General Information Solutions Background Check Lawsuit Ends With Class Action Settlement

Primary plaintiff David Gebhart filed the initial General Information Solutions class action lawsuit in November of 2015. Gebhart claimed the defendant violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by presenting unlawful information in a number of background reports. Co- plaintiffs Rondo Tyus and Jesse Hale later joined Gebhart in the class action lawsuit. Gebhart reached a class action settlement with the defendant and Tyus withdrew his claim, which left Hale as the only lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit.

Tyus alleged General Information Systems violated the FCRA by reporting non-criminal ordinance violations in his background checks. The remaining primary plaintiff accused the defendant of unlawfully disclosing an ordinance violation for disorderly conduct. The ordinance violation represented a non-criminal offense that was more than seven years removed from the date of the incident.

Terms of the class action settlement require General Information Solutions to set up a $704,000 fund to compensate eligible class members and to pay Tyus as incentive for assuming the roles of primary plaintiff. Money also goes towards paying court costs and attorney fees. The defendant continues to deny the class action lawsuit allegations. However, General Information Solutions has agreed to the settlement to avoid the uncertainty of a civil trial outcome.

What You Need To Know About The General Information Solutions Background Check Class Action Settlement

According to court documents, eligible class members of the General Information Solutions background check class action settlement include “all natural persons residing in the U.S. or the District of Columbia who were the subject of a General Information Solutions report that was furnished to an end user between Jan. 19, 2014 and Dec. 31, 2016 and that contained at least one entry in the Criminal History section that was not an actual conviction of a crime and that predates the report by more than seven years.” Eligible class members have until October 10, 2017 to opt out of the class action settlement and until October 3, 2017 to contest any of the agreement provisions. The potential award is $148 per class member. Payments distribute on a pro rata basis, which takes the amount of the settlement fund and divides it by the number of eligible class members.

Qualifying class members do not have to submit a claim form. Class counsel revealed the claims administrator will automatically send compensation checks to the addresses listed in court documents. The judge who granted preliminary approval of the class action settlement case Tyus v. General Information Solutions LLC, Case No. 2017CP3201389, in the Court of Common Pleas for Lexington County, State of South Carolina has scheduled the final hearing on December 11, 2017. To find out what happened at the final hearing, access the class action settlement website www.TyusvGISsettlement.com.