Background checks: Being safe is better than being sorry

If you’ve ever thought about forgoing a background check, think again. The small expense now can save you a lot in the long run.

Rotten apple

A perhaps underestimated part of the hiring process is the employee background check. Employers may find them unnecessary or not worth the expense. One Pizza Hut location started sweating bullets, however, when its delivery driver sexually assaulted a customer in her apartment. Maybe if the company had conducted a background check, things would be different.

MUY Pizza Houston LLC, which owned the franchised location, for whatever reason hadn’t looked into the driver’s criminal history. To the employer’s relief, nothing could be found that would have indicated the man would commit the crimes he did. As a result, all parties were found not to be negligent in their hiring and training process. The claimant was unable to show a proper screening would have put the employer on notice of the worker’s risk of harm to others.

The story would have ended very differently, however, if something had been in the driver’s criminal history and the employer had failed to find it.

Vicarious liability

Employers may be held accountable for their employees’ tortious (or wrongful personal injury) actions under the theory of respondeat superior. The exception is when individuals aren’t acting in the course and scope of their employment (usually, for example, in cases involving assault).