Edible Arrangements Class Action Says Background Check Disclaimer is Unlawful

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A class action lawsuit says Edible Arrangements’ background check disclaimer given to prospective employees contains extraneous information and is therefore unlawful.

Plaintiff Michelle Ann Torres says that she was hired with Edible Arrangements, and did perform work for the company in San Jose, California.

She claims that during the application process, she filled out paperwork provided by the company that would authorize it to conduct a background check.

The Edible Arrangements class action lawsuit states that companies are required by law to request authorization to conduct a background check, but are required by law to not include any extra information in that document.

However, Torres argues that Edible Arrangements did include extraneous information in the document seeking consent to perform a background check.

According to the Edible Arrangements background check class action lawsuit, the company also notified Torres that they would be requesting a consumer report as part of the background check.

Torres claims that she was confused by the documents she received from the company, but signed them nonetheless. The Edible Arrangements class action states that Torres did not know that the company would be procuring a consumer report, but the company did, nonetheless.

Allegedly, Torres’ experience is consistent with other Edible Arrangement employees, because Edible Arrangements requires all employees to fill out the same paperwork during the hiring process.

Torres argues that all employees whose background check document included extraneous information should be compensated, because they were not given sufficient warning of the background check in a clear, easy to understand form that was in accordance with the law.

According to the Edible Arrangements hiring class action lawsuit, companies must send employees an authorization and disclosure that notifies an employee that the company conducts background checks as part of its hiring process.

Allegedly, this form is not supposed to contain extraneous information, and cannot be the same form that requests an employee’s consent to perform a background check. These two forms must be separate, the plaintiff says.

The Edible Arrangements class action lawsuit states that “[Edible Arrangements] has unlawfully inserted extraneous provisions into its standard forms purporting to grant [the company] the authority to obtain and use consumer report information for employment purposes for [Torres] and all proposed Class Members.”

The Edible Arrangements employment class action lawsuit goes on to say that the company’s “decision to include extraneous information in its disclosure and authorization forms is contrary to the plain language of the statute and unambiguous regulatory guidance from the Federal Trade Commission.”

Torres claims that Edible Arrangements knew or should have known that its documents violated federal law, but continued to use them in the hiring purposes nonetheless.

She seeks an injunction barring the company from continuing to use unlawful documentation in its hiring process.

The Edible Arrangements class action states that each person who was subjected to the unlawful documentation is entitled to up to $1,000 in accordance with federal law.

Torres is represented by Eric B. Kingsley and Kelsey M. Szamet of Kingsley & Kingsley APC, and Emil Davtyan of Davtyan Professional Law Corporation.

The Edible Arrangements Employment Class Action Lawsuit is Michelle Ann Torres v. Edible Arrangements LLC, Case No. 5:18-cv-06610, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California — San Jose Division.