District Court Rejects Argument That Background Check Disclosure Is Not "Standalone" Document

The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates more than credit.  It includes provisions that govern employers who obtain consumer reports on applicants in connection with the application process.  One such provision deals with the disclosure that an employer must provide to an applicant before obtaining a background check.  According to the FCRA, the employer must provide the applicant with a clear and conspicuous disclosure, consisting solely of the disclosure, that a background check will be obtained.  In recent years, plaintiffs' counsel have been developing new, different, and frequently more extreme, theories as to why employers' documents are not "standalone" disclosures.  In Reed v. CRST Van Expedited, Inc., the District Court for the Middle District of Florida rejected one such theory.