Excerpted from a Top Class Actions blog by Christina Davis
A job seeker says that fast food giant McDonald’s violates federal law when it conducts background checks on applicants.
According to plaintiff Danny O’Neill, he and other job seekers were subject to a background check when they applied with McDonald’s.
However, the McDonald’s background check class action lawsuit claims that the fast food company failed to obtain proper authorization in violation of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
Further, alleges the plaintiff in the McDonald’s background check class action lawsuit, he and other job applicants were not properly notified of the consumer report that the company pulled as part of the application process.
O’Neill says that when he applied with McDonald’s in March 2018, the company pulled a background check on him that contained personal, private, and sensitive information about him.
According to the McDonald’s class action lawsuit, O’Neill was unaware that the report would be pulled because the disclosure in the hiring paperwork contained other distracting information.
“The FCRA…makes is presumptively unlawful to obtain and use a ‘consumer report’ for an employment purpose,” notes the McDonald’s background check class action lawsuit. “Such use becomes lawful if and only if the ‘user’ – in this case Defendant – has complied with the FCRA’s strict disclosure and authorization requirements.”
“Defendant willfully violated these requirements in multiple ways, in systematic violation of Plaintiff’s rights and the rights of other putative class members,” continues the McDonald’s job applicant class action lawsuit.
The plaintiff says that he and other job seekers should have received a disclosure from McDonald’s indicating that the company was going to pull their consumer report or background check.
Under the FCRA, alleges the McDonald’s background check class action lawsuit, this disclosure should be the only information on the document provided to the job seeker, but this was not the case during the job application process for McDonald’s.
“Plaintiff was distracted from the disclosure by the presence of additional information in the purported FCRA Disclosure,” alleges the McDonald’s FCRA class action lawsuit. “Specifically, Defendant unlawfully inserted extraneous provisions into forms purporting to grant Defendant authority to obtain and use consumer report information for employment purposes.”
Further, the McDonald’s class action lawsuit claims the fast food giant failed to get O’Neill’s or any other job applicants’ authorization to obtain the consumer report.
The plaintiff in the McDonald’s background check class action lawsuit seeks to represent a nationwide Class of all current employees and job applicants who had a consumer report pulled as a part of the hiring process and who were not provided proper disclosure and authorization under the FCRA.
The McDonald’s employee class action lawsuit is seeking damages for alleged violations of the FCRA.