Class Action Claims Full House Marketing’s Background Check Process Violates Federal Law

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Full House Marketing, Inc. faces a proposed class action over the company’s alleged practice of using background reports as the basis for taking adverse action against prospective or current employees without providing the individuals with copies of the material used to make the decisions.

The 15-page case out of North Carolina claims the defendant—an employment agency and provider of marketing, training and staffing support for residential property management organizations in three states—has failed to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in its use of background reports as the basis for employment decisions.

According to the lawsuit, Full House Marketing took adverse action against the plaintiff, a prospective employee, by refusing to hire him based on his background report without first providing the man with a copy of the report and “a reasonable opportunity” to discuss its contents and/or dispute the allegedly inaccurate information therein.

The plaintiff claims to have applied in March 2019 for a leasing agent position with Full House Marketing and, as part of the employment application process, authorized the defendant to procure his consumer report, i.e., a background check. Per the case, the plaintiff was excited about the prospect of his potential position with Full House Marketing but was “unexpectedly stymied” when he received from the company’s talent recruiter a March 27, 2019 text message that stated his background “does not meet our guidelines for employment.”

“[The plaintiff] takes great pride in his good name and stellar background, as he’s never been charged with a crime or otherwise been in trouble with the law, so he could not imagine why his background would not meet Full House’s guidelines for employment,” the complaint reads.

The lawsuit alleges Full House Marketing unlawfully took adverse action against the plaintiff, i.e., refusing to hire him, based on his background report without first providing him a copy of the report. According to the case, the plaintiff discovered five weeks later that the background report provided to Full House Marketing by third party Resolve Partners, LLC contained “six grossly inaccurate and stigmatizing felony and misdemeanor charges” from Saint Mary’s County, Maryland that belonged to an unrelated individual with a similar name.

“The seriousness of the criminal records, alone, precluded Plaintiff from moving forward with Full House’s new employee onboarding process,” according to the suit.

The lawsuit alleges the defendant failed to comply with “long-established” FCRA requirements in failing to provide the plaintiff and others with copies of their background reports and an opportunity to discuss the contents therein before taking adverse action.

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