February

The California Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (ICRAA) is unconstitutionally vague when applied to employee background checks because of its overlap with another California law, the Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act (CCRAA).

The case, Connor v. First Student, involves bus drivers and investigative consumer reports under the ICRAA (background checks), with the bus drivers alleging that First Student did not obtain their prior written consent as required under the ICRAA, but not the CCRAA. Plaintiffs are seeking $10,000 statutory penalties per violation.

At issue is the constitutionality of the ICRAA, and thanks to Connor there is a split in the courts on this point.

Portland's City Council unanimously passed new rules that will significantly affect an employer's ability to obtain and use criminal history information in the hiring process.
 
With these new rules, Portland joins the growing number of other cities, counties and states across the country, including Oregon, that have enacted similar "ban-the-box" legislation in recent years.
 
Employers throughout the United States, and particularly multi-state employers, should continue to monitor developments in this and related areas of the law, including laws restricting the use of credit history informationand the fair credit reporting laws,and to assess the impact of those laws on their pre-employment screening process.
 
Portland employers should assess whether they are covered by the law, and if so, whether they need to revise their employment application, or otherwise modify their pre-employment screening procedures.

U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield agreed to the terms of the Sterling class action settlement, which ends allegations that the background check company violated the FCRA by providing outdated information to employers, which resulted in a loss of employment.
 
Lead plaintiff Scott Ernst, a former Dish Network employee, claims that his employer never informed him or other workers about the background report information, which prevented anyone from correcting potential errors.
 
The Sterling background check class action lawsuit also alleged that Sterling denied Dish employees copies of their background checks even when they requested one.
 
The background check class action lawsuit settlement does not dismiss Dish Network who still faces claims of violating the FCRA by not giving employees copies of the reports before taking action against them.