Gov. Code, § 8547.3 · Article 3. California Whistleblower Protection Act
Gov. Code, § 8547.3
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) An employee may not directly or indirectly use or attempt to use the official authority or influence of the employee for the purpose of intimidating, threatening, coercing, commanding, or attempting to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or command any person for the purpose of interfering with the rights conferred pursuant to this article.
(b) For the purpose of subdivision (a), “use of official authority or influence” includes promising to confer, or conferring, any benefit; effecting, or threatening to effect, any reprisal; or taking, or directing others to take, or recommending, processing, or approving, any personnel action, including, but not limited to, appointment, promotion, transfer, assignment, performance evaluation, suspension, or other disciplinary action.
(c) Any employee who violates subdivision (a) may be liable in an action for civil damages brought against the employee by the offended party.
(d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize an individual to disclose information otherwise prohibited by or under law.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1999, Ch. 673, Sec. 5. Effective January 1, 2000.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV§ionNum=8547.3.
- Text hash
- sha256 b595da68274fa5d3b112a0fce29eb439a2a4f899cf9612cd3df7bb171ec60a8a
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
Cited by 6 provisions
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Government Code
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