California ruling expands FCRA background check class action risk

The trial court initially certified the class, but later granted CRST’s motion to decertify it. The court relied on a 2022 decision, Limon v. Circle K Stores, which held that an FCRA plaintiff must show a concrete injury to have standing. Because Askins’s confusion about the forms was found to be nothing more than informational, the trial court decertified the class. 

The Court of Appeal reversed that decision. Its reasoning is directly relevant to any employer that screens applicants. California courts, the panel explained, are not bound by the strict federal standing rules that require a concrete injury before someone can sue. For a statute like the FCRA, standing turns on what the law itself says – and the court concluded the FCRA allows people to recover statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 for a willful violation, even without proof of actual harm. A disclosure violation alone, on its own, is enough to bring a claim. 

The court was direct about it: failing to provide a clear, FCRA-compliant disclosure before pulling a background report is itself the harm the law was designed to prevent. 

The compliance signal for HR is clear. In California state court, a technical flaw in a background check disclosure can now anchor a class action without any showing that an applicant was actually hurt. The FCRA requires the disclosure to appear in a document that consists solely of that disclosure. Askins’s own evidence was that the forms he received were lengthy, confusing, and contained extraneous information – exactly the kind of non-compliant presentation the statute was written to prevent. 

This decision expressly declines to follow Limon, creating a split in California appellate authority. That conflict may or may not be resolved by further review, but employers in the state should treat the ruling as a live compliance risk in the meantime.