In recent months, we have seen a large uptick in FCRA class actions. If you’re a regular reader here at FCRALand, you may recall the Stanford class action filed in October 2018, the PetCo class settlement in November 2018, and the Delta Airlines proposed settlement earlier this month. We can now add another to the list and this one is, by far, the largest FCRA class action we’ve seen in recent memory.

This month, Walmart suffered a big defeat when a federal district court in California granted certification to a class that may have as many as five million class members.

The Plaintiffs filed a class action, claiming that Walmart’s background checks failed to satisfy the notice requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and state law. The Plaintiffs claim that, when they applied for jobs at Walmart, Walmart performed a background check without proper and legal authorization, and without providing the requisite disclosures. Specifically, Walmart allegedly included extraneous information on disclosure forms and procured consumer reports without informing applicants of their rights.

The now-certified class is defined to include “current, former and prospective applicants for employment in the United States” who applied for a job where the background report was conducted in the five years before the suit was filed.

If you’d like to read the district court’s order granting the motion for class certification, you can find it here.