An appeals court in California recently held that California’s Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (ICRAA) is not unconstitutionally vague. (Connor v. First Student, Inc., et al., Cal. Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Four, B256075, B256077 (8/12/15)).
The court disagreed with the analysis in Ortiz v. Lyon Management Group (appeals court held that ICRAA was unconstitutionally vague as applied to tenant screening reports containing eviction records because such information relates to both creditworthiness and character information and ICRAA and CCRAA do not provide adequate notice of which law is applicable if information can be categorized as both character information and creditworthiness information). In reversing the judgment of the lower court in Connor, the appellate court stated, “We disagree with the analysis in Ortiz…. There is nothing in either the ICRAA or the CCRAA that precludes application of both acts to information that relates to both character and creditworthiness. Therefore, we conclude that ICRAA is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to such information.”
The Connor case involved employment-related background checks. Connor, a bus driver, alleged that the notice she received related to the background investigation did not contain the requisite language required by ICRAA and that her employer did not obtain her written consent.
The Connor decision follows a string of cases in which California courts held that ICRAA is unconstitutionally vague, including in Trujillo v. First American Registry, Ortiz v. Lyon Management Group, Moran v. The Screening Pros, and Roe v. LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
