Gov. Code, § 9149.35 · Article 11. Legislative Employee Whistleblower Protection Act

Gov. Code, § 9149.35

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) In addition to all other penalties, rights, and remedies provided by law, an individual or entity that intentionally retaliates against a legislative employee for having made a protected disclosure is liable in a civil action for damages brought by a legislative employee.

(b) (1) In any civil action, once it has been demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that an activity protected by this article was a contributing factor in the alleged retaliation against a legislative employee, the burden of proof is on the offending party to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the alleged action would have occurred for legitimate, independent reasons even if the legislative employee had not made a protected disclosure.

(2) If liability is established under paragraph (1), the prevailing plaintiff is entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.

(3) Punitive damages may be awarded by the court if the acts of the offending party are proven to be fraudulent, oppressive, or malicious.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 2018, Ch. 2, Sec. 1. (AB 403) Effective February 5, 2018.

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&sectionNum=9149.35.
Text hash: sha256 d5ed40843f9fef5f21b3d2d83005dd244e36f32fad49b5e4fbfb20f000188be1
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

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.