The Risks in Background Checks
Current Trends in FCRA Litigation - The Consumer Finance Podcast
AGG Talks: Background Screening - Ban the Box and Fair Chance Hiring Laws: The Year in Review
AGG Talks: Background Screening - Redaction of Identifiers by the Courts Update, Breaking News from California
AGG Talks: Background Screening - Redaction of Identifiers by the Courts in Michigan and California Pose Challenges for Background Checks
Driving While Ability Impaired (DWAI) is a serious offense in Colorado that can have far-reaching consequences. Many individuals who face this charge wonder about its long-term impact, particularly when it comes to employment...more
A scary surprise is fun to encounter when you are in a haunted house at a Halloween event, but not so much fun when you are performing a background check on a potential employee. Even worse is finding out after the fact that...more
The continued filing of lawsuits against employers under the FCRA underscores the need for in-house counsel, Human Resources, and Talent Acquisition to comply with the statute, especially the “pre-adverse action” notice...more
Background checks are a great idea—unless you fail to do them correctly. Mistakes can be costly. One online retailer paid $5 million to settle a class action filed by 454,000 job applicants alleging violations of the Fair...more
Conducting criminal background checks on job candidates is a common practice for employers but one that raises a host of compliance concerns amid a series of federal, state, and local laws and regulations governing how and...more
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a federal law that governs employment-related background checks. Most lawsuits asserting federal claims proceed in federal court. The FCRA is atypical in that FCRA claims can proceed...more
Manufacturing employees have a hand in everything that our country produces. Naturally, manufacturers want to know their employees are reliable and trustworthy. Manufacturers are taking steps, including background checks, to...more
More and more organizations are conducting background checks on applicants and employees. Whether it’s to minimize safety and security risks, increase protection against fraud and theft, or required by law for your industry,...more
Last month, the new chair of the EEOC, Charlotte A. Burrows, was the keynote speaker at a conference regarding new research on criminal recidivism....more
Changes to Philadelphia law will further restrict employers’ use and reliance on applicant, current employee, and independent contractor background information and affect the employee application and employee management...more
Illinois employers have long been prohibited from using arrest records as the basis for employment decisions under Section 103 of the Illinois Human Rights Act (“IHRA”). ...more
Class action litigation brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is on the rise—particularly in California—after the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a 2017 decision applying a hypertechnical...more
The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), as amended in 2018, restricts a covered employer’s ability to make hiring decisions based on an individual’s criminal history, including but not limited to court records...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On September 15, 2020, Hawaii Governor David Y. Ige signed Senate Bill 051, which narrows the scope of convictions that employers can use for hiring and other employment-related decisions. The new law is...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: As the number of class actions alleging FCRA violations continues to skyrocket, it is critical for California employers to understand the basics of all laws affecting employment screening programs. This...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In recent years, federal courts have weighed in on the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s (FCRA) requirement that consumer report disclosures be in a standalone document consisting solely of the disclosure. ...more
On March 20, 2020, the Ninth Circuit issued its third opinion on the question of when an employer’s background check disclosure satisfies the so-called “standalone” disclosure requirement in the Fair Credit Reporting Act...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: St. Louis has become the third locality in Missouri to enact a “Ban the Box” law, joining Kansas City and Columbia. With a January 1, 2021 effective date, covered employers should begin taking steps to...more
Many employers routinely conduct background checks of potential and current employees. It comes to no surprise that in the current digital age, employers can obtain extensive background information on applicants and employees...more
Over 33 states and 150 cities, counties and municipalities have enacted Ban-the Box laws that prohibit employers from asking about an applicant’s criminal record or criminal history prior to the applicant being selected for...more
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Employers that use criminal record-screening policies must continue to be vigilant about compliance with all applicable laws and should know that the EEOC’s scrutiny of such policies, while perhaps scaled back, has not ended....more
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) class action lawsuits against employers are reaching epidemic proportions as class-wide settlements encourage more lawyers to move into this niche practice area....more
Nationwide class action claims against employers under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) are more common now than ever before. On July 13, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion,...more