Legal Question in Business Law in California

I looked at 20 appellate cases on falsified time cards found through a WestLaw search. Several cases showed criminal prosecution of employees under Penal Code section 424 where the workers were government officials and government money was being misappropriated. This is a felony, and the sentence is 1, 2 or 3 years imprisonment.

There were also several cases involving falsification of time cards by employees of a private employer, but none seems to have been prosecuted as a crime; the employees were fired, and the cases tended to be about whether the firings were justified.

Nevertheless, at least one of the cases strongly suggested that time-card falsification is theft by false pretenses (and I would agree) and could be prosecuted, if the D.A. were so inclined. There may be instances of such prosecution; they just haven't resulted in appellate cases that have reached WestLaw. Theft over a certain value (I think it is $400 now) is grand theft and is a felony. Under that amount, it's petty theft and only a misdemeanor.

A first-time offender would probably get probation, but with a record for cheating employers would have a hard time getting and keeping a job.

As I say, in private industry prosecutions seem to be unusual, but it's still a crime.

I should add to my previous answer that in some of the cases it was the EMPLOYER which was doing the falsification! Sometimes to show paying prevailing wage when they weren't; sometimes to allow truck drivers to exceed the Federal maximum on-duty time; sometimes to cheat the worker's comp. insurer, and so on.

Technically, employees could be prosecuted for criminal fraud or embezzlement, but the expected consequence is firing for misconduct.