Q: Can I sue if expunged charges still show on background checks?
I had a felony charge that was no-billed and a misdemeanor charge that was dismissed about 10 years ago, and I paid for both to be expunged. I have the court order confirming the expungement. However, I am facing rejections from jobs because these charges appear on background checks, although I haven't disclosed them since they were expunged. I am unsure which agency failed to delete the records, and I have not checked my criminal history records to confirm. I just discovered this issue today and have not consulted an attorney yet. Can I sue the agency that failed to expunge these records, and how should I proceed?
A: Expunging a criminal record only removes it from court records. Data and background check companies have programs that constantly scrape public records databases. They find the record of your arrest within days of it happening and case disposition records within days of the order being signed. They then save this information in their own databases. Expunging removes records from public view within the court systems, but not from other databases. While you can ask these for-profit databases to remove your records based on an expungement, but they aren't legally required to comply and sometimes don't.
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