Man wins nearly $3.6M verdict after background-check goofs

The Gainesville jury found that First Advantage Background Services violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act when it twice misidentified Richard Williams of Chiefland as Ricky Williams - a Delray Beach man with a criminal history.

 

A Chiefland man denied jobs after a worldwide background check company twice misidentified him as a criminal — with the same birthdate and a similar name — won a nearly $3.6 million verdict against the company in federal court Friday.

 

The Gainesville jury found that First Advantage Background Services violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act when it twice identified Richard Williams of Chiefland as Ricky Williams, a Delray Beach man convicted of aggravated battery on a pregnant woman in Broward County in 2004 and arrested on charges of selling cocaine in Palm Beach County in 2009.

 

The verdict includes $250,000 in compensatory damages for lost wages and $3.3 million in punitive damages. First Advantage can appeal to throw out or reduce the punitive damages, according to Williams' lead attorney, Barry Balmuth of West Palm Beach.

 

First Advantage and its attorney did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

 

Richard Williams was a finalist for a job at the Rent-A-Center in Chiefland in 2012 when First Advantage, then operating as LexisNexis Screening Solutions, returned a criminal background check incorrectly showing the cocaine arrest. Williams received a copy of the report in the mail and filed a dispute, but before it was corrected Rent-A-Center decided not to hire him.

 

In April 2013, he was a finalist for a job at Winn-Dixie in Gainesville when First Advantage returned another criminal background check, this time listing a burglary and aggravated battery on a pregnant woman. Again, Winn-Dixie decided not to hire him while his dispute was pending. Winn-Dixie later hired him in November 2013 and he continues to work there.

 

Williams, who asked not to use his age, said the second time he received a letter about his background check he was upset as soon as he saw the envelope and ripped it open to read about the conviction for burglary and battery on a pregnant woman.

 

He said he was stressed out, experiencing headaches and heart pains as he struggled to find a job to take care of himself and pay his bills.

 

“I panicked. I was crying a little bit,” he said. “I kind of cut down on my eating. I would fix plates of food, eat a little bit. When I started thinking about it it didn’t sit well with my stomach. I couldn’t really eat. It really worked on my nerves.”

 

He said he was embarrassed that the employers believed he was a criminal.

 

To receive punitive damages, Williams’ attorneys had to convince the jury that First Advantage’s mistakes were done willfully and not just negligently.

 

Balmuth said the company did not follow its own procedures for people with common names or set up an effective procedure for someone already misidentified once. It did not use available reports that show Social Security numbers or address histories. Publicly available records from the Department of Corrections showed Ricky Williams at 6-foot-2 while Richard Williams’ driver’s license lists him at 5-foot-10 and also showed that Ricky Williams was in jail in Broward County when Richard Williams applied for the job at Winn-Dixie.

 

First Advantage argued in court documents that it followed reasonable procedures in matching first and last name and date of birth through its national criminal database and then obtained the same information at the county level showing criminal records with information such as arrest or filing date, the level of offense, the case disposition and sentencing information.

 

The company said its procedures result in accurate reports 99.61 percent of the time.

 

Between 2009 and 2013, First Advantage received 17,341 disputes nationwide resulting in 14,346 revisions. In Florida, 2,038 consumers filed disputes from 2010 to 2013 resulting in 1,746 revised background reports.

 

“They never acknowledged that they did anything wrong,” Balmuth said. “They just accept that 14,000 people is like collateral damage. They say look, we have a low error rate and mistakes are going to be made, but there’s nothing wrong with our system.”

 

Williams said he was overwhelmed by the jury’s verdict, but still worries that Ricky Williams’ remaining criminal history or any new crimes will show up on his background checks when he applies for jobs in the future.