## Facts

- A long-term employee of a health care facility was required, as a condition of continued employment, to sign an annual personnel-policy statement authorizing the employer to obtain background information.
- In February 2001, the employer presented an authorization permitting acquisition of investigative consumer reports for employment-related purposes; the employee refused to sign.
- The employer informed the employee that failure to sign would remove her from the active schedule; her scheduled work hours were reduced to zero, though she remained on payroll.
- In June 2001, the employer issued a revised statement authorizing consumer reports concerning credit standing, character, reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living, describing purposes such as investigating theft, insurance-claim fraud, or other dishonesty.
- The employee again refused to sign; the employer treated the employment as abandoned and the relationship ended.
- The employee sued under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), asserting the employer lacked a permissible employment purpose, the authorization was unlawfully “blanket” and future-oriented, and she was terminated for refusing to sign.
- The district court granted partial summary judgment to the employer on the FCRA claims and later decertified a conditionally certified Rule 23(b)(2) class; the employee appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the FCRA prohibits an employer from requiring, as a condition of employment, a written “blanket” authorization allowing the employer to obtain the employee’s consumer report in the future for employment purposes.
2. Whether the employer’s annual authorization statements were inconsistent with the FCRA’s disclosure and written-authorization requirements for employment-related consumer reports.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the grant of partial summary judgment for the employer on the FCRA claims.
- The court held that the FCRA does not impose a temporal or report-by-report limitation on written authorizations that otherwise satisfy the statute.
- The court concluded that ongoing (“blanket”) authorizations are not inconsistent with the FCRA when tied to employment purposes and obtained through the statute’s required written authorization process.

## Legal Principles

- Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(b), an employer may obtain a consumer report for employment purposes if it provides the required disclosure and obtains the consumer’s written authorization.
- The FCRA’s requirement of “written authorization” does not, by its text, require a separate authorization for each individual consumer report or restrict authorization to a single transaction.
- A continuing authorization for future consumer reports may satisfy the FCRA if it is in writing, relates to employment purposes, and is obtained in the manner the statute requires.
- Conditioning employment on execution of an FCRA-compliant authorization is not itself prohibited by the FCRA.

## Conclusion

The court upheld summary judgment for the employer, ruling that the FCRA permits employers to require employees to sign a continuing written authorization allowing future consumer reports for employment purposes, and does not mandate a new authorization each time a report may be obtained.


Kelchner v. Sycamore Manor Health Ctr., 135 F. App’x 499 (3d Cir. 2005)