Accurate Reporting Standards

A CRA should report what the source record states, because anything added beyond that becomes the CRA’s characterization rather than the court’s.

• Use the court’s terminology. When a court records a disposition as nolle prosequi, the report should say nolle prosequi. Substituting dismissed is a judgment about legal effect, and it may not be the judgment the court made.
• Do not characterize what a record means. Whether a record disqualifies a candidate is the employer’s determination. A report that frames a record as serious, minor, or concerning has made that determination on the employer’s behalf.
• Do not supply missing information by inference. A record showing no disposition has no disposition, and it should not be reported as a conviction or as a dismissal because one outcome appears more likely than the other.
• Identify the source of every item. Name the court, agency, or issuing body that produced the record, so that both the employer and the consumer can trace it back to where it originated.
• State the date each item was verified. A record is accurate as of a particular date, and the report should identify which date that is.

Offense terminology varies by jurisdiction, so the same conduct may carry a different charge name, a different grade, and different abbreviations depending on where the case was filed.

• Report the charge as the court recorded it. Include the statute cited where the court provides one, since the statute identifies the offense when the description alone is ambiguous.
• Report the grade the court assigned. Felony, misdemeanor, and infraction carry different meanings from one state to another, and converting a grade into what it would be elsewhere reports a classification no court made.
• Expand abbreviations without changing the words. Court abbreviations are frequently unreadable to an employer, and spelling them out is clarification. Rewriting the offense description into plainer language is not.
• Report each charge separately. A case carrying four charges produces four outcomes, and those outcomes may differ from one another.
• Report an amended charge as amended. The charge filed and the charge resolved are separate facts, and showing only one of them misstates the case in one direction or the other.
• Carry sentencing terms in the court’s language. Probation, suspended sentence, deferred adjudication, and diversion mean different things in different states, and each should appear as the court entered it.

The disposition establishes how a case concluded, and it is the field most often reported in error.

• Report the disposition the court currently shows. A disposition captured when the record was collected may since have been superseded, and the entry the court displays now is the one that belongs in the report.
• Report a pending case as pending. A case with no disposition entered should carry the filing date and the charge, with nothing in the presentation that implies an outcome.
• Distinguish among non-conviction outcomes. A dismissal, an acquittal, a deferred adjudication, a diversion, and a vacated judgment carry different meanings, and collapsing them under one label misstates the record.
• Report the sentence in the court’s terms where one was imposed. Custody, probation, fines, and conditions describe what followed the disposition rather than substituting for it.
• Provide both the filing date and the disposition date. Reporting limits run from dates, and neither the employer nor the consumer can evaluate a limit without them.
• Report case status separately from disposition. An open case, a case under appeal, an outstanding warrant, and a closed case describe the current posture of the matter, which may differ from how the charge itself was resolved.

A case located through several searches is still one case, and reporting it more than once presents the employer with a criminal history the court record does not support.

• Consolidate a case located through multiple searches. A database hit, a county search, and a state repository may each return the same matter, and each will usually describe it in slightly different terms.
• Match on case number and court rather than on charge description. Two sources frequently describe the same charge differently, which makes the description unreliable as the key for consolidation.
• Report each case once, from the court where it was filed. Where sources conflict on any detail, the filing court controls what is reported.
• Identify transferred and consolidated cases. A case moved between courts, or several charges joined under a single docket, can present as separate matters when it is one.
• Do not merge genuinely separate cases. Two arrests on the same day are two cases when the court docketed them separately, and combining them understates the record just as duplication overstates it.
• Distinguish the arrest from the case that followed. An arrest record and the court case arising from it describe one event at two stages. Reporting both as separate items counts the same incident twice.

Not every search returns a complete result, and the report should identify what was searched along with what could not be.

• Report a search that returned nothing as clear, and state what was searched. A blank section establishes nothing, because the reader cannot tell whether the search was run and returned no records or was never run at all.
• Report unable to verify as a result, with the reason. Omitting the item leaves the reader to assume either that it was verified or that it was never attempted.
• Identify any jurisdiction that could not be searched, and why. The court may have been closed, restricted access to third parties, or maintained no searchable index for the period requested.
• Do not report an unconfirmed database hit as a record. A pointer that was never verified at the source is not a finding and should not appear in the report as one.
• State the scope of the search. Identify the jurisdictions, the courts, and the period covered, so the reader understands the boundaries of what the report establishes.

FCRA § 1681k applies when a CRA reports public record information for employment purposes that is likely to have an adverse effect on the consumer. The obligation belongs to the CRA, and it is among the most frequently missed.

The statute provides two means of compliance, and the CRA elects one of them:

• Notify the consumer at the time the public record information is reported. The notice states that public record information is being reported and gives the name and address of the party receiving it.
• Maintain strict procedures designed to ensure the information is complete and up to date. A CRA relying on this branch should be able to produce those procedures and show that they are followed on every file.

The statute defines up to date for the second branch. Items of public record relating to arrests, indictments, convictions, suits, tax liens, and outstanding judgments are up to date when the report reflects the current public record status of the item at the time of the report.

A CRA furnishing a report for employment purposes provides the employer more than the report itself, and two of those items are statutory conditions on furnishing it at all.

• The summary of consumer rights. Under FCRA § 1681b(b)(1)(B), a CRA may furnish a report for employment purposes only when it provides the summary prescribed under FCRA § 1681g(c)(3) with the report, or has previously provided it to that user.
• The user’s certification, obtained before the report is furnished. Under FCRA § 1681b(b)(1)(A), the employer certifies its permissible purpose and its compliance with the disclosure and authorization requirements.
• Dispute instructions. The consumer needs a means of contacting the CRA and an account of what happens once a dispute is filed.