The California Court of Appeal has handed California peace officers a rare and valuable published decision holding that a single, isolated act of dishonesty does not compel termination and does not, by itself, brand an officer as unfit to serve. In California Highway Patrol v. California State Personnel Board, No. B336135 (Cal. Ct. App. July 29, 2026, ordered published Aug. 5, 2026), the Second Appellate District affirmed the State Personnel Board's decision reducing an officer's dismissal to a suspension, and it did so in an opinion that peace officers and the unions who represent them will cite for years to come. Mastagni Holstedt represented the officer, and the published result confirms a principle that agencies too often ignore. Not every act of dishonesty is the same, and the penalty must fit the misconduct and the officer who committed it.
The facts illustrate why proportionality matters. Officer Nathaniel Partridge joined the California Highway Patrol in 2006, compiled a record free of prior discipline, and earned excellent and proficient performance ratings that described him as conscientious, dependable, and ready for promotion. He worked overtime details under the Maintenance Zone Enhanced Enforcement Program, an arrangement through which the Department of Transportation reimbursed the Highway Patrol for enforcement services on highway maintenance projects. A local standard operating procedure required officers released early by Caltrans to remain at the East Los Angeles station for the balance of the scheduled shift. On September 17, 2017, after his detail ended early, Partridge went home rather than remaining at the station, yet he received the full scheduled overtime (roughly three hours and forty five minutes) pay. The agency also faulted him for failing to record the return time of his patrol vehicle on eight occasions over a six month period.
The State Personnel Board sustained a charge of dishonesty against Partridge, and it did not minimize his conduct. The Board held that theft of public funds and the falsification of official forms, even on a single occasion, constitute serious misconduct for a sworn peace officer. The Board nevertheless reversed his dismissal because the evidence established one isolated event rather than a pattern or a disposition to deceive. The Board contrasted Partridge with officers who had engaged in systematic overtime abuses and concluded that a single lapse by an officer with a long and unblemished career did not demonstrate a propensity to lie, cheat, or deceive. Applying the factors articulated in Skelly v. State Personnel Board, 15 Cal. 3d 194, 218 (1975), which direct the decision maker to weigh the harm to the public service, the circumstances surrounding the misconduct, and the likelihood of recurrence, the Board imposed a suspension that cost Partridge a full year of salary.
The Court of Appeal affirmed. A reviewing court may not substitute its own judgment for that of the administrative body on the question of penalty, and it will disturb the chosen discipline only in the exceptional case in which reasonable minds cannot differ. See Barber v. State Personnel Board, 18 Cal. 3d 395, 404 (1976). The Highway Patrol argued that dishonesty is a continuing trait of character and that any sustained finding of dishonesty therefore requires dismissal. The court rejected that categorical position and held that dismissal is not required in every case of dishonesty. See County of Siskiyou v. State Personnel Board, 188 Cal. App. 4th 1606, 1617 (2010). Reasonable minds could differ about the appropriate consequence for the officers' conduct, and the existence of that reasonable disagreement fortified rather than undermined the Board's exercise of discretion.
Most significant for officers facing discipline is the way the court distinguished degrees of dishonesty. The court confronted the authorities that agencies routinely invoke to demand termination and confined each of them to its facts. It explained that Kolender v. San Diego Civil Service Commission, 132 Cal. App. 4th 716, 721 (2005), described dishonesty as a continuing trait of character only in the context of an officer who lied to conceal the physical abuse of an inmate and refused to tell the truth until investigators exposed the falsehood. It viewed Cate v. State Personnel Board, 204 Cal. App. 4th 270 (2012), as a case in which dishonesty accompanied far more egregious misconduct, including the encouragement of a mentally ill patient to commit suicide, the intimidation of a witness, and an abuse of official power. Measured against that conduct, Partridge's isolated overtime claim occupied a different place on the spectrum, and the court refused to treat every falsehood as the equivalent of the aggravated dishonesty that had justified dismissal elsewhere. Degrees of dishonesty exist, and the law recognizes them.
The publication of this opinion carries independent importance. The published decisions in this area have generally sustained dismissals, and agencies have marshaled those cases to argue that any dishonesty finding ends an officer's career as a matter of law. A published opinion that affirms a proportional penalty for an isolated act of dishonesty now stands as citable precedent for the opposite and correct proposition. Officers and their representatives no longer need to rely on unpublished dispositions or on the bare language of Skelly. They can point to a binding appellate holding that an isolated lapse, committed by an officer whose integrity had never before been questioned, may warrant discipline short of termination. The decision restores balance to a body of law that had tilted heavily toward the agency.
The opinion also speaks to the decertification regime that now governs California peace officers. Senate Bill 2 empowered the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to suspend or revoke the certification of an officer who engages in serious misconduct, and it defined serious misconduct to include dishonesty relating to the reporting, investigation, or prosecution of a crime or the investigation of officer misconduct. See Cal. Penal Code § 13510.8(b)(1). Nothing in that statute makes decertification automatic. The Commission possesses discretion, for the statute provides that it may suspend or revoke certification rather than that it must. See Cal. Penal Code § 13510.8(a)(2). The implementing regulation confirms that the analysis is individualized, for in deciding whether revocation is proper the Commission considers the extent to which the dishonesty related to a material or significant fact and whether the officer acted willfully and with the intent to deceive. See Cal. Code Regs. tit. 11, § 1205(a)(1). The Commission may recommend revocation only when serious misconduct is established by clear and convincing evidence. See Cal. Code Regs. tit. 11, § 1212(b)(2).
This case demonstrates that a sustained dishonesty charge should not trigger a presumption of decertification. The very factors that persuaded the State Personnel Board to impose a suspension rather than dismissal are the factors that the certification regulation directs the Commission to weigh. An isolated act, the absence of any pattern, the materiality and intent behind the conduct, and the officer's overall record all bear on whether the extraordinary sanction of decertification is warranted. An officer who commits a single lapse presents a fundamentally different case from an officer who lies repeatedly to conceal abuse or to defeat an investigation. Agencies and the Commission that read this opinion faithfully will understand that a dishonesty label, standing alone, does not resolve the proportionality question that both the disciplinary and the certification frameworks require them to answer.
Conclusion
For California public safety unions and their members, the practical lesson is clear and encouraging. When an agency seeks to terminate an officer for an isolated act of dishonesty, the decision maker should weigh the full circumstances, including the officer's career, the isolated character of the conduct, and the materiality and intent behind it.
When an agency invokes Kolender or Cate to demand automatic dismissal, the officer may answer that those cases turned on aggravated misconduct far removed from an isolated error. And when the specter of decertification arises, the officer may remind the Commission that Senate Bill 2 and its regulations call for an individualized assessment rather than a reflexive revocation.
The published opinion in California Highway Patrol v. California State Personnel Board gives officers and their advocates the authority to make each of these arguments with confidence. It affirms that fairness and proportionality remain the law, and that a single mistake need not end a career of honorable service.
