Home Depot Class Action: Background Checks Violate Federal Law

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A Florida man says Home Depot solicits background checks on job applicants without making the disclosures required by federal law.

Plaintiff Michael Hamilton says defendant Home Depot USA has been violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act with the way it conducts background checks on potential employees.

These alleged violations leave applicants in the dark as to their rights to challenge or correct the information in those reports, he claims, and they may lead Home Depot to reject job applicants based on erroneous information.

Background checks like these qualify as “consumer reports” that are governed by the terms of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Hamilton says.

Under the FCRA, Home Depot may not procure such a report without first satisfying certain specific disclosure requirements designed to make the job applicant aware of their rights regarding the report. These rights include the applicant’s right to get a copy of the report and to challenge the information contained in it, all before the party procuring the reports takes an adverse action based on its contents.

The FCRA says the required disclosures must be “clear and conspicuous” and “made in writing to the consumer at any time before the report is procured or caused to be procured.” The disclosures must also be made in a “stand-alone” document, one that consists only of information about the disclosure.

Hamilton says he applied for a job with Home Depot in June 2016. As part of the application process, he signed a disclosure form authorizing Home Depot to obtain a consumer report on him for use as a background check.

Home Depot allegedly does not conduct these background checks in-house but instead solicits them from an outside consumer reporting firm.

According to Hamilton, the disclosure form contained “extraneous provisions” in addition to those that purported to authorize the background check. He says these extraneous provisions left him confused about the nature and scope of the background check and about his rights under the FCRA.

“If Plaintiff was aware Defendant had presented him with an unlawful disclosure form, Plaintiff would not have authorized Defendant to procure a consumer report and dig deep into his personal, private and confidential information,” the Home Depot class action states.

Hamilton argues the conduct at issue here was willful. Home Depot is a large and sophisticated business with access to its own attorneys, he says, and it has been the subject of similar FCRA class action lawsuits before – all of which gives Home Depot reason to know whether its background check procedures comply with federal law.

The plaintiff seeks to represent a Class that would include all employees and job applicants of Home Depot USA who were the subject of a consumer report procured by Home Depot within two years before the filing of this action.

He seeks a declaration that Home Depot has committed multiple and separate violations of the FCRA, an award of statutory and punitive damages, and reimbursement of court costs and attorney fees.

Hamilton is represented by attorneys Marc R. Edelman, C. Ryan Morgan and Andrew Frisch of Morgan & Morgan PA.

The Home Depot Background Check Disclosure Class Action Lawsuit is Hamilton v. Home Depot USA Inc., Case No. 8:17-cv-02468, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.