Michaels Hit With Background Check Class Action Lawsuit

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A Missouri woman says that a craft retailer violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act during her employment application process, according to a recently filed Michaels background check class action lawsuit.

Raini Burnside alleges that she applied to work at a store through the company’s online portal in December 2014. However, when she got to the part where she was required to acknowledge that the company would perform a background check, the class action lawsuit complaint alleges that it was “one long continuous web page … [with] a liability release, among reams of other extraneous information.”

That is in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the FCRA class action lawsuit goes on to argue, because a company like Michaels may only require a disclosure when it is made “in a document that consists solely of the disclosure and the consumer has authorized, in writing the procurement of the report.” The Federal Trade Commission has issued numerous documents that provide guidance on this, according to the Michaels background check class action lawsuit.

In 1998, the FTC noted that “inclusion of such a waiver” of one’s rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act on its own would violate the statute itself in an opinion letter noted in the complaint. The background check class action lawsuit notes that the agency followed up in 2011 reiterating that “the notice [under 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(b)(2)(A)] may not include extraneous or contradictory information, such as a request for a consumer’s waiver of his or her rights under the FCRA.”

Since the Federal Trade Commission has been so clear, Burnside and her class action lawyers argue that Michaels should have known that its application was in violation prior to the woman’s application. Instead, she is seeking to represent a Class of all employees or prospective employees who applied through the online form and for whom the company acquired a background check in the past two years.

It is one of a growing number of class action lawsuits that focuses on this element of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. A number of retailers and other employers are facing legal scrutiny regarding their background checks and how applicants are made aware of their rights regarding them.

Burnside is represented by class action lawyers from Wehrle Law LLC, Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLC and Tostrud Law Group PC.

The Michaels Background Check Class Action Lawsuit is Raini Burnside v. Michaels Stores Inc., Case No. 6:15-cv-03010, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.