How to Conduct Criminal Background Checks the Right Way
In 2018, Washington enacted a Fair Chance Act, requiring covered employers to wait until after considering an applicant to be “otherwise qualified” for the position at issue to inquire about or consider criminal history when...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
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
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: 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
Seyfarth Synopsis: After six years of litigation, on November 18, 2019, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a multimillion-dollar settlement with a national employer, which resolved litigation that...more
Employers should continue to exercise caution and care in drafting their criminal record screening policies. A recent settlement by Dollar General underscores this point, even though it comes on the heels of the Fifth...more
Q: Are there certain rules an employer must follow when conducting background checks or employees and prospective employees? ...more
Employers that use criminal record screening policies must continue to be vigilant about compliance with all applicable laws. Following a multi-million dollar settlement by a leading retailer earlier this year, a recent...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: California is rife with regulation of how employers may obtain and consider background check information for use in hiring and personnel decisions. ...more
In this episode of The Proskauer Brief, senior counsel Harris Mufson and associate Michelle Gyves discuss the main laws governing background checks for employers. We will discuss how employers can utilize the federal Fair...more
Employees – and unsuccessful applicants for employment – are increasingly asserting claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) for violations arising out of background checks conducted by third party credit reporting...more
In 1998, Hawaii became the first state to “ban the box,” prohibiting private employers from inquiring about a candidate’s criminal history until the employer has made a conditional offer. It was not for another 12 years...more
Is the government really telling employers that they are not allowed to disqualify an applicant because of past criminal activity? In a word, yes. That is increasingly becoming the case on the state level and has been the...more