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THE WORLD'S FIRST LAWSUIT IN THE 1990'S AGAINST AN OHIO SEARCH FIRM, OPEN ONLINE, YEP, THAT'S WHEN I

June 23, 2025 posted by Steve Brownstein

The lawsuit involving an Ohio search company named OPEN (Online Professional Electronic Network), was indeed the landmark case in the 1990s. It was one of the first, if not the first, major lawsuits to directly challenge a background check company for reporting expunged criminal records.

Here's why this case was so important:

-The Problem: In the early days of electronic background checks, companies like OPEN would aggregate vast amounts of public record data, often from court systems. However, they frequently failed to update their databases to reflect subsequent court orders, such as expungements or record sealing. This meant that even if a court legally cleared a person's record, the private background check company's database might still show the old, expunged information.

-Violation of the "Fresh Start": Expungement laws are designed to give individuals a "fresh start" by making their past offenses inaccessible to the general public, allowing them to move forward with employment, housing, and other opportunities without the burden of a past mistake. When background check companies continued to report expunged records, they directly undermined the intent of these laws.

-FCRA Implications: These lawsuits often invoked the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), specifically challenging the background check companies on the grounds of "maximum possible accuracy" (FCRA Section 607(b)) and the requirement that public record information "likely to have an adverse effect" on employment be "complete and up to date" (FCRA Section 613, now 15 U.S.C. §1681k). The argument was that an expunged record is, by definition, no longer accurate or complete if it doesn't reflect its current legal status.

Precedent Setting: The lawsuit against OPEN helped set a precedent that background check companies have a responsibility to update their data and remove expunged or sealed records. It put the industry on notice that simply gathering publicly available data wasn't enough; they also had to ensure its ongoing accuracy and compliance with evolving legal dispositions.

-Ongoing Issue: While this lawsuit was in the 1990s, the issue of expunged or sealed records appearing on background checks remains a problem today, as evidenced by the numerous recent FCRA lawsuits and CFPB advisories on the topic. It highlights the persistent challenge of ensuring that commercial databases accurately reflect the current legal status of a record, especially as "clean slate" laws continue to expand.