Restraining Orders

Often times, someone who is abusive will try to discourage the victim from filing for an order by alleging that getting a protection order against that person will make them lose their job, hurt their chances of a promotion, “ruin their life,” or some other reason to try to discourage the victim from seeking protection. Often times, however, it’s a form of manipulation or control, which are common behaviors of someone who is abusive.

I cannot tell you whether or not an employer may consider the existence of a protection order as a strike against someone when considering current or future employment - it seems that this may be a personal decision by the employer whether or not to look for this information and what to do about it if s/he finds out that a candidate had a restraining order against him/her. Whether or not an employer may be able to learn about the existence of a protection order may depend on the state - in some states, it is easier to find out about the existence of a protection order than it is in others since many states make their protection order registries open to the public. Therefore, for example, an employer who decides to “Google” a potential applicant in a state where protection orders are made public, perhaps the existence of a protection order could come up but I cannot say for sure. In other states, the registries are NOT public. Finding out if a restraining order exists in those states may require that the employer searches through the court files in the local courts. In some states, the court files may be confidential so even if the employer did look up a potential applicant’s name, s/he would not be able to look in the file.

It may be possible, however, that if someone were trying to get a position in law enforcement or in some other government position, the employer might have access to the police registry where the orders are recorded. Perhaps there could also be other professions in which a person needs to be “board certified” where the board that regulates the profession may have a way of seeing if an order of protection exists. However, it’s not clear whether the professional board or even a government employer would ever have reason to search for the existence of an order once a person is already in the position.

[IF THE PERSON ASKS ABOUT A CRIMINAL RECORD: Regarding a person’s criminal record, as part of a background check, perhaps the order could come up if the background check is linked to protection order registries - again, I don’t know if it is. However, it may be possible that in order to show up as a “crime” on someone’s criminal record, perhaps there may have to be a violation and criminal proceeding.]

An attorney who deals with protection orders in your state may be able to advise you on all of this. Again, I want to make clear, that I do not know the specific laws in [YOUR STATE] - I am only speaking generally. Therefore, perhaps it may be possible that [YOUR STATE] has some other way for potential employers to find out that a restraining order exists even if the registry isn’t public but I don’t know. Perhaps you can call a legal services agency or domestic violence organization that deals with restraining orders in [YOUR STATE] to ask your question to verify the general information that I have provided and to see if it is the same in [YOUR STATE]. Here is a link to legal agencies [LINK] and local organizations [LINK].