Paramount Beats Class Action Lawsuit Over Credit Checks For Job Applicants.
Just under three months after Michael Peikoff first went after the Viacom-owned studio in federal court for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the case is over. Judge Vince Chhabria ruled last week that while Paramount Pictures may have not been totally upfront in its intention to run credit report checks on potential employment seekers like Peikoff, it didn’t disregard federal law requirements. “Accordingly, the motion to dismiss is granted,” the U.S. District judge wrote on March 25 (read it here). “And because any amendment would be futile, the dismissal is with prejudice.”
Filed by Peikoff in early January, the class action-seeking compliant alleged that “Defendant Paramount had in fact procured and/or caused to be procured a ‘consumer report’ regarding him for employment purposes based on the illegal disclosure and authorization form” when the plaintiff had applied for a gig there in February 2011. Technically, that disclosure about a potential employer seeking a credit report needed to be its own release form and not in the application form itself, said the lawsuit, and hence the potential FRCA violation.
Peikoff said in the filing seeking a jury trial that he had only learned about this in the years since seeking the unnamed job at Paramount. Claiming an estimated class membership of more than 500, the complaint was aiming for statutory damages from 0-,000 for each FCRA violation as well as punitive damages and legal fees.
Read More: http://deadline.com/2015/03/paramount-lawsuit-wins-job-credit-check-class-action-1201401004/