NAACP New York State Branches v. Phillips et. al.

Outten & Golden, alongside the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and NAACP attorney James Meyerson, represented fourteen New York metropolitan area branches of the NAACP in a class action challenging employers’ use of major job search platforms to post listings with blanket bans on applicants with felony convictions, in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law and the Fair Chance Act.

Filed in June 2015, the class action targeted employers that posted allegedly illegal job listings, including Phillips Electronics and NTT Data, and their “enablers,” including Monster, ZipRecruiter, and Indeed.

New York state and city laws forbid employers from denying employment to job applicants with criminal records without evaluating eight factors set forth in Article 23-A of the New York State Corrections Law. The lawsuit sought an injunction forbidding the defendant employers from posting and disseminating the illegal listings on job search websites.

The lawsuit is “NAACP New York State Conference Metropolitan Council of Branches v. Philips Electronics North America Corp., et al.,” Index No. 156382/2015 in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County.