RELIABLE BACKGROUND SCREENING INDUSTRY NEWS AND ARTICLES

Whole Foods Market Group, Inc., and the plaintiff, Colin Speer, on behalf of himself and a proposed class of similarly situated individuals, agreed to a preliminary settlement of Mr. Speer’s FCRA Class Action lawsuit. The settlement provides for Whole Foods to pay $802,700 to create a fund for settlement payments to be made to approximately 20,000 class members. This case was originally filed by Mr. Speer’s lawyers in December 2014, in the United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division. The lawsuit alleged that Whole Foods violated the FCRA by failing to comply with the FCRA’s disclosure and authorization requirements [...]

New York City, later this week (as of September 3, 2015) will restrict the use of credit reports as part of the employment hiring decision. Except under limited circumstances, it will be illegal for employers to utilize and consider an individual’s consumer credit history in the employment process – be it at initial hire, or later during the employment process, i.e., to determine future compensation, job promotion, etc. New York City joins ten states that have some type of legislation which curtail the use of credit reports in the employee hiring process. Those states include: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, Oregon, [...]

It was just about a year ago when I wrote how the “Ban the Box” movement was gaining traction in various states and cities around the nation. Well the march of jurisdictions continuing to implement some degree of limitations upon employers — regarding asking job applicants about their criminal history on initial job applications — has not abated. In the past month, New York City and the state of Oregon both signed into law their respective legislation that “Bans the Box,” while the city of Daytona Beach, Florida actually implemented their version of the law. In New York City, the Fair Chance [...]

On June 25, 2015, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling upheld a Court of Appeals decision that Disparate Impact is applicable under the Fair Housing Act. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion for the majority in the case of Texas Department of Housing Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. According to Justice Kennedy, “the underlying dispute in this case concerns where housing for low-income persons should be constructed in Dallas, Texas — that is, whether the housing should be built in the inner city or in the suburbs.” It was argued that federal tax credits issued to developers to [...]