Whole Foods Hit With Illegal Background Check Class Action

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Whole Foods Market Group, Inc. was hit with a class action lawsuit in a Florida federal court alleging that the grocery store chain performs illegal background checks on prospective and existing employees in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Plaintiff Colin Speer of Florida worked at a Whole Foods in Tampa until June 30, 2013. He claims that the company performed a background check on him and other employees and job applicants without following the guidelines laid out in the FCRA, he explains in his Whole Foods class action lawsuit filed on Dec. 4.

“While the use of consumer report information for employment purposes is not per se unlawful, it is subject to strict disclosure and authorization requirements under the FCRA,” Speer says.

According to the Whole Foods illegal background check class action lawsuit, before a company performs a background check on its employees for employment purposes, it “is required to disclose to its employees — in a document that consists solely of the disclosure — that it may obtain a consumer report on them for employment purposes.”

Speer claims that Whole Foods failed to follow this requirement.

In addition, Speer also alleges in his class action lawsuit that Whole Foods “unlawfully inserted liability release provisions into forms purporting to grant [Whole Foods] authority to obtain and use consumer report information for employment purposes.”

However, this practice was also allegedly in violation of the “plain language of  the FCRA,” which requires “that forms granting the authority to access and use consumer report information for employment purposes be ‘stand alone forms’ and not include any additional agreements.”

These alleged violations resulted in Whole Foods not having the proper authorization to obtain consumer reports on its employees since the disclosure forms did not comply with the FCRA, the Whole Foods class action lawsuit explains.

Speer is looking to represent a nationwide class of “all Whole Foods’ employees or prospective employees . . . who were subject of a consumer report that was procured by Whole Foods within five years of the filing of the complaint through the date of final judgment in this action.”

He is charging Whole Foods with violating the FCRA by failing to make proper disclosure and failing to obtain proper authorization of the pending background checks.

The former Whole Foods employee is asking for statutory and punitive damages.

This is not the first illegal background check class action lawsuit filed against Whole Foods.

In February, California plaintiff Esayas Gezahegne alleged in his Whole Foods class action lawsuit that the grocery store chain obtained a background check on him using forms that were not “facially valid.”

Home Depot and Uber were also class action lawsuits in 2014 for allegedly violating the FCRA by performing illegal background checks.

Speer is represented by Luis A. Cabassa and Brandon J. Hill of Wenzel Fenton Cabassa, P.A.

The Whole Foods Background Check Class Action Lawsuit is Colin Speer v. Whole Foods Market Group, Inc. filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division.

UPDATE: A class action settlement over Whole Foods’ allegedly illegal background checks was preliminarily approved on Sept. 15, 2015.