RELIABLE BACKGROUND SCREENING INDUSTRY NEWS AND ARTICLES
Industry news, helpful tips, and valuable insight from the Reliable Background Screening Team.
EEOC Rebuffed Again. Fourth Circuit Denies Disparate Impact Claim.
Last week the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was handed another defeat in its ongoing attempts to exert its control in the area of employee background checks. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit denied the EEOC’s claim of Disparate Impact in EEOC v. Freeman, No. 13-2365. This decision affirms the ruling from last August, where in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Judge Roger Titus dismissed the EEOC’s case due to it using unreliable expert analysis. The EEOC had alleged that Freeman, Inc. had illegally employed background checks, resulting in a Disparate Impact on African-Americans and [...]
FCRA Class Action Filed Against Paramount Pictures Corporation
As I predicted in December, FCRA class action lawsuits are continuing as we enter the new year. It took only 7 days into 2015 for an FCRA Class Action complaint to be filed – this time, the targeted company is Paramount Pictures Corporation. On January 7, 2015, the Dion-Kindem Law Firm filed a class action complaint and demand for a jury trial, on behalf of plaintiff, Michael Peikoff. This proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Paramount Pictures Corporation violated the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act – the federal law that regulates employee background checks, and which imposes very specific disclosure requirements upon [...]
2014 – A Year for FCRA Lawsuits. Expect More FCRA Lawsuits in 2015, so Review Your Employee Screening Forms and Processes
As 2014 comes to a close, it is clear that the number of class action lawsuits that will undoubtedly be filed in 2015, for violations of the FCRA will continue to rise. The FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) is the federal law that regulates employee background checks. It imposes upon employers very specific disclosure requirements, both initially when an employee applicant authorizes the background check, and subsequently, if an adverse action (e.g., to not hire or to terminate the employee applicant) is taken based upon the results of the “consumer report”, i.e., the background check report. In 2014 there was a plethora [...]
Class Action Complaint Filed Against Uber for FCRA Violations
On November 24, 2014, a class action complaint was filed on behalf of the plaintiff, Abdul Kadir Mohamed, against (1) Uber Technologies, Inc., (2) Rasier LLC (purportedly a wholly owned subsidiary of Uber), and (3) the background screening company that Uber used. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court (San Francisco), claims that these defendants violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) – the federal law that governs employment background screening – and that these defendants (companies) similarly violated related California and Massachusetts laws. California laws were also cited due to Uber and Rasier having principal places of business in [...]
