Kohl’s Hit With Background Check Class Action Lawsuit

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Last week, a class action lawsuit alleging improper background checks on job applicants was filed in federal court in California against the retail giant Kohl’s Department Stores Inc.

Lead plaintiff, Kayonie Coleman, alleges in her class action lawsuit that Kohl’s conducted illegal background checks on her in October 2012 and June 2013, prior to employment with the department store. She alleges Kohl’s used ambiguous and misleading language to obtain credit reports from a class of job applicants in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA).

“Because the purported disclosures are embedded within extraneous information and are not clear and unambiguous disclosures in stand-alone documents, they do not meet the requirements under the [FCRA],” the Kohl’s class action lawsuit says.

As a result of the confusing and misleading application materials, Coleman alleges that Kohl’s obtained a credit report on her. She claims that Kohl’s willfully violated a recent warning by the Federal Trade Commission to display background check disclosures to job applicants in plain language and on a separate document.

The FCRA class action lawsuit also alleges that when Kohl’s used difficult to understand and confusing language to obtain job applicants’ authorization to obtain credit reports, Kohl’s violated the notification provisions of the FCRA that require proper notification of the rights of a person undergoing a consumer credit report background check.

Kohl’s is also accused of violating two California state statutes as well as the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act and the Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act. The Kohl’s class action lawsuit alleges that the department store chain failed to disclose the source of the credit report to job applicants, as well as authorization in a separate document. The class action lawsuit seeks punitive, statutory and civil penalties for the alleged violations.

In December of last year and in February of this year, similar FCRA class action lawsuits were filed against Michaels Stores Inc. in New Jersey and Texas respectively. In those class action lawsuits, the plaintiffs alleged that the craft supply retailer neglected to properly inform job applicants that the company regularly performed background checks on potential employees during the application process, violating the FCRA and state reporting laws.

Kohl’s joins yet even more retailers who have been hit with FRCA class actions recently, including Whole Foods Market Inc., Dollar General Corp, and Publix Super Markets. Whole Foods has a class action lawsuit pending in Florida federal court. Dollar General and Publix both agreed to settle the class action lawsuits to the tune of $11 million. Hertz Corp., a car rental company, was also hit with a putative class action in California court on last week. In the Hertz class action lawsuit, the plaintiff made similar allegations regarding FCRA violations.

Coleman is represented by Chaim Sean Setareh of the Setareh Law Group. Counsel information for the defendants was not immediately available.

The Kohl’s Background Check Class Action Lawsuit is Coleman v. Kohl’s Department Stores Inc., Case No. 3:15-cv-02588, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.