It has been reported that over 200 un-credentialed emergency medical technicians (EMT), and other first responders, have been working in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Massachusetts Department of Public Health officials became aware of this after being tipped off by properly certified EMT's. There were complaints that many of their coworkers had not been trained, but had received certification. It has been discovered that the un-credentialed EMT's received their certifications from certificate mills. The Department of Public health will be continuing their investigation and expect more EMT's without valid credentials to be discovered. So far no injuries to patients were reported, but this remains a large fear for citizens and ambulance companies alike.     References Slack, D. (2010). Hundreds of EMT's, paramedics said to be working with fake credentials.The Boston Globe.http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/05/sources_hundred .html     For more information on background checks visitwww.NESAdvantage.com    ...read more

Child molested by an employee with a criminal history Charles Ballentine, an employee of UT Health Science Center's University of Texas Eye Consultants, had a terrifying criminal past. In the 70's he was found guilty of sexual assault, indecency with a child, and indecency with a child by exposure. He is now accused of molesting an eight year old girl who he was performing an eye exam on. UT Health Science stated that they were completely unaware of his criminal past because he was hired before they implemented a background screening policy (Villarreal, 2009). While implementing a background policy is a great step, it is most effective if it is done on a recurring basis. Background checks should be conducted on employees every two years. This would have uncovered Ballentine's past long before he was able to harm this child. A policy such as this will also identify criminal records of employees who were clean when they were hired, but have committed crimes while employed.   References: Villarreal, M. (2009). Clinic employee had a criminal past employers never knew about. Retrieved from http://www.woai.com/content/troubleshooters/story/Clinic-employee-had-criminal-past-employers-never/WJwCjtRImUmjlr_2sfJmHg.cspx Contact us at www.NESAdvantage.com ...read more

By: Stefan Miller www.employerslawgroup.com Written For:  www.nesadvantage.com In addition to the obvious challenges that businesses today are confronting in the face of the recent economic downturn, employers have an equally difficult challenge of complying with a complex, ever-changing array of employment-related laws and regulations. Moreover, with more people out of work, employment-related claims and lawsuits are substantially on the rise. At the same time, federal and state government agencies are reportedly increasing their audits and investigations of employer practices nationwide.   While many of these circumstances are matters over which employers have little control, there is one area in which – for a relatively small sum of money – employers can take effective action to substantially reduce, if not eliminate, their potential risk of liability. Specifically, by simply conducting pre-employment background investigations on prospective new hires, employers can avoid claims of negligent hiring stemming from acts of theft, violence and other wrongful acts committed by their employees.    The Negative Impact of Negligent Hiring Claims   Under the doctrine of negligent hiring, employers can be liable if one of their employees injure or cause harm either to another employee or to a member of the public, particularly if the employer knew or should have known that such conduct was likely to occur. In fact, an employer's decision to forgo a basic and inexpensive background checkin a single instancecan lead to costly litigation, damage to the employer's reputation and, ultimately, have a ruinous financial impact on the employer.    And if you think that a negligent hiring claim could never happen to your company, consider the following cases, all of which resulted in punitive damages awards against employers who, under the circumstances, were deemed to have had a duty to conduct a background investigation of the individuals who, after being hired, caused harm to members of the public.   Specific Examples   A company which hired an employee to deliver furniture was sued for negligent hiring after the employee brutally attacked a customer to whom he was delivering furniture. Because the company failed to conduct an investigation into the employee's background – which would have revealed a history of a violent past (including charges and convictions of armed robbery, burglary and several counts of battery and aggravated battery), heavy drug use and hospitalizations for psychiatric problems – the jury awarded the plaintiff $2.5 million for negligent hiring and retention. Mindful that such an employee would be routinely interfacing with and entering the homes of members of the public, the employer could have avoided this tragic situation if it had simply required the employee to undergo a criminal background investigation and checked the employee's references.   Similarly, an company was found liable for not investigating the background of a truck driver/delivery person who – while under the influence of crack cocaine – brutally assaulted and attempted to rape a customer while delivering furniture to her home. Had the employer done so, it would have discovered that the employee had a history of substance abuse problems and, in fact, had been forced to resign from his prior employer because he refused to take a drug test after admitting he had a substance abuse problem. In fact, considering the issue of punitive damages on appeal, the appellate court found that the employer's failure to conduct a pre-employment background investigation directly contributed to the violence perpetrated on the victim and, therefore, the employer showed a conscious disregard for the rights and safety of others.   Likewise, a company was found liable after one of its employees who was driving a company truck struck another vehicle, killing one of the passengers in the vehicle and injuring another. The evidence revealed that the driver of the truck had not only been convicted of numerous prior traffic violations, including reckless driving, disregarding traffic devices, speeding, and failure to stop at a stop sign but also had had his license suspended and had been involved in a prior collision.   These cases are merely exemplary of the numerous cases in which employers have either been found liable or had to settle cases for substantial sums of money. Typically, these cases involve theft, substance abuse and/or acts of violence by employees. Worse yet and more often than not, they result in employer liability or in substantial settlement payments to the victims. ...read more

    Maintaining consistent background screening policies and procedures is imperative to providing fair and equitable pre employment screening. Even if a company sticks to its policy, discrimination suites can still arise. Recently Douglas El brought a discrimination law suit against the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority ("SEPTA"). claims that SEPTA unnecessarily disqualifies applicants because of prior criminal convictions. He goes on to argue that there is a disparate impact on minority applicants because they are more likely than white applicants to have criminal convictions on their records.      Ed was disqualified from the position for a 47 year old second degree murder conviction. The job he applied for involved door to door, curb to curb, transport for people with mental and physical disabilities. SEPTA based their defense on the business necessity defense (more on this in a future blog). SEPTA argued that 1. The job requires close contact with passengers. 2. The employee would be alone with the passenger. 3. The passengers are vulnerable because of their disabilities. 4. The disabled are disproportionately targeted by sexual and violent criminals. 5. People with violent offenses have a high rate of recidivism. After taking these points into consideration, SEPTA decided not to extend employment to anyone with a prior, violent, felony or misdemeanor conviction.       The District Court granted summary judgment for SEPTA on this issue. No reasonable juror could find SEPTA's hiring policy was inconsistent with their business necessity. Our customers all conduct their background searches in a consistent way as a best practice and to avoid discrimination. This case should serve as a reminder for all of us to review our policies and make sure we are following them on a consistent basis. ...read more

This is the question that researchers at sought to answer. A recent article in the New York Times reported that researchers Allessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross have created a statistical algorithm that can successfully predict social security numbers. The researchers tested their algorithm against the 500,000, publicly available, death records in the SSA death master file. This algorithm could enable them to identify millions of Social Security numbers for individuals whose birth date and birth location were publicly available. The researchers were able to identify, in a single try, the first five digits for 44% of the deceased individuals born after 1988 and for 7% of those born from 1973-1988. The researchers were able to identify all nine digits for 8.5 percent of those born after 1988 in fewer than 1,000 attempts. The accuracy only increased for smaller states and with people born after 1988.   The Social Security Administration called this statistical algorithm a "Dramatic Exaggeration", but also states that they are in the process of establishing a more random system for assigning social security numbers. This demonstrates a huge advantage in the way of identity theft. Maybe most of the low level identity thieves do not have these capabilities, but the market for identity theft is becoming bigger and more sophisticated as the years go on. I don't think that it is beyond comprehension for a group of young statistics majors to give their try at identity theft; especially with such low prosecution rates. What are your thoughts on this subject? ...read more

As of now, employment (I9) verification is done on a voluntary basis through e-verify. This is also known as the basic pilot program under section 403 (a) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Under the current law, the only companies that are required to verify employment eligibility is government contractors, although, more and more companies are conducting I9 verifications on a voluntary basis.              Bill H. R. 19, currently under committee review, would require all employers to conduct employment eligibility verification. If this bill becomes law, every business (including those with just 1 employee) will have comply within 7 years after the date of the enactment. This will happen by way of phases each year for 7 consecutive years. Your company can verify employment for free utilizing the e-verify system; or, for a small fee, a background screening company (such as ours) can automate the compliance and verification process for you.              Most bills don't make it past the committee stage, but I feel like this one will have a good chance. Does your company currently participate in employment (I9) verification? What are your thoughts about this bill? ...read more

The City of Bozeman, Montana is requiring all job applicants to supply usernames and passwords to various online accounts. In their application they have various waivers followed by a section asking the applicant to list all business and personal websites. Following this section is a section asking for "username/Member login" and "password". After receiving some pushback from the community, the city said they would consider allowing the applicants to add the city as "friends" on the social networking sites.      I am a strong supporter of employer's rights and of keeping workplaces safe from employees with dangerous propensities. I find myself asking if it is worth all the trouble. There is no way to predict with 100% certainty the future actions or behaviors of a particular person. The best we can do is try to discover future propensities by examining past actions. This can be done with a good thorough background check followed by monitoring the criminal activities of the employee in conjunction with random drug testing.      We are likely to see future case law in regards to these types of situations, but as of this time the city has not been found in violation of any compliance or privacy suites. This is most likely the result of the current advantage we have as employers due to the high unemployment rates. My question to you is; do you think it is worth all the extra hassle? Do the benefits outweigh the potential costs? ...read more

Woman sues sleep clinic, technician(Source-http://www.chroniclet.com/2009/04/07/roundup-april-7-2009/  ) ELYRIA — A woman who police and prosecutors say was molested by a former technician at an Amherst sleep clinic has sued the technician and the clinic. The technician, Mina Roufail, of Parma Heights, is currently facing gross sexual imposition and sexual imposition charges for allegedly molesting five victims at Superior Medical Sleep Lab last year. The lawsuit, filed Monday in Lorain County Common Pleas Court, accuses the sleep clinic of negligence for hiring Roufail and failing to properly supervise him. The clinic should also have had video cameras monitoring patients. The clinic began using cameras after the allegations against Roufail surfaced.   * Do you know the past propensities of your employees?* How thurough is your background screening?* How would a lawsuite like this affect your business’s bottom line and    reputation? ...read more