Burlington County Superior Court New Jersey Defermation of character Ripoff Mount Holly New Jersey
I recently applied for a position with T-mobile corporation which WOULD have been a tremendous boost to my career in sales/marketing. Unfortunatly here are events as follows.
After 3 succesful interviews I was sure to be employed by this company and would have made close to 60,000 a year or better since there is no cap on commission. Also, I would like to add that the employment position was located at the Deptford Mall, T-Mobile's most exclusive store in the entire northeast.
Untill the background check came back, which stated I had a felony conviction for assault on another person. Which is completly incorrect. The charge was downgraded to a simple summons or ticket equivalent because the state had no case(the person I so called "assaulted" was imprisoned for armed robbery and they couldn't provide a witness.) My public defender informed me more than once I could plea to this lesser (very lesser) charge and It wouldn't be on my record at all and i would pay 75$ in court costs. I accepted in order to keep my record completly clean and moved on with my life. Untill now where I have been denied employment due to this. I called numerous people and employees including the court clerks and all they said is come down and get a paper saying the true outcome of the charge. Well sorry maam, but I just lost employment due to someone's mistake and I STILL HAVE A FELONY CONVICTION WHICH COULD JEOPARDIZE MY RIGHTS TO FUTURE EMPLOYMENT AND ANY FEDERAL FUNDING FOR SCHOOL, LOANS, ETC.!!!!
Can any lawyer assist in a possible lawsuit? HELP!
Daniel
medford, New Jersey
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Tim
Valparaiso,Indiana,
U.S.A.
My personal advice
#2Consumer Comment
Tue, August 24, 2004
Daniel, while it is unfortunate that this cost you employment, it should be fairly easy to clear up.
Here's one thing that I'm sure is clear to you at this point: the people that work in the little office outside the courtroom are not very nice, not very helpful, and know nothing about the law. Never depend on them to fill you in on your rights, or even appropriate procedures.
Here's my advice, which, mind you, should not be construed as competent legal advice.
1) Find out what agency keeps and distributes criminal records in your state. In other words, who did your potential employer get that information from? You may want to contact the employer to get this information. You may need to make several phone calls to accomplis this. In my non-legal opinion, if they are going to access your personal information, you have the right to know where it's coming from.
2) Request a copy of your record from that agency. Figure out whether it says you were convicted or merely charged with a felony. If it merely says that you were charged, you really have no recourse. The agent of your potential employer may have told you that you had a felony on your record when, in fact, all you had was a felony charge. In that case, there is nothing to fix and nobody owes you anything, legally at least.
3) If, however, your report is flawed, my primary reccommendation is to seek legal assistance. You may have a viable civil suit on your hands. It is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for a state official to give the impression that you have been convicted of a crime for which you have not. You have a protected liberty interest in your reputation, at least as far as your criminal history is concerned.
I recall a U.S. Supreme Court case from my first year of law school where it was held that a police department violated the Fourteenth Amendment when it passed out fliers to local bars implying that a man had committed a crime for which he had not been convicted. Having been denied employment, and if that employer would testify that he would have hired you otherwise, you may be entitled to monetary damages.
If you're not interested in a lawsuit (and I'm not saying that you have a good case, just that you might), here is some alternative advice:
A) Acquire the correct record from the court that rendered the verdict.
B) Send this record, along with a letter explaining the situation and demanding that the report be accordingly changed, to the agency discovered in step 1. Ask them to verify that the changes have been made by sending you a hard copy of the revised version. If you don't hear from them in a reasonable amount of time (I'd say 30 days), start making phone calls to figure out what the status is.
C) If you get to the point where you realize that you just aren't getting anywhere, then my best advice is to hire an attorney. My second best advice is to do the appropriate research and file suit against the agency in step 1 to force them to change their records. To direct this research, look for forms pertaining to injunctive (or "injunction") actions or actions seeking equitable remedies (suits in equity, or something pertaining to "equity" but not referring to contracts).
To find these forms, most states have websites for their judiciaries. Do a search for "New Jersey state courts" and find your local court of record or general jurisdiction (higher than municipal, but lower than appeals. New Jersey has an extremely complicated court system). With the proper research, this may well be an action you can take care of without a lawyer (although I can't ethically advise that).
If you choose to take this route, and if the paperwork is properly filed and notice properly served, I would imagine the problem would be resolved without you ever having to go to court.
Mind you, this would be an incredibly complicated process for a non-law-trained individual to undertake. I cannot stress enough that your best bet is to hire an attorney, after you have verified that the record is in fact incorrect. If you cannot afford an attorney, do a search for legal aid offices in your area. It seems to me that a lawyer could fix your problem quite easily. Doing it yourself, however, could be rather difficult.