USIS Commercial Services, formerly known as DAC Services, recently was found not liable for any wrongdoing or damage in a federal lawsuit filed by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and several individual truck drivers. The final verdict was delivered Tuesday, Sept. 5, with an eight-person federal jury in Denver ruling in favor of USIS Commercial Services’ employment history repository used by trucking companies.
Originally filed in 2004 by seven individual truck drivers and OOIDA, the plaintiffs had requested class-action status for the case. Earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Blackburn denied the request for class-action status, and he later dismissed all four counts brought by two of the six truck driver plaintiffs as well as three of four counts brought by four remaining truck driver plaintiffs.
The final count considered by the jury for the four remaining plaintiffs was whether, as alleged by the plaintiffs and OOIDA, USIS had failed to follow reasonable procedures to ensure maximum accuracy for collecting employment history information provided to USIS by trucking companies and used by trucking companies as one element of their company’s hiring decision-making process.
“The decision means that the jury believes USIS is fully compliant with Fair Credit Reporting requirements and that the policies and procedures we have in place do not cause harm to drivers,” says Kent Ferguson, senior manager for verification products at USIS. “We want our customers to know that this decision means that trucking companies are not considered to be consumer reporting agencies, and that the information they compile and provide to us is not considered a consumer report.”
