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AWB Delighted at Passage of Employer Reference Check Protection |
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Written On: April 08, 2005 |
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Urges Governor to Sign Bill into Law
OLYMPIA—The Association of Washington Business applauds the Legislature for passing legislation providing employers with legal protections when conducting reference checks.
HB 1625, which grants immunity to employers who give good faith job references on current or former employers from lawsuits, unanimously passed the Washington State Senate on April 6 following the lead of the Washington State House of Representatives, who overwhelmingly passed the bill in February. It now sits on the desk of Gov. Christine Gregoire.
“In an age of lawsuit abuse, employers are advised by counsel to keep mum when asked for a reference on an employee, giving rise to a name-rank-serial number mentality,” Kris Tefft, AWB’s general counsel, said. “With the passage of this bill, the Legislature has given clarity to a confusing area of law and has provided an important employer protection. This should free up employers to give accurate, good faith job references on current and former employees.”
HB 1625, sponsored by Rep. Judy Clibborn (D-Mercer Island), passed through the Legislature after several years of disagreement between the employer community, labor unions, and trial lawyers led to a series of stalemates on the issue.
“This year, an excellent compromise was reached by looking at the bill from both the employer and employee perspective,” Tefft said. “The bill can rightly be viewed as a win-win for all interested parties. As more accurate references are given out, problematic employees will stop getting passed from job to job, while good employees will get the recognition they deserve.”
The key provisions of this important liability reform are:
* Immunity from civil lawsuits for job references: If an employer gives a job reference on a current or past employee at the request of another employer, the courts will presume the referring employer is acting in good faith and immune from lawsuits over the content of the job reference.
* What can be included in reference: To obtain immunity, the reference must be limited to information relevant to the individual’s performance of his or her job. The employee's ability to perform his or her job, the diligence, skill, or reliability with which the employee carried out his or her duties, or any illegal or wrongful act committed by the employee when related to the duties of his or her job are examples of such performance.
* Overcoming the immunity: Employers overcome immunity from liability only if the employee shows that the information given by the employer was knowingly false, deliberately misleading, or made with reckless disregard for the truth of the information.
* Recordkeeping advice: The bill also contains a provision that Washington employers should keep a written record of the identity of any person to whom a reference is given, and should keep that record in the employee’s personnel file, where the employee may view it. The provision is not mandatory, however, but is considered a best practice.
AWB now urges Gov. Gregoire to sign the bill.
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