Law360, New York (August 15, 2014, 1:23 PM EDT) -- Retail employers are under attack by a wave of recent class actions alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, as well as related state counterpart laws, such as the California Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act and the California Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act. These lawsuits center on employers' alleged failure to provide proper disclosures to, and obtain proper authorizations from, prospective employees before performing background checks. In most cases, the disclosure is allegedly deficient for including extraneous information, such as a release of liability or confirmation of at-will employment within the same disclosure document or combining the FCRA disclosure in an employment application. While this is not a new area of law, the complaints are growing and the allegations expanding, and if the trend continues, we may see more and more plaintiffs' attorneys attempting to exploit this area....