A federal appeals court in Virginia has affirmed a lower court’s opinion that rejected discrimination claims that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission brought against Freeman, a Dallas-based marketing solutions firm.
The EEOC sued Freeman in 2009 and alleged the company discriminated against job applicants by using their credit histories and criminal convictions during the hiring process. The EEOC claimed that using these practices had a negative impact on African-American, Hispanic and male applicants.
A district judge in Maryland dismissed the case in 2013, and EEOC filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Freeman’s lawyer, Don Livingston, said in a statement that he was very pleased with the ruling.
“It confirms that the EEOC sued with merely a theory and had no facts to support the claims of discrimination,” said Livingston, a labor & employment lawyer in Akin Gump’s Washington, D.C. office.