Legal Question in Employment Law in Florida

Accusations of Application Falsification

Recently, I applied for a position as a technical writer with a firm that maintains manuals for military aircraft. Since the position required a background investigation, I had no problems with allowing this as I felt I had nothing to hide and had held a secret clearance through most of my Naval career. On my application I was asked if I had ever been convicted of, or plead guilty to a crime.

I had received a DWI conviction almost 23 years ago, but was under the impression that DWIs were considered traffic offenses and that traffic offenses did not need to be reported, especially one so long ago. The background report, which my potential employer acquired from the Florida Department of Law Enforement went back 32 years and showed a few misdemeanors from my teens and early 20s. I was issued a letter stating that I was denied employment due to ''falsification of my application.''

Since the Fair Credit Reporting Act states that outdated information may not be reported by a CRA (10 years for banckrupty and 7 years for arrests and convictions), was this background investigation legal? And am I now required to report that on future applications that I was denied employment due to application falsification?


Asked on 6/24/03, 10:44 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Keith Stern Shavitz Law Group

Re: Accusations of Application Falsification

You unfortunately did not answer the question truthfully and thus are in a bit of tough situation. However, with respect to the FCRA, I am not clear as to whether the search that was conducted would be violative or not, and regardless, given your false (even if unintentional) statement, you would have no actionable claim anyway as far as I can tell.

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Answered on 6/25/03, 12:46 pm


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