Excerpted from a Hunton Andrews Kurth blog by Maddie Doucet Vicry and Robert T. Quackenboss
A magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon recently made findings and recommendations to dismiss a purported class action against Kroger subsidiary Fred Meyer.
The suit alleges that the retailer’s background check process for prospective employees violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act by both failing to properly disclose that a report will be run, and failing to comply with the statute’s procedural requirements before taking adverse action against an applicant.
In his report, Magistrate Judge Youlee Yim You recommended dismissing both FCRA allegations for failure to state a claim. First, Walker contended that Fred Meyer’s presentation of an Offer Acceptance document at the same time as the background check Disclosure and Authorization forms was impermissibly confusing and duplicative, in violation of the FCRA’s “stand-alone” requirement, and that the Disclosure contained improper extraneous information.
The judge rejected these arguments, finding: (1) the Offer Acceptance and Acknowledgement were separate documents, and presenting them at the same time does not run afoul of FCRA; and (2) the Disclosure satisfied FCRA’s stand-alone requirements. On the stand-alone issue, the judge found the Disclosure consisted of five paragraphs, and any additional information was not unlawful and was “limited to information that is ‘closely related to the FCRA disclosure.’”
Second, the judge also rejected Walker’s contention that Fred Meyer’s pre-adverse action notice runs afoul of the FCRA by directing applicants to contact the third-party background check provider, rather than Fred Meyer directly, with concerns about consumer reports.
You can read the full post here.