7th Circuit Denies FCRA Complaint by TWC Job Applicant
Wisconsin man Cory Groshek, in suing Time Warner Cable and another prospective employer for Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) violations for running credit checks on him, is alleging a statutory violation totally removed from concrete harm or appreciable risk of…
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it, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in an opinion (in Pacer) issued Tuesday. The decision by Judges William Bauer, Ann Claire Williams and Jon DeGuilio and written by Bauer said Congress in the FCRA wasn't trying to protect job applicants from inadequate disclosures that credit checks might be run but to decrease the risk job applicants unknowingly would consent to when letting prospective employers get a credit report. The judges, upholding a lower court's dismissal of the original separate suits filed against TWC and Great Lakes Higher Education Corp., also said that Groshek's signing the disclosure and authorization negates his argument he suffered a privacy injury. They said the 9th Circuit's Syed v. M-I decision earlier this year, which came up in oral argument and in supplemental briefings, was inappropriate because Syed had factual allegations from which the court could infer harm, unlike Groshek. Counsel for Groshek didn't comment.