One had battery, the other grand theft - both expunged, both shown the door
Two job applicants had their misdemeanor convictions wiped clean under California law. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) hired neither of them anyway.
A California appeals court ruled on September 22 that LAUSD got it wrong. The district violated the state's Nondisclosure Statute - Labor Code section 432.7 - when it rejected both applicants based on expunged convictions that no law required it to consider.
One applicant had sought a part-time role in an after-school program. The other applied to be a legal secretary in the district's own general counsel office. Their convictions - misdemeanor battery for one, misdemeanor grand theft for the other - had both been expunged under Penal Code section 1203.4. The district turned them both down, taking the position that expungement changed nothing. Its argument: it needed to protect children by screening out virtually anyone with a criminal record.
That argument did not survive appeal.
The Nondisclosure Statute broadly bars employers from asking about or acting on expunged convictions. The district leaned on two exceptions. The first lets employers inquire about "particular convictions" where a specific law requires that information or prohibits hiring someone with that conviction. The court found no law singling out misdemeanor battery or grand theft as bars to school district employment. The Education Code sections the district pointed to...
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