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Can You Be Fired if Your Boss Finds Out About Your Criminal History

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  • 04-24-2015, 01:54 PM
    Attaboy
    Can You Be Fired if Your Boss Finds Out About Your Criminal History
    My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Florida
    I have a 2013 conviction for drug possession and credit card/check fraud. I am serving probation and have been clean.
    I work as a medical assistant in a small health care office for the last 4 months. My employer did not request a back ground check and I did not disclose this information to him. One of my coworkers googled my name and found an article detailing my arrest. Can my boss fire me for this if I did not authorize a background check?
  • 04-24-2015, 02:09 PM
    Taxing Matters
    Re: Termination After Google Search
    Quote:

    Quoting Attaboy
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    My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Florida
    I have a 2013 conviction for drug possession and credit card/check fraud. I am serving probation and have been clean.
    I work as a medical assistant in a small health care office for the last 4 months. My employer did not request a back ground check and I did not disclose this information to him. One of my coworkers googled my name and found an article detailing my arrest. Can my boss fire me for this if I did not authorize a background check?

    Yes. And the termination would not be wrongful. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires that an employer get an employee’s consent to run a background check (called a consumer report in the Act) through a third party background company. The FCRA does not apply to the background check the company itself does. Thus, if the company does an internet search and finds a newspaper article about you or finds court public records about you, it may use that information even if you did not give prior consent to the employer to do those searches.
  • 04-24-2015, 04:59 PM
    comment/ator
    Re: Termination After Google Search
    Quote:

    Quoting Taxing Matters
    View Post
    Yes. And the termination would not be wrongful. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires that an employer get an employee’s consent to run a background check (called a consumer report in the Act) through a third party background company. The FCRA does not apply to the background check the company itself does. Thus, if the company does an internet search and finds a newspaper article about you or finds court public records about you, it may use that information even if you did not give prior consent to the employer to do those searches.

    The good news is, if there was no falsification of employment information, you didn't lie on your hiring forms about this matter, and then now that they become aware of it, the employer decides to fire you, you will be very likely to qualify for unemployment insurance while looking for another job. There was no work related misconduct involved here, you didn't falsify anything or try to cover up or lie about it, and now if they decide they have made a mistake by hiring you, it's legal, at will employment and all that entails, but you need to file for unemployment and that's probably going to be a pretty good possibility.
  • 04-24-2015, 08:17 PM
    adjusterjack
    Re: Termination After Google Search
    Quote:

    Quoting comment/ator
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    you didn't falsify anything or try to cover up or lie about it,

    You're overlooking the possibility that the OP filled out an employment application and said no to the "Have you ever" question.

    That could be misconduct that could disqualify him from unemployment.
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