ADP Screening and Selection Services has settled a lawsuit alleging it incorrectly reported a job candidate was a convicted murderer, according to a July 12 order dismissing the claim (Mott v. ADP Screening and Selection Services, Inc.).
The complaint, filed in December 2023, alleged the conviction belonged to a different person; ADP’s report listed the job seeker’s name as an alias for an incarcerated individual convicted of murder, it said.
The plaintiff claimed the company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by not using “reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of the information” it provided the employer.
Both ADP and counsel for the plaintiff confirmed to HR Dive that the claim was resolved but declined to share additional information.
The company similarly settled in November a separate lawsuit alleging it incorrectly reported to an employer that a job candidate was a convicted drug dealer. In that complaint, the individual said ADP falsely reported that his birth date matched that of the individual in court records.
Research published earlier this year suggested background checks in general contain “lots of inaccuracies.” The errors are caused by imperfect data aggregation techniques that rely on names and birth dates rather than unique identifiers like fingerprints, one of the study’s co-authors, an assistant professor in the criminology and criminal justice department at the University of Maryland, said at the time.