Case library / Convictions, and the duty to report one
A 0.15 breath test and two missed 30-day deadlines
In short
The registration was revoked, the revocation stayed, and the respondent placed on three years' probation with a psycholo
SurrenderedShe won a probation lighter than the Board’s own guideline minimum, then surrendered the registration less than two years into it.
It puts the two reporting deadlines, a below-guideline probation earned by a real rehabilitation record, and the true price of surrendering mid-probation into one file.
What happened
On September 13, 2019 police responded to a report of a vehicle collision and found the respondent at the scene. She was swaying, had droopy eyelids, and smelled of alcohol. She said she had been checking her phone while driving and had drunk three glasses of wine over two hours, the last about 30 minutes earlier. She could not complete field sobriety tests.
When officers moved to handcuff her she pulled her arm away, kicked one officer’s leg, and pinched his thumb. She stood on the running board of the patrol car and locked her legs to keep officers from putting her inside, then yelled and screamed once she was in. Two breath tests at the Highway Patrol office established a blood alcohol level of 0.15 percent.
The Board received notice of the arrest from the Department of Justice on September 15, 2019 — two days later. On January 8, 2020 the respondent pleaded no contest in Alameda County Superior Court to reckless driving with alcohol involvement, the disposition commonly called a wet reckless. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail or a work alternative program, three years of probation, a three-month DUI program, alcohol testing, and fines and fees. She completed every term and received a Penal Code section 1203.4 dismissal on March 3, 2021.
On April 15, 2020 the Board wrote asking for documentation about the arrest and told her she had 30 days to respond. She did not respond in time. She testified that she notified the Board on August 24, 2020 — more than 30 days after the arrest, more than 30 days after the Board’s letter, and more than 30 days after the conviction. She also had a 2005 conviction for driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent or higher, which she had disclosed when she registered and which had already produced a Board action.
An administrative law judge heard the matter on August 23, 2021, with the respondent representing herself. The Board adopted the proposed decision with one wording change, effective January 6, 2022. In 2023 the respondent invoked the license-surrender condition of her own probation order and asked to give up the registration; the Board accepted the surrender in a separate case, effective December 14, 2023.
What it was charged as
Conviction of a crime substantially related to the qualifications, functions, or duties of a marriage and family therapist or associate, including a conviction following a plea of no contest, and irrespective of a later Penal Code section 1203.4 dismissal.
Using alcohol or a controlled substance to an extent or in a manner dangerous or injurious to yourself, another person, or the public, or to the extent that it impairs your ability to practice safely.
General authority for a board to suspend or revoke a license for a substantially related conviction, as an independent basis from the practice act.
Requires a marriage and family therapist 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.
Reckless driving: driving with willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.
The wet reckless provision: when a drunk driving charge is reduced to reckless driving, the prosecutor states on the record that the offense involved alcohol, and that statement is recorded on the driver’s history.
Authorizes the Board to recover the reasonable costs of investigation and enforcement, subject to the discretion a board must exercise before imposing them.
The outcome
The registration was revoked, the revocation stayed, and the respondent placed on three years’ probation with a psychological or psychiatric evaluation, weekly psychotherapy, total abstinence from alcohol and controlled substances with random testing, an addictive behavior support group, and two graduate semester units in substance abuse; no actual suspension and no supervised practice were imposed. Less than two years in she invoked the order’s license-surrender condition, and the Board accepted the surrender effective December 14, 2023, barring her from applying for any Board registration or license for three years and deeming every charge admitted against any future application.
OAH No. 2021030051
No cost recovery stated in the orderWhat the rule actually says
Two separate 30-day clocks run in a California criminal case, and they are independent of each other and of how the criminal case ends. Title 16, California Code of Regulations, section 1845(g)(1) requires a marriage and family therapist licensee or registrant to report any felony or misdemeanor conviction to the Board within 30 days, and the regulation counts a verdict of guilty or a plea of guilty or no contest as the conviction — so the clock starts at the plea, not at sentencing and not when criminal probation ends. Section 1845(h) gives you 30 days from the date the Board asks to produce documentation about your arrest. The parallel rules for clinical social workers are sections 1881(s)(1) and (t). Neither duty is excused because the Board already knows — here it had the arrest from the Department of Justice two days after it happened — and neither is erased by a later Penal Code section 1203.4 dismissal, which the respondent obtained and which sections 490 and 4982(a) expressly disregard.
Discussion
Analysis, not part of the decision
The substantive question was never seriously in doubt — a drunk driving collision at 0.15 percent is substantially related, and section 4982(c) separately reaches using alcohol in a manner dangerous to yourself or others. What the administrative law judge actually decided was how much discipline. The Board’s own disciplinary guidelines set a minimum of revocation stayed with a 60-day actual suspension plus supervised practice, and for alcohol cases add testing and a rehabilitation program. The judge imposed the substance conditions and expressly declined the suspension, the supervised practice, and the rehabilitation program.
What bought that departure is on the record: four years of testimony and a letter from her clinical supervisor, letters from four more colleagues, a completed work alternative program and DUI classes, twice-weekly attendance at a 12-step program, sustained abstinence, and a finding that no client had been exposed to harm. Against it, the decision is blunt about the aggravating side — a collision, phone use while driving, physical resistance to arrest, and a 2005 alcohol conviction that had already produced Board discipline. The word the judge used for the circumstances was “troubling.”
The reporting counts are the most transferable part. The Board learned of the arrest from the Department of Justice within two days, so the reporting rule was never a discovery mechanism; it is a test of whether you told them yourself. She did not report the January 8, 2020 conviction, did not answer the April 15, 2020 letter within its 30 days, and said nothing until August 24, 2020. Each failure was found as an independent cause for discipline, standing next to the conviction rather than folded into it, and the Penal Code section 1203.4 dismissal she earned in March 2021 undid none of it.
The ending is the reason this case is worth the space. Cost recovery was waived outright: the Department of Justice had billed the Board $4,373.75 and the judge found the figure reasonable, then ordered nothing, because she was living paycheck to paycheck — the ability-to-pay factor that Zuckerman v. Board of Chiropractic Examiners requires a board to weigh. Then, before the three years ran, she took Condition 18. Surrender is written into every probation order as the humane exit, and it is: it stops the testing, the reports, and the bills. It is also recorded as discipline, blocks any reinstatement petition, bars any Board application for three years, and deems every charge in the case true and admitted if she ever applies again.
Where insurance reaches, and where it does not
Drunk driving is a criminal act, and no professional liability policy indemnifies a criminal act, an intentional act, or the consequences of either. There was no client claim in this case and nothing for a policy to pay in damages. The coverage that mattered is the license-defense benefit: reimbursement for a lawyer to respond to the Board, negotiate, and appear at hearing. The respondent represented herself at a contested hearing and, on the strength of what she put in, avoided both an actual suspension and a supervised-practice requirement — but note that no policy covers the cost of probation itself. The evaluation, the weekly therapy, the random testing, the graduate coursework, and the annual monitoring fee were all hers to pay, and that recurring expense is a large part of why people surrender.
What would have changed it
- Report a conviction to the Board within 30 days of the plea, even when the Department of Justice has already told them and even when the plea is a reduced charge such as a wet reckless.
- Answer a Board letter inside the window the letter states. A missed response is its own cause for discipline, wholly separate from whatever the Board was asking about.
- Read the license-surrender condition in a probation order before you agree to the probation. It is the exit, and it is permanent: no reinstatement petition, a fixed bar on reapplying, and every charge deemed true and admitted if you ever come back.
Questions
For a law and ethics seminar, or for yourself
- The judge found $4,373.75 in enforcement costs reasonable and then ordered the respondent to pay nothing, based on her ability to pay. What are the arguments for and against a board absorbing costs it has proven, and who ends up carrying them?
- The Board’s guidelines set a floor of a 60-day actual suspension plus supervised practice, and the judge imposed neither. What evidence in this record justified going below the Board’s own minimum, and what would you have wanted to see before agreeing?
- Surrender under a probation condition is voluntary, permanent, and recorded as discipline. What should a therapist weigh — financially, clinically, and in terms of future work — before choosing it over finishing probation?
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.
