New York has enacted the Clean Slate Act, effective November 16, 2024, which will provide for the automatic sealing of certain criminal history records. Upon sealing, the records will be unavailable to most employers in a...more
12/14/2023
/ Background Checks ,
Conditional Job Offers ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Criminal Records ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Regulations ,
New York ,
Sealed Records
California has implemented new regulations, effective October 1, 2023, that significantly change the employer criminal background check process for California applicants and employees. The following answers to ten frequently...more
The California Civil Rights Council recently amended the regulations interpreting California’s 2018 Fair Chance Act, which go into effect October 1, 2023. The new regulations add restrictions, make clarifications, and...more
8/30/2023
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Background Checks ,
Ban the Box ,
Consumer Reporting Agencies ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Expungement ,
Fair Chance Act ,
Governor Newsom ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
State Labor Laws
Electronic signatures or e-signatures are an increasingly essential tool in today’s technology-dependent workplace, especially for employers that are hiring remote workers. While state and federal law generally...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
On November 15, 2021, the city of Des Moines, Iowa, passed a “ban-the-box” law that will limit employer inquiries and background checks into an applicant’s criminal history until after a conditional offer of employment....more
In July 2021, Maine enacted a new “ban-the-box” law that limits employer inquiries into an applicant’s criminal history. Under the new law, entitled “An Act Relating to Fair Chance in Employment,” employers are prohibited...more
In May 2019, the Michigan Supreme Court issued rules that when implemented generally would prohibit Michigan courts from releasing personal identifying information (PII), such as birthdates, on court records. The rules were...more
The Ninth Circuit recently issued two mostly pro-employer federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) background check decisions that held:
..background check disclosures may contain some concise explanatory language, but...more
On August 6, 2019, in State of Texas v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) overstepped its limited rulemaking...more
8/9/2019
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Adverse Impact ,
Appeals ,
Business Necessity ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Criminal Records ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Enforcement Guidance ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Lack of Authority ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Notice and Comment ,
Race Discrimination ,
Title VII
Westchester County, New York, which is located on the outskirts of the New York City metropolitan area, has enacted a ban-the-box law that places limits on an employer’s ability to make preemployment inquiries into and...more
On October 1, 2018, San Francisco’s amendments to its Fair Chance Ordinance (FCO) took effect. The FCO is San Francisco’s “ban the box” equivalent that regulates employers’ use of applicants’ and employees’ arrest and...more
10/31/2018
/ Amended Regulation ,
Background Checks ,
Ban the Box ,
Conditional Job Offers ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Chance Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Local Ordinance ,
Notice Requirements
On September 24, 2018, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reaffirmed the importance of following its 2012 enforcement guidance on employer use of criminal history information - specifically the EEOC’s...more
On September 12, 2018, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an interim final rule updating its A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act form, (“Summary of Rights”) which is required to be...more
On February 1, 2018, the City Council of Kansas City, Missouri, enacted a ban-the-box ordinance that limits an employer’s use of an individual’s criminal history in making hiring or promotional decisions. The ordinance will...more
On December 20, 2017, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed into law Senate Bill 3306, which expands the state’s ban-the-box law by explicitly prohibiting employers from inquiring into an applicant’s expunged criminal...more
New York City has issued new rules interpreting the city’s Fair Chance Act (FCA). These rules, which went into effect on August 5, 2017, provide clarification and guidance on how employers can comply with the requirements of...more
8/22/2017
/ Background Checks ,
Ban the Box ,
Conditional Job Offers ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Chance Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Rights Code ,
Job Applicants ,
Notice Requirements ,
Rebuttable Presumptions
On February 15, 2017, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser signed into law the District of Columbia’s Fair Credit in Employment Amendment Act of 2016 (FCEAA). This Act, which amends the District’s Human Rights Act of 1977,...more
On January 20, 2017, the Ninth Circuit became the first court of appeals to weigh in on several important legal issues for expensive, increasingly common background check class actions—specifically (a) the extraneous content...more
On December 9, 2016, the City of Los Angeles enacted the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring (LAFCIH), a “ban the box” law that is expected to go into effect on January 22, 2017, with monetary fines effective July...more
California recently amended its existing law governing inquiries into and the use of juvenile criminal information. Effective January 1, 2017 employers will be restricted from asking about, seeking, or using a California...more
The legal showdown between the State of Texas and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over the agency’s background check guidance took another turn on September 23, 2016, when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals...more
Portland, Oregon’s ban-the-box law, the Removing Barriers to Employment Ordinance, took effect on July 1, 2016. The ordinance prohibits most Portland employers from asking about an applicant’s criminal history or conducting a...more
A new Philadelphia ordinance amending the City’s Fair Practices Act goes into effect on July 7, 2016. The amendment severely limits an employer’s ability to procure and use credit information on most applicants and employees...more
On May 16, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a case, Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, (No. 13–1339), involving standing to maintain an action in federal court. In the Spokeo case, an individual claimed that a search...more