County of Los Angeles v. Niblett
The Second District affirms a three-year workplace violence restraining order under Code of Civil Procedure section 527.8, holding an employee’s veiled reference to a firefighter who fatally shot a colleague was a credible, implied threat outside the First Amendment, and that the order’s firearm restriction survives Second Amendment review under Rahimi.
County of Los Angeles v. Niblett (2025) 116 Cal.App.5th 454
Civil Procedure
Workplace violence (§ 527.8)
First & Second Amendment
Affirmed
In brief. The Los Angeles County Fire Department obtained a three-year workplace violence restraining order (Code Civ. Proc., § 527.8) protecting an assistant chief from Neill Niblett, a senior mechanic who had repeatedly confronted management over work decisions — once shouting profanities inches from the chief’s face — and who “vaguely alluded to an incident in which a firefighter fatally shot another firefighter.” The trial court found, by clear and convincing evidence, that the shooting reference was a credible threat. The Court of Appeal affirmed: a reasonable factfinder could find it “highly probable” that a reasonable person would construe the statement as an implied threat of violence against fire-department management, the statement was a true threat outside the First Amendment, and the order’s firearm restriction survives Second Amendment scrutiny under United States v. Rahimi. (County of Los Angeles v. Niblett (2025) 116 Cal.App.5th 454, 460–476.)
By Jonathan J. Delshad
Draft for review · source-verification pending
Facts and statutory framework
Code of Civil Procedure section 527.8 permits an employer to seek a workplace violence restraining order on behalf of an employee who has suffered unlawful violence or “a credible threat of violence” at the workplace, on a showing by “clear and convincing evidence.” (116 Cal.App.5th at pp. 460–461.) Implied credible threats — not just explicit ones — are actionable under the statute. (Id. at p. 462.) A “credible threat of violence” is a statement that would place a reasonable person in fear for safety; consistent with First Amendment limits, the inquiry asks whether a reasonable person would foresee the statement being understood as a serious expression of intent to commit violence — a “true threat.” (Id. at pp. 463–464.)
Niblett, a senior mechanic with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, “often raised his voice to the assistant chief to complain about work-related decisions.” (116 Cal.App.5th at p. 454.) On one occasion he “shouted profanities at the assistant chief and got so close to [his] face that [he] was spitting on him while shouting.” (Ibid.) Days later, frustrated that a mechanic had been transferred without his knowledge, Niblett “vaguely alluded to an incident in which a firefighter fatally shot another firefighter.” (Ibid.) The trial court found clear and convincing evidence that the reference to the shooting “constituted a credible threat of violence,” and issued a three-year WVRO. (Id. at pp. 454, 460.)
Procedural history
The County obtained the WVRO in the superior court. (116 Cal.App.5th at p. 460.) Niblett appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and arguing the order violated his First and Second Amendment rights. (Id. at pp. 460, 464–466.) Reviewing the clear-and-convincing finding for whether a reasonable factfinder “could have found it highly probable” the standard was met, the Court of Appeal affirmed. (Id. at pp. 456–457, 478.)
Issue
Did substantial evidence support the trial court’s clear-and-convincing finding that an employee’s oblique reference to a fatal workplace shooting was a credible, implied threat of violence justifying a section 527.8 restraining order — and did the order, including its firearm restriction, violate the employee’s First or Second Amendment rights? (116 Cal.App.5th at pp. 460–466.)
Holding
Affirmed. The trial court “could rationally have concluded it was highly probable that a reasonable person would construe [Niblett’s] statement mentioning the shooting as an implied threat to commit an act of violence against fire department management if it continued to make decisions with which he disagreed.” (116 Cal.App.5th at p. 460.) Although Niblett “did not expressly threaten to harm the assistant chief, he was a logical target” of the implied threat. (Ibid.) Because the statement was a credible, true threat, it “was entitled to no First Amendment protection,” and the rejection of his evidentiary challenge “was fatal to his claim the WVRO violated his First Amendment rights.” (Id. at pp. 460, 464–465.) The firearm restriction did not violate the Second Amendment, because it is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” under United States v. Rahimi (2024) 602 U.S. 680. (Id. at pp. 466, 476.)
Reasoning
1. Implied threats count, judged by a reasonable-person standard. The court confirmed that section 527.8 reaches “implied credible threats of violence,” not only explicit ones. (116 Cal.App.5th at p. 462.) The operative question is objective: whether the statement, in context, “would place a reasonable person in fear” and would be foreseeably understood as a serious expression of intent to do violence. (Id. at pp. 463–464.) Niblett’s reference to a firefighter who shot a colleague, made amid escalating, profane confrontations with management over work decisions, supported that inference. (Id. at pp. 460, 464.)
2. Clear-and-convincing review is deferential to the finding. Applying the standard for reviewing findings made under the clear-and-convincing burden, the court asked whether a reasonable factfinder “could have found it highly probable” the threat was credible, viewing the evidence favorably to the order. (116 Cal.App.5th at pp. 456–457, 460.) Under that deferential lens, the trial court’s inference was rational, even though Niblett never named the assistant chief as his target; the chief was “a logical target” given the context. (Id. at p. 460.)
3. A true threat has no First Amendment protection. The court tied the statutory standard to constitutional doctrine: if the elements of section 527.8 are met by a credible threat of violence, the speech is a “true threat … beyond the scope of the First Amendment.” (116 Cal.App.5th at pp. 464–465.) The court considered Niblett’s “plausible First Amendment defense,” but its rejection of his evidentiary challenge to the credible-threat finding was “fatal” to the constitutional claim — once the statement qualifies as a true threat, the First Amendment offers no shelter. (Id. at p. 465.)
4. The firearm restriction is historically grounded. On the Second Amendment, the court applied the now-governing framework requiring consistency “with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” (116 Cal.App.5th at p. 466.) Relying on United States v. Rahimi (2024) 602 U.S. 680 — which upheld disarming a person subject to a domestic-violence restraining order found to threaten others — the court held a firearm restriction tied to a judicial finding that Niblett posed a credible threat of violence fits that tradition. (Id. at pp. 466, 476.) The court was careful to note Rahimi does not require disarmament in every restraining-order case, but that the restriction here was permissible given the credible-threat finding. (Id. at p. 476.)
Significance
Niblett is a practical decision for employers and HR professionals managing workplace-violence risk. It confirms that section 527.8 reaches implied threats and that an oblique reference to a past act of violence — here, a fatal workplace shooting — can support a restraining order when context makes the menacing import clear, even without an explicit threat or a named victim. It also locates the constitutional guardrails: the credible-threat finding doubles as a “true threat” determination that defeats a First Amendment defense, and a firearm restriction tethered to that finding is consistent with the historical tradition the Second Amendment permits after Rahimi. For California employers, the case is useful authority that the statutory “credible threat” standard is objective and that the clear-and-convincing finding will be reviewed deferentially on appeal.
Key quotes
“[T]he trial court could rationally have concluded it was highly probable that a reasonable person would construe [Niblett’s] statement mentioning the shooting as an implied threat to commit an act of violence against fire department management … . Although [he] did not expressly threaten to harm the assistant chief, he was a logical target of [the] implied threat.” (Niblett, supra, 116 Cal.App.5th at p. 460.)
“[The statement] was entitled to no First Amendment protection. The court’s rejection of [the] evidentiary challenge was fatal to [the] claim the WVRO violated his First Amendment rights.” (Niblett, supra, 116 Cal.App.5th at pp. 460, 465.)
Practice pointer
For employers seeking a section 527.8 WVRO, Niblett confirms you need not produce an explicit “I will hurt you.” Build the record around context: a pattern of escalating, hostile confrontations; the specific menacing statement (here, an allusion to a fatal workplace shooting); the proximity in time to a grievance; and why a reasonable person in the protected employee’s position would foresee violence. Frame the showing to the clear-and-convincing standard, and document why the protected employee is a “logical target” even if not named. Anticipate First Amendment and, where a firearm restriction is sought, Second Amendment objections — and meet them with the credible-threat (true-threat) finding and the historical-tradition analysis of Rahimi. From the respondent’s side, the path to reversal runs through the evidentiary sufficiency of the credible-threat finding, since that finding forecloses both constitutional defenses. (116 Cal.App.5th at pp. 460–466.)
Open questions
The opinion holds that this firearm restriction is consistent with historical tradition but reads Rahimi as not mandating disarmament in every restraining-order case, leaving open when a section 527.8 order may — or may not — properly include a firearm restriction absent a comparably strong credible-threat finding. (116 Cal.App.5th at p. 476.) It also does not delineate how oblique a reference to past violence may be before context can no longer support a “credible threat” inference, an inherently fact-bound line. (Id. at pp. 460, 464.) Finally, because the constitutional claims rose and fell with the evidentiary finding, the court had no occasion to explore how a closer credible-threat case would fare against a First Amendment defense. (Id. at p. 465.)