Starbucks to settle alleged FCRA background check violations

Two pending class action lawsuits accusing Seattle-based coffee chain Starbucks of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act by using flawed background reports to reject job applicants are being combined in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in preparation for a settlement, according to Yahoo.

According to pleadings in the first action, which was filed in December 2016 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the putative class numbers an estimated 8,000 similarly situated job candidates who were the subject of adverse background reports supplied by Accurate Background, the company accused of providing the inaccurate reports.

The lead plaintiff in that case, Jonathan Rosario, said he applied for a position as a barista in Castle Rock, Colorado, in early 2016 but was turned down when his background check came back showing that he had multiple felony and misdemeanor charges and convictions on his record.

According to his filings, Rosario was finally able to convince Accurate Background that he was the victim of identity theft and that the crimes he was fingered for were actually committed by his adoptive brother.

Despite having a corrected report sent to Starbucks, Rosario “was not able to resuscitate the job opportunity that he had already lost due to the adjudication and Starbucks never ‘reversed’ its adverse action,” said the complaint.