LAUSD Wrongly Rejected Job Seekers Over Expunged Crimes

Thursday, September 24, 2026

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Court of Appeal:

LAUSD Wrongly Rejected Job Seekers Over Expunged Crimes

Opinion Says Labor Laws Preclude Using Misdemeanor Battery, Theft Convictions That Were Later Dismissed to Filter Candidates Where Education Code Does Not List Those Offenses as Relevant to Employment Decision

By Kimber Cooley, associate editor

Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that the Los Angeles Unified School District violated a California labor law by excluding two job applicants from employment based on background checks that revealed now-expunged misdemeanor convictions, rejecting the view that the defendant is entitled to filter out candidates with any criminal history in light of its general obligation to protect the children entrusted to its care.

Justice John Shepard Wiley Jr. authored Tuesday’s opinion, saying:

“An employer may want to know if job applicants have criminal records. A competing interest favors rehabilitation by ensuring small past mistakes do not doom good workers to a lifetime of impoverished employment opportunities. The California Legislature has been active in adjusting the boundary between these clashing concerns. A key statute, repeatedly amended, is section 432.7 of the Labor Code, which we call the Nondisclosure Statute.”

He continued:

“In simple terms, the Nondisclosure Statute prohibits employers from asking applicants about certain kinds of criminal convictions. The statute also makes exceptions to the general prohibition. We construe this statute and conclude no exception defeats the general prohibition on the facts of this case. This means the defendant and appellant employer in this case—the Los Angeles Unified School District—violated the Nondisclosure Statute when it rejected two applicants based on their expunged misdemeanor convictions.”

Disclosure Limitations

Sec. 432.7 provides that “[a]n employer” shall not ask an applicant to disclose information about an arrest “that did not result in conviction” or “concerning a conviction that has been judicially dismissed” and shall not “utilize” such information “as a factor in determining any condition of employment.”

Two plaintiffs, who are identified as “A.S.” and “E.M.,” filed complaints against the district for purported violation of the section in 2021. Both parties were represented by attorneys with Bay Area offices of the legal services provider Root & Rebound Reentry Advocates and each sought declaratory relief and damages.

The pleadings assert that the plaintiffs each suffered a misdemeanor conviction in 2015—A.S. for battery and E.M. for grand theft—that were judicially “set aside” in 2019. Later that year, A.S. applied for job as afterschool program worker and E.M. sought employment as a legal secretary with the district’s Office of the General Counsel.

The district argued that it was entitled to screen out anyone with almost any kind of criminal conviction in light of its obligation to ensure the welfare of the children in its care, citing two exceptions to the general prohibition, found at §432.7 Subds. (m) and (n), which carve out the actions of certain employers who are required by law to limit their employment pool based on the criminal activities of candidates.

Summary Judgment

Two Los Angeles Superior Court judges granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs in 2023. Damages were set, pursuant to a settlement—on that issue, only—with Judge Colin P. Leis awarding A.S. $40,000 and Judge Timothy Patrick Dillon granting E.M. $50,000.

With the cases consolidated on appeal, Wiley rejected the defendant’s reliance on Subds. (m) and (n), saying:

“The problem for the District here is that it cannot identify a law that requires it to either obtain information about or restrict employment of someone with the particular convictions at issue.”

He pointed out that Subd. (m) provides that an employer is not prevented from asking an applicant about a “particular conviction,” regardless of expungement status, if “[t]he employer is required by law” to seek that information or “is prohibited…from hiring” a candidate based on the criminal history. The statute clarifies:

“For purposes of this subdivision, ‘particular conviction’ means a conviction for specific criminal conduct or a category of criminal offenses prescribed by any federal law, federal regulation, or state law that contains requirements, exclusions, or both, expressly based on that specific criminal conduct or category of criminal offenses.”

Wiley recognized that the Education Code prohibits school districts from hiring or retaining employees who have been convicted of certain categories of offenses, including violent or serious felonies as well as delineated sex and drug offenses. However, he opined:

“The District does not point us to any law requiring it to obtain information about or restrict the employment of someone with a conviction for misdemeanor grand theft or misdemeanor battery. The Education Code apparently evinces no particular interest in these specific misdemeanors.”

Utilization of Convictions

He added:

“Furthermore, although Exception M allows the District to ask about and seek information about particular convictions, it does not permit the District to utilize the convictions as it did here. Rather, current Exception M omits the word ‘utilize’ that appeared in an earlier version of this section.”

Turning to Subd. (n), he wrote:

“Isolating and italicizing the key words, Exception N holds that the Basic Prohibition ‘does not prohibit an employer…required by state…law to conduct criminal background checks for employment purposes or to restrict employment based on criminal history from complying with those requirements.’ ”

The jurist continued:

“While the District is required to limit employment based on certain criminal histories, it does not identify a law requiring it to limit employment based on the criminal histories at issue here. Thus, while Exception N does allow the District to use certain information found in background checks, it does not immunize the actions the District took here.”

He reasoned:

“Because the District cannot identify a law requiring it to restrict employment based on the relevant crimes, the District may not avail itself of Exception M and Exception N in this case. It was not allowed to use these expunged misdemeanor convictions as a reason to reject these employment applications.”

The case is A.S. v. Los Angeles Unified School District, 2026 S.O.S. 3000.

Joshua E. Kim and Sarah Wiken True of the Diamond Bar firm DHF Law PC acted for the plaintiffs. Anthony Julian Bejarano of the district’s Office of the General Counsel together with Keith Alexander Yeomans of the Long Beach-based firm of Dannis Woliver Kelley represented the district.