Whole Foods Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Illegal Background Checks

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

A California man has filed a class action lawsuit against Whole Foods Market California Inc. for allegedly obtaining a background check on job applicants using a consent form that is not legally valid.

Plaintiff Esayas Gezahegne of Alameda County, in the Bay Area, is a former Whole Foods employee. He alleges in the class action lawsuit that in April 2011, when Gezahegne applied for a job at the super market, he authorized Whole Foods to obtain a background check, credit check and other such information on him through a Fair Credit Reporting Act form online.

The class action lawsuit says Gezahegne went in for an interview on with Whole Foods on April 27, 2011, in which he was told he was hired and that he was to begin on May 12, 2011. While he waited to begin his new job, Whole Foods did a Lexis Nexis background check, which was apparently performed by one of the store’s managers on May 4, 2011.

When the California man began working for Whole Foods in May he was given an FRCA compliant form to sign, authorizing the procurement of consumer reports information, after the background check had already been performed. The form had a place for his signature but not for the date, the background check class action lawsuit notes.

“[Whole Foods] acted under the belief it had already fulfilled the requirements under FCRA,” the class action states.

The Whole Foods background check lawsuit claims that the “defendant obtained consumer reports on plaintiff and similarly situated persons without having obtained facially valid FCRA authorization forms.”

Gezahegne claims that the online form in question in the Whole Foods class action lawsuit  frees those who acquire the reports from all liability, “in violation of FCRA’s requirement that the authorizations be pristine documents that contain nothing other than the required disclosures and the requested authorization.”

The “consent” that Gezahegne signed stated: “I hereby authorize Whole Foods Market to thoroughly investigate my references, work record, education and other matters related to my suitability for employment and, further, authorize the references I have listed to disclose to the company and all letters, reports and other information related to my work records, without giving me prior notice of such disclosure. In addition, I hereby release the company, my former employers and all other persons, corporations, partnerships and associations from any and all claims, demands or liabilities arising out of or in any way related to such investigation or disclosure.”

This class action, if certified, is for all individuals who gave Whole Foods permission to obtain a background check through its online authorization forms from Jan. 28, 2009 to the present.

Gezahegne claims that Whole Foods used invalid “consumer reports on thousands of applicants and employees in violation of the FCRA.”

He is charging Whole Foods with obtaining consumer reports without having facially valid authorizations on file in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and is asking that Whole Foods pay $1,000 to each class member for the violation.

The plaintiff is represented by Craig J. Ackermann of Ackermann & Tilajef PC and by Michael Malk of Michael Malk Esq. APC.

The Whole Foods Background Check Class Action Lawsuit is Gezahegne v. Whole Foods Market California Inc., Case No. 4:14-cv-00592, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.