PHILADELPHIA - A man’s claims that a company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act when it shared his criminal record with a potential employer, Uber, didn’t hold up in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania as it dismissed the case.
Judge Berle Schiller ruled on the case Nov. 20.
Icarus Harmon made the claim against RapidCourt LLC and said his criminal record shouldn’t have been included in a consumer report. RapidCourt sent the report in question to Checkr Inc., which then sold the consumer report to Uber.
Still, Harmon’s allegations fell short when he failed to demonstrate his criminal history was essentially a part of the report Checkr sent. Because of this, the court agreed with RapidCourt that Harmon didn’t actually state a proper claim under the FCRA and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act and dismissed the case.
Harmon said he was distraught about the criminal charges being in the consumer report, and that the criminal details RapidCourt gave Checkr were charges that dated back to more than seven years before and didn’t lead to convictions.
Harmon said he experienced “embarrassment, frustration, fear of future reports to other future employers containing the same information, and substantial administrative steps” he had to take to clear his Checkr record.
Even though the information that was disclosed didn’t stop him from getting a job with Uber, he still sued RapidCourt for its alleged inclusion of banned criminal information in his consumer report, the failure to maintain reasonable procedures for accuracy in the report, and failure to provide Harmon with a copy of the file.
The court dismissed all of the complaints as it pointed out that Uber didn’t actually deny Harmon employment, and that the injuries he said he experienced weren’t from RapidCourt’s provision of information to Uber, but rather to the consumer reporting agency, Checkr. The court reiterated that not only does Harmon lack standing, but he failed to claim concrete injuries.