Here is a lesson for those who do not follow the letter of disclosure laws. In the recent Fourth Appellate District Court appeal in the case of Hebert v. Barnes & Noble, Inc., the Appellate Court held Barnes & Noble, Inc. must stand trial because its Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) Disclosure Notice to prospective employees, while containing all of the content required to be disclosed, was not a stand-alone document as required by the FCRA as it included extraneous language unrelated to the topic of consumer reports. The Court also held that Barnes & Noble, Inc. could potentially be held liable for willfully violating the FCRA since at least one of the company’s employees was aware of the extraneous information in the disclosure before the disclosure was displayed to job applicants, the company may not have adequately trained its employees on FCRA compliance, and/or the company may not have had a monitoring system in place to ensure its disclosure complied with the FCRA.
It is imperative that required statutory disclosures be presented with the required content and in the font, type, size color, shape and format required by law. If your statutory disclosures are required for any of your business operations have your
business attorney periodically review those disclosures to assure they are legally compliant. The last thing any employer wants is liability because they used the wrong size or color font.
The information presented is not intended to be, and does not constitute, “legal advice.” Because each situation varies, and only brief summary information is provided here, you should not use this information as a basis for action unless you have independently verified with your own counsel that it applies to your particular situation.
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