Is it illegal for employers to give bad references when responding to employment reference checks?
When it comes to employment reference checks, state laws won’t protect you in most cases. Every state is different. The common theme to most laws is that the employer must give the reference in “good faith”. Meaning, employers should not say negative things about you unless it was true and documented. Most laws protect the employer from civil litigation, not you the employee if they violate it. Employment references should be like the information reported from a credit reporting agency. If you paid your bills on time, they should report that information as such. If you paid your bills on time and they report anything other than that, the information would not be accurate. The real question is, even if employment laws said employers couldn’t give a bad reference, how many people go through stop signs every day. That law is very clear in every state! However, most people don’t make a complete stop, roll through the sign or ignore it all together. The next issue is, did the person who gav
