Case library / Convictions, and the duty to report one
Felony child endangerment, and no answer to the Board
In short
The Board found the respondent in default under Government Code section 11520, found every charge true by clear and conv
RevokedShe filed no notice of defense, so every allegation was taken as true and the registration was revoked by default.
It is the clearest demonstration in the library that not answering an accusation is itself the losing move — the Board took every allegation as true without hearing a word from the respondent.
What happened
The Board issued the respondent an Associate Clinical Social Worker registration on or about December 13, 2019. It expired on December 31, 2021 and was never renewed.
On or about October 9, 2021, in violation of a temporary guardianship order that had awarded custody of her daughter to the child’s grandmother, the respondent took the child from the grandmother’s residence without the guardian’s permission or knowledge and refused to return her to the guardian.
On November 11, 2021, during a domestic argument with her husband, the respondent drove erratically and at high speed on a freeway onramp. She stopped, got out, and struck him repeatedly. She then resumed driving and hit him with the vehicle, causing him to roll onto the hood and windshield. He climbed into the car, and she drove away from the collision before being stopped by the California Highway Patrol. She told officers she did not know why she had been detained and denied hitting him. On arrest she refused to follow directions, attempted to escape, and made repeated profane comments to the officers.
On June 24, 2022 she was convicted in two Riverside County Superior Court cases. In the first, she was convicted of felony child endangerment under Penal Code section 273a(a) — a count set to be reduced to a misdemeanor after two years of successful probation — and was ordered to serve jail time, to complete four years of formal probation and a one-year child abuse treatment program, and to pay fines, fees, and restitution. In the second, she was convicted of felony assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm under Penal Code section 245(a)(1) and misdemeanor resisting arrest under Penal Code section 148(a)(1), and was ordered to serve jail time, complete three years of probation, a 52-week domestic violence program, a counseling and rehabilitation program, and 20 hours of community service, and pay fines, fees, and restitution.
She did not report either conviction to the Board within 30 days and did not provide the Board with documentation about her arrests. The Board filed an Accusation on June 8, 2023 and served it by certified and first class mail at her address of record. She filed no notice of defense within the 15 days allowed, which waived her right to a hearing. The Board found her in default and found the charges true by clear and convincing evidence on the investigatory evidence packet alone.
What it was charged as
Conviction of a crime substantially related to the qualifications, functions, or duties of a clinical social worker or associate is unprofessional conduct. The record of conviction proves only that the conviction occurred; the Board may look behind it at the circumstances to fix the degree of discipline.
General authority for any Department of Consumer Affairs board to suspend or revoke a license for a substantially related conviction, including a conviction following a plea of no contest, and independent of the practice act.
The record of conviction is conclusive evidence that the conviction occurred but only of that fact, and a board may not categorically bar someone by conviction type without considering rehabilitation.
Violating, attempting to violate, or conspiring to violate the licensing chapter or any regulation the Board has adopted — the hook that turns a reporting regulation into a cause for discipline.
Requires a clinical social worker licensee or registrant to report any felony or misdemeanor conviction to the Board within 30 days. A conviction includes a verdict of guilty or a plea of guilty or no contest.
Requires the licensee or registrant to provide documentation about their arrest to the Board within 30 days of the Board’s request.
Defines “substantially related” as conduct that to a substantial degree evidences present or potential unfitness to practice consistent with public health, safety, or welfare.
Lists the rehabilitation criteria the Board weighs before revoking: severity, later conduct, time elapsed, compliance with probation, any Penal Code section 1203.4 expungement, and the licensee’s own evidence.
The expiration, cancelation, forfeiture, suspension, or voluntary surrender of a license or registration does not deprive the Board of jurisdiction to investigate or to revoke.
Child endangerment: willfully causing or permitting a child to suffer, or to be placed in a situation endangering health or person, under circumstances likely to produce great bodily harm or death.
Assault with a deadly weapon or instrument other than a firearm.
Willfully resisting, delaying, or obstructing a peace officer in the discharge of duty.
The outcome
The Board found the respondent in default under Government Code section 11520, found every charge true by clear and convincing evidence, and revoked the Associate Clinical Social Worker registration effective December 14, 2023. She had seven days after service of the decision to move to have it vacated for good cause.
No cost recovery stated in the orderWhat the rule actually says
Every California behavioral sciences registrant and licensee must report any felony or misdemeanor conviction to the Board in writing within 30 days. For clinical social workers and associates the rule is title 16, California Code of Regulations, section 1881(s)(1); the identical duty for marriage and family therapists sits at section 1845(g)(1). The clock starts at the conviction, and the regulation defines a conviction to include a verdict of guilty or a plea of guilty or no contest — not sentencing, not the end of an appeal, and not the later reduction of a felony to a misdemeanor. A separate subdivision, section 1881(t), gives you 30 days from the date the Board asks to produce documentation about an arrest. The duty binds you whether or not the crime touched your practice, whether or not the Board already knows through its fingerprint subscription, and, under Business and Professions Code section 4990.33, whether or not the registration has since expired.
Discussion
Analysis, not part of the decision
There is no rehabilitation analysis in this decision, and that is the point. The Board applied Government Code section 11520, which lets an agency decide a case on the evidence in its file when the respondent does not file a notice of defense. Everything that might have mattered — that the felony count was structured to drop to a misdemeanor after two years of successful probation, that she was already in a one-year child abuse treatment program and a 52-week domestic violence program, whatever a supervisor or colleague might have said — never reached a decisionmaker.
The child endangerment count is the one worth sitting with. It came out of a family-court dispute over her own daughter, under a temporary guardianship order, with no client anywhere in the story. Section 4992.3(a) does not ask whether the crime happened at work. It asks whether the crime is substantially related, and title 16 section 1812 defines that as conduct evidencing present or potential unfitness. For a license whose holder works with families, children, and court-ordered arrangements, defying a custody order is not peripheral to the license — it sits close to its center.
The third cause is the transferable one. Two criminal cases resolved on the same day, June 24, 2022, and both were reportable within the same 30 days. She reported neither, and she did not produce arrest documentation when the Board asked. Under section 4992.3(f), violating a Board regulation is its own cause for discipline, so the failure to report would have supported action even if the underlying convictions somehow had not.
Her registration had already expired on December 31, 2021 — before either conviction was entered — and she never renewed it. Section 4990.33 made that irrelevant. Letting a registration lapse does not close a Board file, and a revocation entered against an expired registration is a permanent disciplinary record that any later application to any California health care board will have to answer.
Where insurance reaches, and where it does not
A professional liability policy will not touch the conduct here. Every policy excludes intentional acts, criminal acts, and fraud, and there is no version of a felony assault or a child endangerment conviction that reads as a negligent professional service. What such a policy does routinely include is a license-defense benefit that reimburses the cost of a lawyer to respond to a Board investigation and represent you at an administrative hearing — and that is the part of this case that was actually available and went unused. The respondent never filed a notice of defense, so no hearing happened and no defense was mounted. The most valuable thing a policy can buy in a criminal-conviction case is the person who makes sure the 15-day deadline is met and the mitigation gets in front of the Board.
What would have changed it
- Calendar 30 days from any plea or verdict and report it to the Board in writing before that date, even when the charge is a wobbler that will be reduced later and even when your criminal lawyer treats the matter as closed.
- Keep your address of record current with the Board. Service at that address is legally effective whether or not the mail reaches you, and a notice you never opened still starts the 15-day clock.
- File a notice of defense within 15 days of service, even if you intend to settle or to surrender. Filing preserves the hearing and every argument that goes with it; not filing forfeits all of them at once.
Questions
For a law and ethics seminar, or for yourself
- The child endangerment conviction arose from a guardianship dispute over the respondent’s own child, with no client involved. Under the “substantially related” test in title 16 section 1812, what is the argument that it bears on fitness to practice, and what is the strongest argument the other way?
- Her registration had expired before the convictions were entered, yet section 4990.33 preserved the Board’s jurisdiction. What does an associate actually gain or lose by letting a registration lapse once they know an investigation is coming?
- The 30-day clock runs from the plea — often the moment a criminal defense lawyer tells a client the matter is finished. How should a supervisor prepare a supervisee, before anything happens, for the day they have to write that letter to the Board?
Source. This write-up is drawn from the signed public decision in the case number above. Names, cities and employers have been removed — why. To pull the original, open the Board's quarterly newsletter archive, find the issue covering December 14, 2023, and match the case number in the Formal Disciplinary Actions section. Not legal advice.
