where the respondent lives out of state, the court must have personal jurisdiction over them; in Hogue v. Hogue (2017) 16 Cal.App.5th 833, a Georgia resident who sent his California wife a mock-suicide video was subject to jurisdiction here because the single act was conduct the DVPA specially regulates, aimed at California.

Forced marriage (from January 1, 2027)

AB 2534 (Stats. 2026, ch. 950), effective January 1, 2027, adds abuse perpetrated against a party to a forced marriage or attempted forced marriage to § 6211’s definition of domestic violence, and expands § 6320 to reach conduct undertaken to compel or facilitate a forced marriage. Until then, a person facing a forced marriage must qualify through one of the six existing categories, which the family relationships usually supply.

For respondents: the relationship as a threshold defense

If you have been served with a DVRO request and the petitioner is not, and never was, your spouse, partner, cohabitant in a real sense, date, co-parent, or close relative, the petition is in the wrong court under the wrong statute, and the court must deny it on that ground alone. This is a complete defense that does not require you to contradict a single factual allegation about your conduct — and it should be raised in your response (Form DV-120) and at the hearing.

The relationship defense arises most often in three situations. The first is a claimed dating relationship that was actually a friendship, a brief acquaintance, or a handful of encounters without the frequency and intimacy § 6210 requires; the evidence is the parties’ communications, so preserve all of them, not a selection. The second is a claimed cohabitation that was a roommate, boarder, or landlord-tenant arrangement under O’Kane. The third is a claimed family relationship that is too remote — an aunt, a cousin — or that existed only by marriage to someone the petitioner has since divorced.

Three cautions. First, winning on the relationship may convert the case rather than end it: the court may allow the petitioner to refile under CCP § 527.6, where the clear-and-convincing standard and the narrower definition of harassment give you a stronger position but the case continues. Second, a weak relationship defense costs credibility; if the two of you exchanged months of affectionate messages, the court will find a dating relationship, and the time is better spent on whether the conduct is actually abuse under What Counts as Abuse Under Family Code 6203. Third, the temporary order remains in force while the relationship question is litigated; obey it completely, because violating it is a crime under Penal Code § 273.6 and is itself abuse. The firm’s Fighting a False Domestic Violence Restraining Order page covers the rest of the defense.

For petitioners: establishing the relationship

In most cases the relationship is obvious and undisputed — a spouse, a live-in partner, a co-parent — and a sentence in the DV-100 declaration suffices. In the contested cases, the petitioner should plead the facts that fit the statutory definition: for a dating relationship, how long and how often the parties saw each other and what the relationship was understood to be, with representative messages attached; for cohabitation, when and where the parties lived together and in what capacity; for a family relationship, the exact relation. If the relationship is genuinely doubtful, a petitioner should consider whether a civil harassment petition is the safer filing, because a DVRO denied on relationship grounds costs time during which the conduct may continue. Where the relationship qualifies, the DVPA’s broader definition of abuse and lower burden make it the stronger remedy; see the Domestic Violence Temporary Restraining Order page for the first step and the Emergency Protective Order page if the danger is immediate.

How the question is decided at the hearing

The relationship is a question of fact decided by the judge at the restraining order hearing, on the declarations, exhibits, and live testimony. The petitioner bears the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence. If the respondent disputes the relationship, the judge will typically hear from both parties about the nature, frequency, and duration of their association and review their communications. A finding that the relationship qualifies is reviewed on appeal for substantial evidence, which means it is rarely disturbed; the hearing is where the question is won or lost.

DVRO versus civil harassment order: what the relationship decides

The full comparison is on the Civil Harassment Restraining Order hub.

How the Restraining Order Law Firm approaches the relationship question

In every new matter, on either side, the first thing we examine is whether the relationship fits § 6211 and, if it does, under which subdivision — because the answer shapes everything from which forms are filed to which defenses are available. For respondents, we evaluate whether a threshold defense exists and whether it is strong enough to lead with, or whether the case is better fought on the definition of abuse. For petitioners, we make sure the petition pleads the relationship facts the statute requires so the hearing is about the conduct, not about standing. The firm, a d/b/a of Barhoma Law, P.C., represents petitioners and respondents in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura Counties, from offices at 835 Wilshire Blvd., Floor 5, Los Angeles 90017 and 695 Town Center Dr., #1200, Costa Mesa 92626. Call (888) 808-2179.

Frequently asked questions

The Restraining Order Law Firm is a d/b/a of Barhoma Law, P.C. This page is attorney advertising and general information about California law, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Statutes, forms, and deadlines change — verify all references with counsel before relying on them. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.