School District rejected two applicants over expunged convictions and paid the price

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 covered violent felonies, serious felonies, sex offenses, and controlled substance offenses. Not these. 

The second exception lets employers who are legally required to run background checks comply with that obligation. But the court drew a clear boundary: running the check is one thing – acting on everything it turns up is another. Employers can use background check results only to the extent a separate law requires them to restrict employment based on those specific offenses. No such law applied here. 

Legislative history backed that reading. When lawmakers reshaped these exceptions through Senate Bill 1412 in 2018, they did so because employers were being “overzealous in their screening” and “wrongly believed” the earlier version of the statute let them reject applicants over “unrelated, expunged” convictions. The tighter language was no accident. 

The practical upshot for any California employer running background checks: a legal obligation to screen does not translate into a legal right to act on every result. If an expunged conviction is not specifically identified in law as an employment bar, it stays off the table.