Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Reference checks

First, providing 'a copy of any and all laws' is a request that no conscientious attorney would attempt to undertake. There are differing laws in all 50 of the states; Federal law is also inconsistent from circuit to circuit, and the law is in a constant state of flux.

Further, in the area of your concern, much of the applicable law is not statutory, that you can look up in the codes. Rather, it is judge-made law embodied in tens of thousands of decisions in the area of libel, slander, privilege, fair use, and related topics.

A starting point for you would be to obtain a treatise on employment law and a copy of the labor code. These would not focus specifically on the reference-check aspect of your proposed business, but would give you an overview of laws relating to employment in general, which you really need to be familiar with. You might ask the librarian at your county law library to make some suggestions.

Please also be aware that many aspects of the employment agency business are regulated or licensed. See Civil Code section 1812.500 - 1812.533, for example.

Now, as to reference checks. The principal issue is the possibility of defamation (slander or libel) if you pass along information which is defamatory and untrue. There is, traditionally, a qualified exemption for good-faith publication of defamatory statements by employers and their agents, but in this modern litigious era the qualifications have become numerous and the exemption porous and unreliable.

I suggest you start by reading Civil Code sections 44 through 47, with particular emphasis on 47. Get an annotated copy of the Code at your law library and read the annotations referring to employment-related reference-sharing.

Finally, I recommend after you do this basic study that you find a labor-law attorney and invest a few hundred bucks to have him/her explain any aspects of the licensing or defamation law applicable to your proposed business. Your proposed business is in an area where legal problems are likely unless you really understand the laws that apply to you......and not only the law of defamation, but the licensing and labor laws as well.