The Ralphs grocery store chain violated the rights of hundreds of Southern California job seekers by asking them on employment applications whether they had a criminal record and then denying them positions for minor misdemeanor convictions such as excessive noise and simple marijuana possession, according to a first-of-its-kind lawsuit filed by the state.
The California Civil Rights Department lawsuit, filed Thursday, Dec. 21, in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Compton-based Ralphs violated the state’s Fair Chance Act, aimed at reducing barriers to employment and supporting community reintegration for individuals previously involved in the criminal justice system.
Ralphs has repeatedly ignored the law by screening out qualified applicants based on criminal convictions that do not have an adverse relationship with the duties of the job for which they were applying, the suit states.
“The Fair Chance Act is about giving every Californian an opportunity to thrive,” Civil Rights Department Director Kevin Kish said in a statement. “We can’t expect people to magically gain the economic and housing stability needed to reintegrate into their communities and stay out of the criminal legal system without a fair chance at steady employment, particularly when the job has nothing to do with a past offense.”
The CRD is seeking monetary damages for individuals who were denied or lost jobs due to Ralphs’ screening practices and a court order requiring the company to comply with the Fair Chance Act.
Officials with Ralphs, which has more than 25,000 employees at more than 85 stores in California, and its parent company, Kroger, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The Fair Chance Act, enacted in 2018, prohibits employers with five or more workers from asking about an applicant’s conviction history before making a conditional job offer. It also requires specific procedures for considering that history and limits convictions that can be considered to disqualify applicants.
Since the law went into effect, the Civil Rights Department has investigated hundreds of complaints alleging discrimination in employment decisions based on criminal history information and has secured about 70 settlements.
The CRD lawsuit states Ralphs solicits applications for store positions via an online form that includes multiple questions seeking disclosure of the applicant’s criminal history and convictions.
Ralphs allegedly failed to perform individualized assessments of applicants’ criminal history, denying some of them jobs solely on their score on a preset matrix. The company also provided inadequate notifications to applicants explaining why their provisional job offers had been revoked, the suit says.
Allegedly more than 75% of job applicants whose employment offer was withdrawn were not provided a way to contact Ralphs to contest the decision, as required by the Fair Chance Act. Those who were provided a method to reach the company were given only a phone number, without being told it was a fax line, the lawsuit states.
Ralphs also continues to refuse employment to hundreds of applicants based on criminal histories that do not justify denial due to the nature, severity, and recency of the offense and without consideration for the duties of the job they are seeking, the lawsuit alleges.
Multiple candidates allegedly lost job offers based on convictions for a single misdemeanor count of excessive noise. Others who had convictions for simple cannabis possession in states where it remains illegal were also disqualified, according to the suit.
One applicant allegedly was denied a job with Ralphs based on two 5-year-old, out-of-state juvenile misdemeanor convictions that would have been sealed had they taken place in California.
“These types of convictions, and hundreds more like them, do not bear any direct and adverse relationship with the duties of any job at a grocery store, including the grocery clerk positions that are the vast majority of the positions Ralphs denied on the basis of conviction history,” the lawsuit states.
“They were not legitimate grounds for a decision by Ralphs to withdraw a conditional offer that had already been made based on the applicant’s application and interview.”
