Blog Image
Profile Image Verifile
| Retail & PCI-DSS
April 24 2018

TopClassActions Accused of Unlawful Background Screening Processes

Petco and two job applicants are seeking preliminary approval of a $1.2 million settlement in a lawsuit claiming the company’s background check policies are unlawful.  After an almost two-year legal battle with Petco, the job applicants have reached settlement discussions with Petco for their Petco background check class action lawsuit.

The Petco class action lawsuit establishes a Class of roughly 37,279 job applicants who believe that they were subjected to Petco’s allegedly unlawful background check policies. If the proposed settlement deal goes through, a $1.2 million settlement fund will be established, from which each Class Member will receive an estimated $20.

The original claim was that Petco violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by not sufficiently notifying job applicants that the company would conduct background checks of applicants.

Allegedly, the company “buries” the background check notification in the fine print of its online application. Zimmer and Feist argue that this communication violates the FCRA, which requires companies to provide a separate document disclosing the company’s background check policy to individuals who will be subjected to background checks.

The Petco job app background check class action lawsuit was then removed to federal court in June 2016. Petco attempted to have the claims dismissed, saying that Zimmer was given notice of the company’s background check policy, and that in the class action lawsuit, Zimmer even admitted as much.