Under Assembly Bill 2053, mandatory sexual harassment training and education for supervisory employees must now include prevention of "abusive conduct," defined as "conduct with malice that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to an employer's legitimate business interests." Abusive conduct may include "repeated infliction of verbal abuse, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets, verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating, or humiliating, or the gratuitous sabotage or undermining of a person's work performance." The law specifies that a single act will not constitute abusive conduct unless it is "especially severe and egregious."
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