Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed House Bill 431 (HB 431) into law in March 2019, requiring the government to engage automated technologies in order to expunge all or some minor criminal records for qualifying individuals who have not been convicted of a misdemeanor crime in the last five to seven years. As a result, these items will not be reported on background checks and ex-offenders can legally respond to questions about criminal records as if those expunged activities never occurred. According to Clean Slate Utah (a non-profit coalition) the law could potentially expunge hundreds of thousands of current criminal records.

The law makes clear that, when a record is automatically cleared from a Utah resident's record, the individual will not be notified. Clean Slate Utah is offering affected residents guidance and support, including ways ex-offenders can receive communications when the expungement process is initiated.

Implementation of HB 431 was originally scheduled to go into effect in May 2020, but was delayed as a result of the pandemic.

The employer faces a proposed class action lawsuit claiming the company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when it unlawfully used job applicants' consumer reports to make adverse employment decisions without first providing subjects a copy of the report.

Plaintiff Anthony Hale applied for a position at the employer's Hillsborough County Florida store as a sales specialist in March, 2020. Hale states he was offered the job contingent on the results of a background check. In April, 2020, Hale was informed via text that he did not pass the background check. The complaint indicates that Hale responded to the employer, requesting a copy of the report.

Hale claims that he was never supplied with a copy of the report by either the employer or the applicable consumer reporting agency. Hale further contends that, had the employer provided him with a copy of his consumer report and the opportunity to discuss its contents, he would have been able to explain that he had no felony convictions, contrary to what was included in the report.

"Plaintiff was never given an opportunity to explain anything to Defendant prior to his abrupt termination," the complaint states. "Defendant's termination of Plaintiff's employment caused Plaintiff damages in the form of lost pay, and emotional damages due to stress caused by the loss of a job he should certainly have retained."

The class includes all U.S. individuals who were the subject of a consumer report as ordered by the employer in the last five years. Additionally, qualifying individuals must have been logged in the employer's system under a code indicating that the individual was ineligible for hire/continued employment and not supplied with either a copy of the report or a written summary of their FCRA rights at least five business days before the code was entered.